I voted for Good. Mostly because of the criteria I'd judge it on--
Roster: 7/10, the roster sees the return of some highly requested veterans like Noob Saibot, Skarlet, Jade, Kabal, and Baraka. A few new fighters, however only one of them really stood out to me as promising for future titles. Geras feels like a one-off due to him being an underling to Kronika specifically. Without her being in future titles, the likelihood of him being there is low too. Cetrion was a neat idea, but executed horribly. Kollector was a great idea and is a very fun and unique addition, we've never really had a character like him, he feels like he can do everything you'd ever want in a balanced manor. I'd love to see him return in the next game with more story built upon him and the Naknadan race.
However, a problem I have with the roster is similar to the one I had with MKX. It's still oversaturated by... simpleness? Jax, Jacqui, Johnny, Sonya, Cassie, and Kano are in it yet again. They did do a better job at setting the kids apart from parents, but it still doesn't feel like it's enough. It made sense for the kids and parents to be in MKX, but now I feel like they should either retire the parent figures and focus on the kids or vice versa. Seems like they've chosen to shelf the kids for the next game though. I honestly would prefer the former though, I think that Sonya, Jax, Johnny, and Kano have been done enough for the time being, we could do a game without them.
DLC can really make or break it for me. The DLC in MKX was kinda disappointing for me. Bo' Rai Cho, Tanya, and Leatherface were really uninteresting imo and I wish they picked other characters like Havik, Fujin, Kintaro, etc... Since the DLC roster has mostly been leaked, I can give my thoughts on it a little early, and it looks promising. Score could raise a bit after DLC.
Story: 4/10, really, really disappointed in the story. They were building something really great in this story and at the end just threw it all away. It was a HUGE buzzkill imo and really destroyed a lot of effort they'd put into making an actual good storyline. Besides that, there were some... glaring plot holes and rule breaking in the story as well. Not much else to say.
Hoping MK12 gives us something along the lines of MK9. I'm really itching to have a story like that again.
Gameplay/Mechanics: 8/10, I love the addition of Krushing blows and Fatal blows. Only gripe I have with this is I do miss the insane and flashy combos from previous games and the slower speed of the game has been kinda difficult for me to adapt to, lol. Otherwise I think it's probably the best we've gotten thus far. The kustomization system could be better. I wish it was gear pieces like in Injustice 2 rather than 3 customizable parts and skins. It's still really good, but I wish it was a shader system + gear choices for each body part + weapons/accessories.
Modes: 6/10, I LOVED the Krypt. It's been a lot of fun exploring Shang Tsung's island ruins and seeing all the easter eggs and bits of lore here and there. Klassic Towers is always fun, but I wish completing them with a character unlocked a skin as well as their ending. I don't really have motivation to do them now, I can just look at the endings on YouTube and be done with it. No incentive. Then we get to why I knocked off 4 points-- the economy and Towers of Time. It's pretty self-explanatory but I hope after the changes coming soon that it'll be less of a pain and a chore to do and actually feel fun. Score could change to an 8 or even a 9 if they go about it the way they should.
Rounding my score out rn it would be a 6.25/10, and sure that sounds like a score for 'decent' but I'm mostly calling it good because I really don't want the negative to outweigh the positive so much that it leaves a sour taste in my mouth. So far the positives are looking promising and the negatives can for the most part be fixed in later patches.
