When you look at the idea of MK Armageddon, it seems like a cool project. However, some sacrifices have to be made in order to fit all the characters into a game that's in the PS2 era. On top of that, the gameplay somehow has to be upgraded from MK Deception. Ultimately, the sacrifices made were not really worth the trouble, and the "upgrades" to the gameplay only ended up hurting the game. Not only that, but with such a big roster, you would think that team modes, or tournament modes, among other things, would make it into this game. Nope.
What does this game bring to the table? A Konquest mode that you'll play through once, and then never again. I'll be fair and say that this is a decent mode to play through, though. Clearly, Midway noticed the positive fan reaction to MK Shaolin Monks (an action-adventure, beat-em-up game) and brought that flavor into the Konquest mode. All fine and dandy, but here's the thing: Shaolin Monks gave players iconic MK characters to play with. It's 2022, and I can safely say that almost no one cares about Taven or his evil brother, Daegon.
You may even be wondering who the hell Taven and Daegon are. Well, Taven is the protagonist of this game. Shujinko was relegated to being another guy after just one game (Deception), and I'll be honest - this was a downgrade. Taven is possibly the most bland and forgettable MK protagonist of the 00s. Giving him an evil brother named Daegon just feels like something you'd expect out of a movie written by a hollywood hack.
I won't spoil the story, and instead I'll say this - none of it matters, and the events from MK Deception are just left hanging. All of it is rendered null and void by the beginning of Mortal Kombat (2011). You unlock alternate costumes and characters through the konquest mode, among other unlockables. If you get all the 60 relics in the konquest mode, you unlock everything. Yes, literally everything. The Krypt is still around but the business with the koins is simplified now - there's only 1 kind of koin.
Let's get down to brass tacks, though. The fighting in this game just flat-out sucks. In order to fit everyone into this game, characters now have only 2 fighting styles, one of which has them use a weapon. This hurts characters that now lack the fighting style that favored them, and it's not helped by the additions to the system. Attacks can be parried, and there's a broken Air Kombat system. I never liked the idea of Air Kombat because, seriously, who the hell asked for this? We're not playing Dragon Ball here, and frankly, fighting on the ground was already tough enough in this era of MK. To trigger Air Kombat, knock your opponent into the air and then press Up on the D-Pad. You will do this awkward fast jump, even if your opponent wasn't hit with a move that would keep them in the air long enough for you to do a combo. Bravo, Midway. On top of that, characters can now stay down on the ground, and attack while laying down. This may seem kool, but in practice, it's quite annoying to play against the AI when it takes advantage of this feature. It forces players to stay back from a downed opponent, or you can try your luck via blocking as you get close to your opponent.
Another sacrifice that had to be made was the Fatalities. Previously, every character had their own Fatalities, even if it was just one. Now, no one has unique ones because that had to be sacrificed to fit everyone into the game. Instead, everyone has to work with this same Kreate-A-Fatality system, where you can punch, kick, maim, and finish off your opponent in a gory style of your choice. This seems useful for the created characters, but applying this to everyone was a mistake.
Yes, I said created characters - you only get 1 slot per profile, but the option is there. You get a rather primitive character creator to work with, and frankly, there just isn't a lot that can be done with it. For example, if you want to create a shokan style character with four arms, you can't. If you want to make a fat rival for, say, Bo Rai Cho, you can't, your characters will not be allowed to be fat. You can give your character special moves, but there isn't much variety to work with there. The options for weapons are also very limited (only Swords and Axes allowed).
In a nutshell, this feels unfinished. With some of the big characters (Onaga, Moloch, etc.), you can notice their feet clip through the ground during certain animations. If you really wanted to, you could get crazy with Air Kombat combos that do ridiculous damage. You could also think about modes that could have been added to this instead of Motor Kombat.
See, Motor Kombat is another one of those modes that no one asked for, but we got it. For some reason. It's a primitive racing mode. Think Mortal Kombat meets Mario Kart. It could have been something fun, but instead it's just a really basic racing game with a few stages, some hazards that can kill racers, and not many characters to play with. It's baffling to think that time was wasted on this, and not adding other modes or features.
For instance, in MK3 and its derivative games (UMK3, Trilogy), you could pick towers that determined the amount of opponents you'd have in the Arcade mode. No such thing in this game with over 50 characters. You pick your character and hope you like what you get. Mortal Kombat 4 and Gold had 2-on-2 fights. There was also a sick tournament mode where you could pick between human and AI opponents. You could even choose the difficulty of each AI character. As if that wasn't enough, there was also a team battle mode where you could choose the amount of characters on each team, with 5 being the maximum. None of that made it into this game with over 50 characters.
All you get here when it comes to fighting modes are the Arcade mode, Versus mode, and Practice. Funny thing is that messing around with the Practice mode, I found that there's actually a good amount of stages in this game once you unlock everything. However, you only get to play in a portion of these stages in the Arcade mode. MK Trilogy let you choose your stage, at least for the first fight. The way to do it was cryptic, but the option was there. Armageddon came out many years later and somehow, not even this idea made it into the final product.
This is why I feel like this was rushed. It's just sad to think of what Armageddon could have been. It's not a bad looking game, either, and the soundtrack is...fine. Nothing great, but nothing terrible. That said, none of what's here comes together in a way that feels like what it should be. Armageddon should be a celebration of what the Mortal Kombat series is, and this project totally whiffs on that aspect. As if that wasn't enough, this game actually recycles a few stages from MK Deception. Sky Temple, Nethership Interior, Hell's Foundry, and Falling Cliffs. Come on, if you're going to recycle stages from that game, at least pick the best ones: Ying Yang Island, Courtyard, Portal, The Pit, Dead Pool, and Living Forest - look at that list full of easy nostalgia points. It's almost impressive to think that they didn't go for those stages.
If the gameplay wasn't so clunky with what was added, maybe all of that could have been forgiven, but the fighting just isn't very fun. Once you're done with the Konquest mode, there simply isn't much to do here. The PS2 era of MK could have gone out with a bang, but Midway couldn't even shoot blanks here. This is a game that only hardcore fans of the series should try, especially the younger ones who want a laugh. The other PS2 era games already aged like milk, but Armageddon suffered the most from time passing.
Since G4TV is back, I'll end this with a zinger that would fit with X-Play: "I give Mortal Kombat Armageddon two uppercuts..."
"out of five."