Aftermath is the first-ever expansion in the entire Mortal Kombat series. Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath brings an exciting new story expansion, quality of life updates, augment changes, and more stages. More importantly, Aftermath also includes 3 new fighters. Fujin and Sheeva are returning fan-favorites. One crazy inclusion is the 80s action icon Robocop.
You can also check out my original Mortal Kombat 11 Review before continuing.
Chillin’ Like A Villain
The story of Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath picks up immediately after the events of the original story. The story is shorter than the original, because of this, things move along quite fast. I think the pacing was great considering it was shorter. However, one of the main highlights of the story was able to play as the villains of the story. There were some parts where I just felt bad for beating up the heroes.
Shang Tsung plays a huge role in this story. The fact that is he is voiced and modeled after Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, the original Shang Tsung actor in the Mortal Kombat movie, just makes it all the better. And he kills the role. Anyways the expansion will have you playing as recently released and past released DLC characters.
Including DLC characters in the story was a much-needed change. Many were wondering where Sindel and Nightwolf were throughout the original chaos. I can gladly say that Aftermath answers these questions and puts the DLC characters front and center.
Without spoiling anything, about halfway through the story, you will begin playing as the villains. As I stated earlier, beating up on Earthrealm’s heroes was quite bittersweet. Seeing them win all the time gets tiresome, but personally roughing up my favorite fighters in the story is not something I wanted to do.
There are 2 possible endings, again I won’t spoil it, but both ends with a cliffhanger or at least hints at another expansion or another game.
Bad Language Makes For Bad Feelings
Let’s quickly talk about the new playable characters. And what better way to start it off than talking about the expansion’s guest character, Robocop. Robocop is a zoner through and through. That’s not to say he doesn’t have good buttons though. While, Robocop can keep enemies at bay with his quick pistol shots, which behave differently depending on the variation, he also has a shoulder cannon.
Again, based on the variation this shoulder cannon will have different properties. It can be a spike strip, tear gas that allows for stun, electric grenade, or just regular grenade. Sadly, one of my biggest gripes with him is that he doesn’t have a special-cancellable launcher. Meaning punishing someone will almost always lead to very low damage. He has 2 launch moves, one starts as a very slow 18 frame mid into a high. The other is a 15 frame high. It is near impossible to punish anyone with these slow-frame startups.
Funnily enough, Robocop is easily my most played character out of the 3 new characters. I prefer the second tournament variation that is mainly zoning focused, but also gives him a flamethrower. This flamethrower has huge plus frames on hit allowing for plenty throw and strike mix-ups. While Robocop may be a zoner, he is still one of the most fun I have had in a long time. I still am sticking with my mains though, which are Jax and Spawn.
Gone With The Wind
If Liu Kang is inspired by Bruce Lee movies, Fujin is inspired by Chow Yun-Fat. With being the God of Wind it would make sense that he is one of the most graceful kombantant in Mortal Kombat 11. He is like a character right out of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Walking on air and flying across the screen while swinging with his sword is a beautiful sight.
Fujin is considered one of the harder characters to use, combo-wise. He requires a lot of strict timing and cancels. And his main tornado launcher special can only combo on the later frames. It is complicated to explain, but he does require a bit of work to get used to compared to others.
His fatalities and fatal blow could be better, but Fujin seems like an all-around great character. He has great tools and pokes. He has good combo damage and krushing blows are easy enough to get. Fujin feels balanced and perfect for Mortal Kombat 11 and it is a glorious return for the wind god.
Stomp The Yard
Sheeva plays like a character from Mortal Kombat X. If you want tick throws on top of tick throws and crazy mix-ups, she will be the character for you. I haven’t played much with her in rank yet, but I still have played her a lot. Because Sheeva has so many mix-ups her damage isn’t huge by any means, but if the opponent keeps guessing wrong, their health will drain fast.
When I say plays like a Mortal Kombat X character, I mean she is all about being in the opponent’s face. You can play neutral with her, but her pokes aren’t great. She has a nice advancing shield swipe move that has great range and hits mid, but that is about it.
Also, her stomp is a noob stomper. Pun intended. Sheeva’s air stomp is easy to deal with in her 2nd and 3rd tournament variations. All you have to do is dash and walk and punish. A lot of casuals will simply get stomped on all game though. Her 1st variation modifies the stomp, allowing her to aim it, which makes it a giant guessing game.
Sheeva is incredible fun and fills the bruiser role within the kombat pack perfectly. If you like big characters with mix-ups and pure brute force, she is the perfect character for you.
Friendly and Deadly Ends
Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath also came with a free update, whether you bought the expansion or not. 4 new stages have been added, Dead Pool, The Soul Chamber, Kronika’s Keep, and Retrokade. Some stage fatalities have also been added with the update. Also, Friendships make a triumphant return. Friendships haven’t been seen since MK Trilogy. They are back and better than ever.
Augments have also had a complete rework. Augments are split into categories that can be put into any character. Each category serves as a specialty usually. For example, one category might only have offensive augments, defensive, and so on. Previously each augment had to be earned for each character taking a lot of time. Also, the elusive third augment slot has finally opened up after a year.
This slot affects the abilities of that specific character. For example, Scorpion’s demon dash can travel further. Some single projectiles will shoot multiple. I haven’t gotten many as I liked, they seem to be quite rare, I only have like 3 or 4.
Summary
In short, Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath is a great expansion to an already amazing game. The story, while short, is a lot of fun. All 3 characters are fun and are a great addition to the roster. However, I think the $40 price tag is a bit too high if you already bought the premium edition. You get 3 characters and a story expansion, everything else is free with the update. Not much for the price tag, but still a good expansion nonetheless.
Originally published at https://gamingnitemare.com on June 18, 2020.
