Mortal Kombat 9 is fun and it’s a shame that the Savannah area hasn’t embraced it. Despite a long-running effort to include it into the local bi-weekly line up, the game just hasn’t picked up steam with the locals. There’s just been too much of a negative attitude towards it; too much “Well, this isn’t how it works in Street Fighter,” and I don’t know if it’s just ignorance or a refusal to change but…
This isn’t Street Fighter. Sure, it’s riding the coat tails of Street Fighter 4’s success and the series (in the last decade or so) hasn’t had the best track record, but this is a reboot and it’s a damn good one. Anyway, that’s enough preaching, onto the more important stuff – The Basics. Check after the break for the full article.
Standard Notation & Terms
1 – FP – Front Punch – Strikes with fist closest to the opponent.
2 – BP – Back Punch – Strikes with fist furthest from the opponent.
3 – FK – Front Kick – Strikes with leg closest to the opponent.
4 – BK – Back Kick – Strikes with leg furthest from opponent.
BLK – Block – Block incoming attacks.
XRAY – Unleashes the character specific X-Ray attack. Requires 3 meters.
Break/Breaker – Uses two meters to break out of a combo. Performed with Forward + BLK.
1+3 – Throw – Pressing the 1 and 3 buttons together performs a throw.
Typically the combo notation for MK is done with 1, 2, 3, and 4. Occasionally you’ll see FP, BP, FK, and BK, but I find that it’s much less common. As with most notation “xx” typically means to cancel something with a special move and a tilde (~) means to briefly wait. Sometimes I’ve seen “->” represent waiting, but I’ve more commonly seen it refer to dashing – It probably just depends on the guy transcribing the combos and shouldn’t be too difficult to figure out.
General Mechanics
Blocking
As most people know blocking in the Mortal Kombat series is done with a button. This mechanic adds a very unique and interesting dynamic to fighting on a 2D plane. Unlike most other 2D games, there are no standard “cross-up” attacks in MK because the need to block in a particular direction is eliminated. Like most fighting games, players must still differentiate between high and low attacks.
Partially attributed to it being attached to a button, blocking in MK actually has start-up and recovery. Though it’s miniscule, you might notice it when trying to anti-air a jump in with an uppercut when coming out of a ducking block position or other, similar, situations.
Throws
Throws are an interesting beast in MK. They are used to soften up opponents who hold block too often, but they can still be teched out of. Throw techs are done by pressing either a front punch/kick or back punch/kick as the opponent tries to throw you. Front attacks tech against front throws, back attacks tech against back throws. It’s a gamble and is impossible to tell which they are doing, but I good guess is generally in the direction of the closest corner.
The interesting thing about throws in MK is that they can be ducked under by holding down, but not if you are also holding the block button – In fact, they can’t be teched at all while holding block. This differs greatly from a game like SF4 where you can hold back or down-back and continue to crouch or crouch-tech incoming throws.
High/Medium/Low Attacks
Like in 3D fighters such as Tekken, MK operates on three different attack heights.
High attacks – Don’t assume these attacks are overheads; they aren’t. High attacks can be blocked standing or crouching. Most attacks hit high.
Medium attacks – These are the overheads of Mortal Kombat. Medium attacks must be blocked while standing and are probably the least common of the three attack heights.
Low attacks – These attacks do exactly as they say, hit low, and must be blocked while crouching. Crouching kicks hit low as well as some command normals and some hits during strings.
Kombos
“Kombos” are the pre-programmed, chainable combos that every character has several of. These make up most of the bread and butters in MK and, as such, should be well-studied.
Many of these kombos give a character access to punches and kicks that they wouldn’t otherwise have access to. For example, Sub-Zero’s 2,2 is a great kombo because the second two is an upward slice with an ice sword that’s amazing for pressure and anti-airs. There are too many of these to be detailed in full, so it’s best to explore for yourself.
Combos in MK are often done by the splicing together of one (or more) Kombos. Here is Reptile’s bread and butter combo as an example: Jump-in punch, 3,2,1, Elbow Dash (whiffed), NJP, Fast Forceball ~ 3,2 xx Slow Forceball ~ 3,2,1 xx Slide.
3,2,1 is one of Reptile’s kombos and it’s such a good one that it is used repeatedly in many of his combos, or at least some variation of it.
Specials
Specials in MK are like specials in just about any other fighting game. They have motions and they have button inputs. When you put both of them together, cool things happen. Specials are basically any move that isn’t a regular punch or kick (and even some of those can be specials.)
Many specials, especially point-black projectiles and moves that hurl your character forward, are typically very unsafe and extremely punishable in MK, so don’t throw them out whenever unless you know they’re safe.
Some specials can be performed in the air, some specials can be ducked out (without blocking – Nightwolf’s rush attack.)
