Everything I've hoped for? Yes and no.
For me it sure has given me everything I could've hoped for and more in terms of graphics, gameplay, roster and once we get our hands on Spawn and Fujin in particular, everyone should be ecstatic with the roster at least! This is for me the most important.
As far as story, aside from the beginning, Johnny seeing himself, the awesome clash between the two Kahns, the part for the Tarkatans, Kollector's role, Sheeva's appearance and Fire God Liu Kang was underwhelming and was far from what I'd hoped for.
I think everyone had high hopes for what would happen with Shinnok, would affect would the severing of his head mean, what would it mean for Raiden, how will Shang Tsung come into play, the Elder Gods and Cetrion's role as well as the family bond with Shinnok. There was lots of intrigue leading up to the release.
Soon we'd find out that while the trailer's hype about the Kahn's, the new mysterious 6 armed dude and return of some fan favourites was mostly worth it, it could not undo the mess that NRS created with another time travel story that left a lot of holes.
While I enjoyed story mode, it was very short compared to what was claimed and just didn't even get into MKX's part. Instead we got a clusterfuck of a DC / Marvel type deal with a chapter driven story that felt rushed and incomplete. Iy was in particular a stab in the gut that Shang Tsung was inexplicably not in, not mentioned and got cut along with Shinnok's part.
The Krypt was very small in the end, since after opening everything I cannot do anything with my koins to get skins and gear I want. The system is just terrible, greedy and asinine. It doesn't help that we know that the Living Forest was supposed to be in there as well as another area I cannot remember right now.
So it was far from what I'd hoped for. I don't mind not knowing what's in the chests, but to make me grind for it and then not even have options to get more skins and gear is just maddening.
The customisation failed miserably, when 5 skins with the most awful colour combinations you can think of are all treated as their own unique skin. Lazy designs, odd customisable gear that is not visible and has no impact, odd masks that do not fit etc. Also clearly favouring certain characters to get more skins than others gets tiring.
In the end, the game is pretty straight forward and the only thing that we can look forward to is more stages and characters. Story DLC to fill the gaps, to include maybe even the DLC MK characters, and a completely new part to the Krypt with chests full of gear and skins would definitely go a long way in being almost everything I had hoped for.
The one part they failed the most is immersion for me though. This has mainly to do with the overall vibe of the game, partly the music and the stages, but also the realism. I feel the more realistic look has taken away from the colourful mk1-9 nostalgic feel we all loved the game for.
This game has better contrast than MKX, but with so many dark stages filled with basic metallic like, brown, green, yellow and red colours it all feels the same. The sky is the same in several stages and most stages have little variety in colours to make anything stand out.
I also feel being closer to the action takes away from feeling immersed in the environment. I have no connection to the world I am playing in. Give me the old stages with more depth, more outside environments and distance over these small environments. Aside from this, there's also just generic stages like the SF bunker, hideout, kano's fight klub, the alley, sea of blood that just don't feel like MK to me.
Music wise, it's partly because of the time travel vibe with the menu turning to sand, the heavy string instruments that turns me off. The stages music itself is quite fine, but I hate that music after you win a match. That whiny string is just off putting, I have turned music off completely for that reason. The music in the menu when you choose characters used to give you that mystic, fantasy, dark MK vibe but this just doesn't.
Pair that with Kronika, the forced DC / Marvel type vibe and story and you have a game that plays and looks like an MK game, but doesn't sound nor feel like it somehow. It's better than MKX, but MKX's story and vibe was more MK to me than this. Could be partially the realism, since MKX stages were the least MK like in its history. MK11 has MKX beat there for sure.
All in all, I've enjoyed playing it for about 6 months on and off and now taking a break until Spawn comes out so I can go into depth with Sindel, Spawn & Joker at the same time. Hoping for the stages to come with the announcement of KP2 and maybe a surprise.
MKX only kept me engaged for the 1st month and then when the game was XL played it a few times, so basically that tells you how I feel about MK11 in perspective as I think many people suffer from revisionist history. MKX was not that great and MK11 did far better in a lot of aspects. MK11 is up there, top 3 in best games of all time, but I cannot help but feel cheated out of a better experience with the story and vibe of the game.
