Deception is a good game but some design flaws keep it from being a great game.
The fighters are mostly made up from Mortal Kombat two and three. All the fan favorites are there from those games and there are a few new characters, although I didn’t really get into any of the new character in this game and one of my favorites Frost is not in this game to my disappointment. The characters themselves look good with a few exceptions. For example all the fighters the game starts with look great, but some of the hidden characters don’t look as polished for some reason.
The Chess game is very well done. It’s not just chess with some Mortal Kombat fights in it, they’ve added some twists to make it a very unique game and uses a different strategy then just winning fights. The puzzle Kombat is also very well done and isn’t a Tetris rip off, it is styled similarly to it but has a twist that makes it original and a lot of fun. With goofy miniature versions of the fighters and they have fatalities that relate to the Tetris themed game. I am a big fan of these two additions and hope to see them again in future games.
Now the new Konquest mode I wasn’t such a huge fan of. I liked the idea of a Mortal Kombat RPG, but they didn’t do it right at all. It introduces a very uninteresting and unlikable character named Shujinko who you have to take through his whole uninteresting life of collection Kamidogo items for the Elder Gods. If the main characters-unappealing ness were the worst thing about this RPG mode the game would be in a lot better shape.
The worst thing about this mode is that you have to search every inch of it to find all the keys to unlock coffins in the Krypt. Even that would be so bad if most of the keys weren’t so incredibly hidden. In the game you play as the days, weeks, and months go on. Well, some keys are so hidden that you must literally be in the right place at the right time for example, to unlock Liu Kang’s Bio you must find a small cave and on the 16th of the month at midnight you have to be there to get that key or you’ll never see it even going there any other time. That is a real key hiding spot in the game, some are easier and some are harder. It is frustrating and wastes a ton of time. One time to unlock Tanya you must beat her in a fight, simple enough, but I beat her about 100 times before it gave me the key and there was no reason why it didn’t the previous times.
Also the RPG mode feels really thrown in and looks that way to as the graphics and worlds are poorly done compared to other parts of the game. They passed on a great possibility of telling all the hundreds of great Mortal Kombat storylines that the entire series has been made up and have never been shown before in any of there games. I think they should try it again and make items much easier to find and tell some of the many stories of the characters from the series, like Sonya Blade and Kano’s history or Scorpion and Sub-Zero. If they can’t do that then I personally beg them never to do another Konquest mode again.
All of the games modes, Arcade, Chess, and Puzzle have many different arenas that have different attributes and look great. The game has a large soundtrack of 21 themes for all modes of play, and is pretty good for the kind of generic background music that 3D fighters usually have. With tons of unlock able Kontent that may or may not appeal to the player depending on how much of a MK geek they are, and depending on how much they hate the RPG mode this can be a lot of enjoyed time or torture. Deception has online play and can be played forever if the player wanted to.
Overall, I really loved the game until I played the Konquest mode. The other two new modes are really innovative and a ton of fun. There are some other new aspects like Hara-kiri, which is when you kill yourself instead of letting your opponent have the satisfaction. The other things that bug me about this game are the character selection is good but not great and to a much bigger extent the gore look horrible. The way it falls out of people and when people fall into pits and get a spike through them looks just terrible and all the gore is very and realistic and kind of strange looking. I’d personally wait till the next game planned that’s supposed to have every character ever and if you can’t wait just stay away from the Konquest mode, get a game save of your friends that has every thing unlocked already.