Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks for PlayStation 2

As my title states, this game is a lot like Episode I was for Start Wars fans. It finds a way to tie together a lot of loose ends in the Mortal Kombat series by going back towards the beginning. While this game is not a prequel, the events do take place between Mortal Kombat I and II. Mortal Kombat is unique in that the game has a curiously drawing storyline.

The game lets you choose between Liu Kang and Kung Lao. It begins right after Shang Tsung is defeated in the first tournament. The gist of the game is that as you must battle your way through the events of MK II in an action/adventure style rather than by typical fighting-game means. The moves are all there, from Liu Kang's fireballs and gobbles to Kung Lao's hat and teleportation moves. The fighting involves a good amount of button mashing, but oh how gratifying it is! Imagine doing Liu Kang's bicycle kick in multiple directions while throwing two enemies at another and throwing another off of a cliff. Sounds sadistic, no? It's Mortal Kombat for you. I was pleasantly surprised by how the button mashing can and eventually must turn into complex combos and tricks in order to accomplish certain moves. For example, some puzzles require team efforts that can be downright impossible to maneuver. These unlockables are hidden there in order to promote beating the game with a buddy.
The fighting is balanced as the special moves are limited to a sort of turbo/action/special moves bar that depletes with usage and refills with rest. Fatalities are "built up" and done after one of three gauges is filled. The play stops and a cinematic showing the move is done. While very neat, some of the impatient fans may wish to avoid them after a couple initial viewings. New to the finishers are brutalities (Well, new outside of MK Trilogy) and Multatlities. Both are pretty self-explanatory, and each either refills energy, gives experience, or simply wipes out many enemies for the sake of it.

The puzzles are pretty clever, and some may seem hard to catch at first. The "world" of the game is relatively small, but the game requires you traverse different realms on multiple occasions in order to complete certain tasks. The game is filled with secrets, ranging from concept art to fatalities, with hidden characters lurking in the shadows (literally!). The story is somewhat predictable, as it should be, because the game is really designed for diehard fans of the series. Some of the side stories of more minor characters are explored, and the overall plot seems to tie together more. The best way to explain the multiple endings of the arcade is that Shaolin Monks tells the way it REALLY happened, while the arcade lets you find out what-ifs.

I loved the graphics, and the backgrounds in the game looked as if they were pulled right out of the arcade. The Living Forest is alive and even creepier in MKSM. The portal guards fight and guard portals to the death. Almost every board from the first two MK games is included. The character sprites are fairly simple, but the action shots and combos look really good. Overall, the backgrounds are what really sold me on the graphics of the game.

The sounds of the game are similar to the graphics, in that they effectively emulate screams, dings, and chilling melodies from the arcade. The main music is somewhat repetitive at times, but the overall score is enjoyable and sets the mood just right.

As for features, as with the other recent straight-to-console MK games, MKSM has several side options in the game just waiting to be unlocked. A VS mode is playable with the two starting characters from the get go. However, this mode is nothing more than two characters fighting in an environment identical to the game itself and serves no real purpose other than to have idle competition between friends. It is nice, however, to play as unlockable characters in VS mode that are surprisingly robust in their animations, moves, and styles. I personally liked being able to unlock MKII the arcade game, but I won't tell how on here. ;) Most of the unlockables are dangled in front of your face by means of a dark shadow or blank spot waiting to be filled by another character. I believe that this gives good motivation as to what you're looking to do exactly in the game. One major problem I had with the game is the fact that whether you play as Kang or Lao, by yourself, or in a team, the cinematics show both characters interacting. I realize that redoing the cinematics to fix this is nitpicking, but I wish that there could have at least been a way to explain why you're alone as one and the other character is along in the cinematics (perhaps a CPU sidekick in 1-player mode?).

It took me about 10 hours to beat it the first time, and I believe that I had around 70% of the game completed. The game wasn't meant to be lengthy, but playing it from the beginning, I found it to still have some good replay value. As a diehard fan, I give it an 8/10, but maybe a 7/10 for regular fans. The loyal fans will certainly reap from this homage to MK, while newcomers and non-fans will probably see it as an above average action/adventure game