Mortal Kombat is many things: a gaming industry icon, a fighting genre mainstay, and really, really bloody. There’s so much blood. And entrails. Possibly a spleen. But underneath all the gory excess is a damn good fighting game, one that balances mechanical depth with crowd-pleasing presentation. Though it doesn't always do the best job of preparing you for battle, Mortal Kombat X is enough outrageously violent fun to justify a little self-education, provided you've got enough patience. If you've taken your lumps in Mortal Kombat 9 or Injustice, MKX will feel familiar: 3D fighters brawl on a 2D plane at a fast, unrelenting pace, with plenty of special moves, flashy combos, and bone-splintering X-Ray attacks being traded back and forth. The somewhat stiff lateral movement and blocking via a button (instead of backing away from your opponent) can initially feel strange if you're typically a Street Fighter person, but any discomfort will fade away after a few matches and some trips to the pause screen, which smartly displays both players' special move inputs right up front.
From there, it's just a matter of picking the fighter that bests suits you, which is a lot more complicated than it sounds. That's all thanks to variations, the most novel idea in MKX and a brilliant addition to the fighting game genre. All of the roster's 24 on-disc characters have three visually distinct variations to choose from before a fight, each one granting unique special moves and enhanced normal attacks on top of your baseline abilities. This effectively gives each fighter three distinct playstyles, and the intricacies and specialized tactics of one may not apply to the other two. It's not enough to know that you love playing as Scorpion: you need to decide if you want him to utilize those dual swords in his combos, focus on fiery attacks from a distance, or be able to summon a demonic minion that'll pester the opponent. That's a lot to take in for a series that's traditionally been a pick-up-and-play affair. The potential to tailor your favorite character to your preferred playstyle is a double-edged sword, though it's much sharper on the plus side. You'll have to do way more research if you want to know exactly what every fighter's capable of (and how to counter them), but there's also a much greater chance of finding the variation that perfectly suits your personal fighting game tendencies. Once you've got to grips with the concept, this additional layer of depth adds to the variety and strategy before and during each match, without being so overwhelming that it becomes convoluted. Problem is, you're given a single sentence of description for each variation, and figuring out to properly play them is left entirely to you. Prepare to consult some FAQs almost immediately.
As a whole, Mortal Kombat X is a rock-solid fighting game that owes a lot to the power of its presentation. The story mode is unparalleled in terms of sheer entertainment, but MKX has a way to go in terms of teaching the player how to get the most out of its core systems. Once you've wrapped your head around the many variations and found some actual people to play against, the blisteringly fast back-and-forth matches really start to open up. If you're not willing to make the commitment to seeking out challengers and learning beyond the basics, though, this fighter definitely has a shorter life expectancy.
