Get Over Here
Shinnok’s at it again. The banished Elder God wants revenge, and only you can stop him. Team up with your favorite champions from the iconic fighting franchise and comb the realms in search of ancient relics in Mortal Kombat: Onslaught. From NetherRealm and WB Games, Onslaught marks the franchise’s first major foray into the hero-collecting, team-building RPG genre. Unfortunately, we can tell.
Time After Time
Onslaught begins with a cutscene of an epic battle between the champions of the Mortal Kombat franchise. The narrator explains that while the heroes and villains of the realms were locked in Mortal Kombat, the Elder Gods experienced similar conflict. After narrowly escaping Shinnok’s treacherous machinations, the deities stripped him of his godhood and cast him into the hellish Netherrealm. As you can imagine, Shinnok’s less than pleased with his predicament and devises a plan for revenge. He recruits Scorpion to retrieve the Mask of Drahmin, the first of several relics that will restore his powers.
At this point, players head into battle and receive Scorpion and three additional fighters to construct their team. Eventually, you can obtain other fighters through the game’s gacha mechanic using special orbs earned through missions. Like other iPhone RPG fighting games, each fighter features an affinity and class attribute. Onslaught differs from its competitors thanks to the inclusion of only three main affinity types (Body, Mind and Spirit), whereas most other games in the genre have five. This makes for slightly simpler matchups, though equipment and fighter class add much greater depth and nuance to battles. True to genre mechanics, you’ll strategically arrange your characters on the battlefield and tap ‘Fight’ to engage in autobattles. As your fighters pummel the opposing forces, their special abilities slowly charge. Once fully charged, the character’s portrait will light up, and players will need to tap their image to unleash powerful moves and buffs.
After Scorpion finally retrieves the magical McGuffin, the mask shows him a fractured piece of his soul, which convinces him that Shinnok needs to be stopped. Scorpion defects and sets off to enlist the help of Mortal Kombat’s other iconic champions, collect the remaining relics and thwart Shinnok’s evil schemes.
Rough Journey
In between battles, Mortal Kombat: Onslaught’s story plays out in a combination of voice-acted and subtitled animations, as well as text-based narration. This felt jarring at first because of the abrupt juxtaposition of the console-quality cutscenes from the intro and the sudden lack of voices. I understand the need to conserve resources, but consistently leaving out voice work seems like a missed opportunity and gives the game an unfinished feel. While the character’s voices return periodically throughout the game, they were absent often enough to bother me.
Beyond missing dubs, Onslaught plays like a solid entry in the team RPG genre. However, that’s not to say it’s particularly fun or addicting. In addition to the game’s story mode, players can participate in genre staples like the multiplayer Arena and the game’s two tower battle modes, Chasm and Boss Battles. All of these modes performed respectably, though none truly wowed me. As I tore through the game’s story chapters, I thoroughly enjoyed the narrative, but the gameplay felt largely joyless in comparison. Sure, all autobattlers suffer from this to some degree, but Onslaught lacks pizzazz. The top-down camera angle, uneventful special moves and uninteresting backgrounds only made me impatient as I waited to collect my rewards and continue the story.
Maybe I’m being unfair, but all I could think of was how much more fun I’d had with Street Fighter: Duel. For all that Duel gets wrong with its predatory gacha mechanics and power creep, the game knows style. Backgrounds and special moves explode with color and animation. Meanwhile, Mortal Kombat: Onslaught’s characters barely register a couple of animations while uttering the famous lines from their Fatalities during specials. While flashiness isn’t everything, when gameplay is as stripped-down as autobattles, players need something to liven up the experience.
Unfinished Gem
While its gameplay merely flirts with greatness, Mortal Kombat: Onslaught KOs its opponents with its story. Most autobattlers skimp on their narratives, but not Onslaught. Despite sometimes retreading the franchise’s well-worn plot devices (time travel, multiversal mayhem, etc.), Mortal Kombat: Onslaught ekes out an interesting story that kept me hanging on. While I’m only four chapters in, I can’t wait to witness Shinnok’s comeuppance and the evolution of this slightly underbaked team RPG.
