So the game has been out for over a month now... and I have not played it at all or even seen it in action much since I don't own a PS4/XONE.
Are you guys enjoying it as much as MK9 and/or Injustice when they first came out? Like it more? Think someone who didn't enjoy Injustice will like MKX?
Also, do any zoning and anti-zoning characters exist in the roster, or is this a rushdown fest?
Let your opinions be known!
I like it more than MK9, less than Injustice. I loved a lot of the characters in Injustice, Grundy is my favorite NRS character by far, Zod and MMH looked really interesting(although I stopped playing it around the time they came out) and several of the starting characters had really fun although incredibly unbalanced mechanics and skillsets. MK9 felt more like a test, a fun game that I like a lot but when held up to MKX vastly inferior and dated. The game plays well if you like this style of fighting game(It's a nice blend of Injustice and MK9) and they really fleshed out characters that were in MK9 nicely. Sub, Scorp, Reptile and Ermac for example are very similar but drastically improved in both depth and their flow and moveset. They didn't really take so much away as they did add and tweak what they had. Which is nice to see.
The speed overall is nice, I'd say currently zoning is very weak which is kinda unfortunate but you can zone and zone well. Just pick Quan, Jacqui, Kenshi or Kitana and you can definitely zone in a lot of matchups but with the addition of running and just the massive amount of offensive options most characters have you're going to have a hard time doing so.
If I had to list complaints it would be with the lack of good grapplers, a lot of characters have command grabs but none have ones that are as strong as I'd like them to be. Jason's command grab comes close but the fact that it whiffs on so many moves in this game really annoys me. Also most of the new characters are really boring to me. I'd say Dvorah is probably the most interesting, but even she isn't all that interesting in terms of her mechanics. Cassie, Jacqui, Kung Jin, Ferra/Torr and Takeda all really bore me. I think it's mostly their mechanics aren't new or refreshing. Ferra/Torr had huge potential and Takeda is sort of unique but not enough for me to like him. They all just do basic things and they look very plain and dull. I had high hopes for F/T, Kotal and Dvorah but so far all three have been really underwhelming. Also I felt the returning cast to be filled with my least favorite characters, Liu, Sonya, Kitana, and Mileena have never interested me so having them fill up so much space along with all these new characters is pretty unfortunate for me. On the positive side Jason introduced some fun mechanics, unfortunately he feels incomplete, too simplistic really, which fits him well but it does not make for a complete and well rounded character.
Also as a spectator most of the cast isn't all that fun for me to watch. It's gotten better now but seeing Kung Jins and Cassies everywhere at first was depressing, they're both just so boring to watch. Now we're seeing a bit more variety with most characters seeing play. It's mostly specific variations that aren't seeing play more so than any one character. The least played characters I've seen so far are probably Jacqui, Ferra/Torr, Johnny Cage and Jason. At least competitively. But even those I expect to show up a lot more in the future.
But overall, a pretty balanced game, there are some stand out top tier characters for sure but I'd only say maybe 3 or 4 characters are bottom mid tier. Much improved over MK9 in the overall scheme, I still wish I had Cyrax but I'm making due with what they gave me. I have high hopes for Tremor and Predator so hopefully along with the rest of the game it looks to be only getting better from here.
