Mortal Kombat Deception

Mortal Kombat: Deception is a fighting game that was released in 2004 for the PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo GameCube. This review focuses on the PlayStation 2 version.

Story

Mortal Kombat: Deception continues the story of Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance. Led by Raiden, the fighters of Earthrealm attempt to stop fighters led by the Dragon King Onaga.

Gameplay

You fight opponents and you win each round by depleting their health bar. If you win 2 out of 3 rounds, you win the match and you can unleash your special finishing move on your opponent.
Mortal Kombat: Deception has 26 characters. Nine out of the 26 characters are featuring in the game for the first time.

Old characters have been refreshed and come with new fighting styles and moves. Each character has 3 different fighting styles. You can switch between any of the styles during fights. You can use special attacks and unleash combos on your enemy. The fighting style resembles a traditional Mortal Kombat game, but with some improvements.

Combo breakers have now been introduced but you have a limited number of combo breakers to use per match. They give you an opportunity to bounce back if you are on the receiving end of a combo.
Character animations are great and fights are awesome. The characters balance each other nicely so no character holds a special advantage over another character. You can’t just use one character to spam moves continuously.
Fights are intense, bloody and gory like any other Mortal Kombat game. The Mortal Kombat series are known for being brutal, and Mortal Kombat: Deception is no different.

Special Finishing Moves

Each character in the game has two fatalities that can be used to finish off opponents brutally. Each character also has a suicide move that can end the round.

Fighting Arenas

The fighting arenas are interactive. Some areas of the arenas have death traps that kill any fighter that falls on them. You can disable the death traps if you wish. The arenas also have special weapons that any player can use.

Game Modes

There is the regular one-one-one mode that can be played versus another player or CPU. There is a Konquest mode which is a form of exploration/story/RPG game. The major character of this mode is Shujinko. You follow the story of Shujinko from when he was a trainee under Bo’ Rai Cho till just before the start of Mortal Kombat: Deception. Completing the Konquest mode will unlock other game characters, fight arenas and outfits.

There are two minigames in the game. They are Puzzle Kombat and Chess Kombat. Puzzle Kombat is a kind of puzzle game with disfigured versions of the game characters fighting each other. Chess Kombat is like a chess game but with player characters fighting each other to advance on the chessboard. The Krypt is a game mode that allows you to access hidden content via Koffins. Mortal Kombat: Deception comes with online gameplay making it the first fighting game to come with online features. You can play one-on-one fights and minigames online.

Bottom Line

Pros

• Good fighting game
• Online gameplay
• Nice minigames
• Good story

Cons

• Newly introduced characters aren’t that impressive