When you get a fighting game, there are going to be certain expectations. This is true for any game, and fighting games has its own list of mechanics that we have come to take for granted. While this is going to be a different set of expectations than others, it is even MORE different when you throw in Mortal Kombat. What do you expect when you get a Mortal Kombat game? Well, a lot of those mechanics people came to expect from their normal MK game were pointedly absent when it came to the 8th title in the MK series and the first Nether Realms title that involved Detective Comics.
The problem was that those expectations we came to were not in line with how DC wanted Superman and many of their main IP's to be depicted. You could probably show Deathstroke slicing someone into bits, but you most certainly would never see Superman punching someone into slush just to win a fight. This was true for most of the DC Superheroes, and there in lies the conflict of interests. Ed Boon thought that the combination of two such iconic properties would mix like a perfect stew of action and violence. Sadly, he probably should have gone with the Spawn Universe or even Valiant, because WB had different plans for their big fat comic book baby.
This led to a game that was charitably described as bland and tasteless. In a play to try and get the best of both worlds, the opposite was achieved. You now had a cast of Kombat Kharacters that couldn't perform gory acts of dismemberment and you had a cast of comic book characters that were starting to grow more and more awkward to impliment into a fighting game. The fatalities and "Heroic Brutalities" were so lackluster, Armageddon's worst were suddenly starting to look a bit more misunderstood by comparison.
To their credit, they at least tried with the Story Mode. The story was bonkers and probably wouldn't have worked all that well, even with a longer gestation period, given the source materials clashing so much. Seriously? Even MAXX would have been a better fit for this game, even Watchmen! With DC Superheroes being perceived as nigh deity status, their costumes, setting and outward mannerism did not go with MK, which was more based off of Asian folklore. Superman does not look like he belongs in a fighting temple with candles and monks.
This led to extremely awkward interactions between the two groups. Joker was always a wildcard and it was fun to see how other characters handled him. He was also given some pretty decent jokes. Honestly, a slapstick parody game in the vain of Deadpool may have been more successful as an effort to push these two franchises together. As it stands, Shao Kahn and Darkseid's... Dark Kahn... just didn't mesh with audiences and turned out to be kind of a joke. The whole thing was that he wanted fighting. That's it. The fighting mashed the two realms together, somehow, and that's your plot. It's stupid and campy but it has become something of an entertaining and thoroughly funny inside joke between fans of both DC and MK.
The fighting mechanics are not awful. They are also not great. This was still in that era of fighting games where 3D environments and breakable backgrounds were still trying to become more relevant to the fighting itself. There were some very strange, random mechanics like a button masher where you hit and they parry immediately. You even have a chance to switch places with someone before they fall on the way down from falling off platforms, because physics work that way for certain! Otherwise, it's a decent fighting game. It's not without its nitpicks, but overall, it is still skill-based and does its job. That's the problem, though, everything about this game "does its job", and that's about it.
After you beat both sides of the storyline, which is a cool mechanic that should have been used more, there really isn't much to say about the game itself. The graphics were good enough that some of the assets were reused for Mortal Kombat 9 and the backgrounds were actually well made. There's a cool Wonder Woman background where the two realms are merging and it has a really cool half-world effect. The end! You can play 2-player and it's fine, but the game was just such a huge disappointment, especially after such a bombastic finale it was following up! This was the introduction into the new Playstation 3 for Mortal Kombat after a fairly successful run with the PS2.
It was simply not what the fans wanted, but it was not without its large silver lining. It did show Boon that he needed to keep true to the franchise and he created Mortal Kombat 9 as a result. This also led to the creation of Injustice and let them break off into other games with other ways to impliment mechanics for the future titles. It also wasn't terrible, and was very playable. The story was stupid and camp, but that's also kind of what fans loved about it. It was a clumsy attempt, but it also wasn't without merit. You could give it a shot, or you could just watch both sides of the story mode for yourself on your social media of choice. The Fatalities and "Heroic Brutalities" are also worth a little look. Make the right choice and side with Sub-Zero. Sub-Zero doesn't give a crap!
