Gaming Target - Game Boy: Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance

Written by Matt Swider on December 16, 2002

Review: From worst to first!

When Midway released Mortal Kombat Advance around this time last year, fans of the franchise were left with a disappointing port of Ultimate Kombat III. Worst of all was that it played awfully on the Game Boy Advance. It's a tough enough job to produce a faultless fighting game on any console let alone one for the Game Boy Advance. However Namco faced the same challenges when shipping Tekken Advance nearly a month after MKA hit. With Tekken's unique fighting style intact, the portable version of the game made an ideal model of how a conversion should be done. It's been less than a year since Midway jumped the gun with Mortal Kombat Advance and we've received a second handheld attempt that goes along with the Deadly Allaince theme that is being tailored as the rebirth of the series. In effect, Midway has made up for its mistakes with the impressive outcome and incredible performance that Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance delivers on the Game Boy Advance.

The opening to Deadly Alliance begins with scrolling text that outlines the game's story. Though it boils down to a lot of words and tons of fluff for a videogame plot, the Game Boy Advance storyline matches its console counterparts minus the voice narration. In fact, much of the handheld action within Deadly Alliance mimics what can be found on the home consoles but also adapts to the reduced capabilities existing on the Game Boy Advance. On a whole, this is what makes the Deadly Alliance conversion so complete and entertaining to play. Given the limited cartridge space available, only about half of the console fighters made it into the Game Boy Advance version of Deadly Alliance. Johnny Cage was given the shaft again, but the lineup immediately includes the likes of Scorpion, Sonya, Jax, Kung Lau, Kenshi, Frost, and Li Mei. As time goes on, players have the chance to unlock Kitana, Sub-Zero, Kano, and the evil powers within the game, Quan Chi and Shang Tsung. Although not all the favorites are here, the roster is comprised of a nice blend of both old and new characters in the series.

Moves from each character are easy enough to execute and the game relies on combos more than anything else. Plus, different fighting styles from the console versions help vary the attacks that can be performed. Since the console editions of Deadly Alliance feature 3D arenas, Midway did its best to provide just that for gamers confined to the Game Boy Advance. Characters can now side step around the stages and avoid danger in the process. Instead of pressing the D-Pad upward to jump or downward to crouch, hitting the diagonal direction takes its place. Once players become aware of that notion, the controls are easy and the game's environments mimic the console's 3D stages to scale.

After each fight, the ground will of course be filled with blood, which has always been a fascination for Mortal Kombat fans since the beginning. The blood code thrilled us all back on Sega Genesis and continues to poor out from characters to this day, making great effect for the always satisfying fatalities. Accompanying the gruesome graphics is a worthy lineup of music and crisp sound effects. However, voiced reactions to hits taken remain frequent and very repetitive. Luckily, they don't affect the overall package presented by the visuals and audio elements.

New players are given the chance to setup a profile in one of the three save slots. In addition to displaying your name, the Deadly Alliance keeps track of single player and versus wins and losses, progress in survival mode, score in might and sight, percentage unlocked, time spent playing, and finally, the amount of koins collected and what secrets you've currently spent them on. The koins earned in Deadly Alliance actually make up an interesting part of the game. Collecting this form of kurrency is done by fighting through a sequence of challengers or betting them in versus mode. Eventually, players can spend them in the Krypt area to pry open one of 120 koffins. Rewards are trivial at first, but a larger sum of koins will earn new arenas among other hidden goodies.

One last surprise comes as part of the single player mode with the return of Test Your Might and Test Your Sight. Each acts as a break from battling it out with challenges that requiring players to either mash buttons representing their strength or focus on the shell game for mastering their vision. With this keeping some occupied and a vast amount of extras to unlock, it's going to take even the most hasty gamer a long time to completely finish this Mortal Kombat game.