Projectiles
Unlike most fighting games, projectiles in MK do not collide with each other. This makes playing a zoning game a lot different than from other fighters, because you always have to be aware of what the other player is throwing.
For example, it’s not in your best interest to have a fireball war against a character like Cyrax or Sub-Zero, whose projectiles hold you in place allowing them to walk over and hand you your ass.
All characters in MK have at least one projectile. Some have more than others, some have better ones than others.
Most standing fireballs can be ducked under (without blocking) to avoid all damage. Some are actually meant to hit low, such as Kung-Lao’s low hat and Kabal’s pinwheel… thing.
Meter
The ‘super’ meter in MK is divided into three sections. Both players start with a third of their bar full and the player to land the first attack in a match is instantly granted another stock of meter.
Players can build meter in a few different ways:
- Being hit. Getting struck in MK builds a lot of meter.
- Attacking a blocking opponent. That’s right, combo’ing fools only grants the combo-ee meter, not the combo-er – With one exception…
- Specials! Using specials grants some meter, but not a lot.
- Throw techs. Plains and simple, Tech’ing out of throws builds some meter.
Players DO NOT build meter from whiffing normals or throws! The more meter a player has, the more he can do with it.
One stock – With one stock of meter, players can do an Enhanced (EN) version of one of their special moves. It’s like the equivalent of an EX move in the Street Fighter series. Each move gains new and different properties – Try them out, have fun.
Two stocks – With two stocks a player can break out of a combo with a c-c-c-c-combo breaker. Effectively using breakers is key to becoming a better MK player.
Three stocks – With an entire bar’s worth a meter a player can perform a powerful X-Ray attack. These attacks all do 30% or more damage and are unable to broken out of, making them ideal for finishing off an opponent in a clutch situation.
Knockdowns & Wakeup Attacks
When a character is knocked down, there are a few options to help deal with incoming mix-ups and attacks.
Roll Recovery – Just like how it sounds, a roll recovery will allow a player to roll backwards during a knockdown recovery. Pressing the punch buttons as your character would be getting up will cause them to roll. Be careful though, as roll recoveries have some recovery of their own.
Delayed Recovery – You guessed it, Captain Obvious. Holding down while your character is on the ground causes him or her to stay there longer. The can be used to bait out unsafe moves or throw off somebody’s timing. You can still be hit by low attacks, so don’t hold down too much – Thankfully you can cancel this with the Block button.
Wakeup Attack – Performing certain special moves (each character has one or two) as you’re getting up causes them to be registered as a Wakeup Attack. This status basically gives those moves a little extra oomph in the form of invincibility to help you escape crappy situations, but be careful, many of the specials that activate this are rather unsafe on block.
Jumping Normals
I felt like this needed a section because of how much differently jumping normals behave in this game than in other fighting games.
All characters have the SAME jumping normals. All characters, same jumping normals. There is no real differentiation between the attack types while jumping (I.E. Neutral jumping front punch behaves exactly like neutral jumping back punch & so on.)
Here’s the breakdown:
Neutral Jump Punch – NJP – NJPs hit medium and have the unique effect of causing a ground bounce. This leaves the opposing character in a vulnerable juggle state. Without the use of some special moves, NJPs can be performed twice in a row before causing a hard knockdown.
Angled Jump Punch – AJP (Jump-in punch) – AJPs also hit medium, but do not cause ground bounce. They can, however, still be comboed after if you input the buttons quickly enough. These are fantastic if performed after moves that allow for a safe jump, they tack on a little damage to combos or force opponents to block standing. Used as an air-to-air these attacks cause juggle state.
Neutral Jump Kick – NJK – NJKs cause the character to swing a leg out in front of them, it looks goofy and hits high. If it connects it sends the enemy sailing across the screen in an uncomboable state. These can kind of come in handy if you jump early to perform them as an air-to-air, but I usually stick with punches for the chance that I’ll snag a combo.
Angled Jump Kick – AJK – AJKs cause the characters to kick out one leg in a very stiff manner. These hit high and cause a similar knockback effect as NJKs. The upside to these kicks is that they are special-cancelable and can lead to combos like their AJP brethren in some cases. The downside is that if your character doesn’t have a good air special, you pretty much only get the base damage. If your character has an air throw, it can be canceled into after an AJK.
Sweep & Uppercut
Similar to jumping moves, every character has a sweep and an uppercut. They’re also performed in the same way for every character – Back + 4 for sweeps and Down + 2 for uppercuts. While they’re all performed in the same way, each character’s sweep is unique to them; uppercuts all look similar, but some are faster than others.
Sweeps hit low and uppercuts are ideal for anti-airs. Some fast uppercuts are even good for quick punishes.
Credits
Thanks for reading this! It covers the very basic basics of Mortal Kombat, but it still might be daunting if you’re unfamiliar with the series. I may follow this up with a slightly more advanced article if it gets a decent amount of attention.
SAV Mega Crash 