The game is a giant glorified pallet swap, with even less individuality because everyone can use everyone's weapon if dropped, and everyone has identical combos. There are 3 different models, if you count Tanya's as different because she is smaller, however she still follows one of the *2* individualized move sets. One move set has standing HKs and LKs that turn almost like a half roundhouse, and sweeps inward etc, where the other version is straight and sweeps go outward, or vice versa, it really doesn't matter. There's virtually nothing seperating giant chunks of characters except specials, not even combos.
Examples of individuality for the normals would be something like the difference in priority and easiness of connecting Liu Kang's roundhouse for an anti air in UMK3 vs Sindels, and then even still in the middle you have the male ninjas. Everyone in MK4 has the same jump punch and jump kick, the most different jump punch and jump kick in all the MK games is Baraka's, but then you have ones like Liu Kang's and Kung Lao's, which have a much different collision than anyone else's. In essence, everyone's attacks can be timed to counter anyone else's in any game, but in MK4, it's the exact same timing for everyone, whereas if you're using Sheeva, and you want to anti air roundhouse someone, you would only attempt it if they jump from 3/4 screen distance. Another example is the identical uppercuts. A good example of a shitty uppercut is Kung Lao's in MK3 and even MK2 Kung Lao's in Trilogy. They have the smallest collision box for any uppercut, even smaller than the robot ninjas, while Sub-zero has some extra height, Jax has extra range, and Sheeva is way out there, like her roundhouse.
Aside from all the ridiculously boring attacks, the graphics are a piece of fat Hell. I was entirely unimpressed with the graphics, but not the look. The look was definitely decent, but that doesn't make the game. I don't think I've done more than 5 fatalities in the game because I simply do not care about fatalities enough. The only time I use them really is when I'm playing against a person who likes seeing them, otherwise I generally do something neat. The sound effects were pretty cool, definitely MK in style, but they did start getting a little silly with them, even by MK standards. Raiden's superman it almost sounds like he yells "Alakazam!"
They added one interesting thing to the gameplay, and that was the jump kick that floors the person instead of making them fly back a bit. Other than that, the sidestepping is virtually worthless. It's also extremely easy to anti air HP someone out of an air attack, and you can throw knees in to cancel jabs instantly, and there's no push back. The game just seemed incomplete at best. There are a lot of weak characters as well. A lot of people don't like Nightwolf and Stryker, but they are seriously deadly characters. Jarek and Kai are the drizzling shits. I don't know what they were thinking. I also don't know what they were thinking when the implimented Maximum Damage. Another example of incompleteness. Tanya runs rampant in the game because she's smaller than everyone else, and has really broken fast moves. Imagine if they made characters with big damage chain combos, and not like a maximum of 25%. This way you catch the little bitch with one combo and she has to change her strategy. Someone like Sheeva, Kung Lao, or Jax, who can deliver 40% - 50% with one ground combo is something that a character like her would fear, but there's nothing to fear, because the game isn't worth a minute of anyone's time.
MK4 is a joke.
Matt
