Well, I've had MK: Deception for a week now and I've spent many hours a day on it. I've come close to beating the game already. All I need now are some more Krypt keys and to complete many side missions in Konquest as well as try to find the super unlockable characters (if they exist).
I have to say that although I've done a lot in about a week, I'm very impressed with this game. They improved on many things. However, there are quite a few things that I feel need to be improved.
The intro cinematic is amazing. I find it to be the best one out of all of the fighting games I've played in the past. It has the story, action, and ambience that I love. The overall storylines were well done and I really enjoyed quite a few of the endings, especially Raiden's, Noob-Smoke's, and Li Mei's.
There were some characters whose storylines I was very impressed with such as Nightwolf's, Raiden's, Scorpion's, and, Sub-Zero's and those I wasn't too impressed with such as Kira's, Kobra's, and Tanya's.
I liked quite a few of the new characters such as Havik, Ashrah, and Dairou. I hope to see some of them in the next MK game.
The graphics are very well done. I like the nice touches and the get-up animations are awesome even though not all of the characters had their own unique get-up animation. The rendering of the characters is great. I really like what they did with the looks of characters such as Sub-Zero, Scorpion, Raiden, Li Mei, Noob-Smoke, and Jade.
I like the fact that each character had their own voice in this game. This is something that I feel should've been put in MK games long ago, but anyway, it's great that they finally put this and I hope they have unique voices for each character in future MK games. I found the music in MK: Deception to be much better than the music in MK: DA. Not all of the stages had their own songs though (e.g. The Pit and Lower Mines having the same song; Hell's Foundry and the Dark Prison having the same song). However, it didn't really bother me much, especially since I really enjoyed the music of the game.
I'm glad they brought back characters like Jade, Kabal, Noob-Smoke, etc. I was really surprised with characters such as Nightwolf and Liu Kang. I never liked those two that much in the past, but now, I like them more. I'm glad that Liu Kang is no longer the main hero and I also like that Raiden has changed in an interesting way.
The fighting system in MK: Deception has improved in some areas and needs to be improved in others. I would really like it if they captured that whole martial arts movie type essence into the fighting with the parrying and all of the cool moves and stuff. They seemed to have increased the damage that the characters can do which can be both good and bad depending on whether you're on the giving or receiving end of it.
I like what they did with the different arenas and how there's more space to fight in as well as the death traps. The death traps were very cool and I really liked the variety of them. I know some here will say that they are just fancy looking ring outs or something like that. I'm fully aware of that, but hey, to me, they are the best looking ring outs in any fighting game I've ever played. I don't really use the stage weapons and I didn't really pay attention to the lights. The stage weapons are good to have though and I would like to see things such as rocks and skulls be put in like in MK4.
I found the combo breaker idea to be a good one. 3 may seem small to some, but with 3, you have to learn how to use them wisely. I find the combo breakers to be useful though I would like each character to have their own unique animation for the combo breakers and perhaps there are other ways the combo breakers can be used.
Overall, I think they could do a lot more with the fighting system. I would like to see certain elements of MK4 in future MK games such as the aerial properties and the way there was quite a bit of customization with the combos. I hope that they'll do more with each of the fighting styles. Either way, I enjoyed the fighting in MK: Deception. I'm still playing arcade mode on normal and I think it's time for me to move the difficulty up a level.
I find Onaga to be tough to beat at times. To me, he's more of a pain in the ass than Moloch is. Then again, thanks to the Kamidogu, it gives me a bit of an advantage though I have to use them wisely. He's a pretty cool boss though and I like what they did when you beat him (him blowing up).
Konquest is quite a bit of fun. I like the idea of roaming around through the 6 realms and doing different things. I wish the graphics and voice acting in Konquest was better. I liked the meditation thing as well as being able to punch people. It was funny when I punched Havik in Orderrealm and he said "Nice. I admire your unpredictability.". I wasn't able to do every single side mission so perhaps if I'm able to start Konquest over again and do everything and if I look hard enough, I may get something special. If not, it's no biggie.
Chess Kombat was a lot of fun. It really requires quite a bit of strategy as well as skill with the characters when you have to fight. One thing that bugged me about Chess Kombat was that after winning every battle, I either got gold koins or platinum koins. I would've liked it if you could get more of a variety of koins though I suppose the programmers wanted to make it a bit tough for the players to get the koins they need. Then again, Konquest did provide lots of koins.
Puzzle Kombat was also fun. I generally used characters such as Sub-Zero, Raiden, Jade, and Ermac because of their abilities. I either seemed to get Onyx or Platinum koins when playing this game which bummed me out a bit. Puzzle Kombat was tough at times and I was only able to beat the top person once.
I'm glad that each character has two fatalities as well as a Hara-Kiri. The Hara-Kiri concept is pretty cool, imo. I like the various kontent that was put in the game such as bio videos, martial arts vids, etc.
The Krypt in MK: D may have 276 less koffins than it did in MK: DA, but at least there weren't any empty koffins this time. There were some cool funny bits such as the MK: Mythologies bloopers, but I wish there were things such as the Lizarderm lotion and the Chrome Bling like in MK: DA. I really would've loved to have seen stuff like that, but either way, I liked the overall kontent.
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this game and I would like to know what the rest of you here thought of it. I would like to see details in your posts rather than simple answers such as "I liked it." or "It sucks!" because I want to get a good idea of what others here think of the game.
Anyway, so far, I give Mortal Kombat: Deception a 9.5 out of 10.
To sum it up:
On the positive side:
+ good graphics, music and overall presentation
+ storyline, characters, ambience
+ lots of cool kontent
On the negative side:
- Konquest mode should have better graphics and voice acting
- the fighting system needs some improvements even though I like it overall