To me, the game feels like Borderlands textures meet the cartoon styles of Fleischer (Inkwell) and Disney Animation Studios. While the game has puzzle mechanics where you have to flip levers and switches to find items and the next open door reminding me a bit of the puzzle you would find in Portal. There is a lot of backtracking in the first few chapters that started to get old quick though was easy enough to breeze right through. I did get lost a few times trying to find a few switches and when I watched an old walkthrough I found out how much the game had changed from the earlier releases. 

One thing that I found out that some of the gameplay was different for me then it was when I finally found a walkthrough for the Nintendo Switch. I don't know if it was a bug or the game was made that way, but I really enjoyed the unique experience. The game still has some bugs to work out. Though it's way less buggy than Fallout 76, I found that I either had to restart or die to get the game to progress. Rooster Teeth sent me an email saying they are fixing known bugs, so there should be a patch sent out soon after they stop playing Super Smash Bros Ultimate.

You play as Henry Stein, a retired animator who used to work at Joey Drew Studios who returns after an invitation from his old friend and employer Joey Drew. To me, Joey seems to be a Walt Disney type visionary, and Henry is Walt’s old friend and partner Ub Iwerks. As you look around you find something called the Titular Ink Machine. While looking for items to turn the machine on you find a real-life Boris (Goofy type). Not knowing why Joey did this, you find tape recordings of Joey and the employees have been partaking in occult practices.

Though why bring these characters to life at all? You later find out that Joey’s investors were not happy with the studio and a new theme park. To bring something new to the amusement park landscape Joey wants to bring their mascot, Bendy, the dancing demon, and all of his friends to life with a brand new invention called Titular Ink Machine from the Gent Corp. Thomas Connor of Gent tells Joey that these creatures are soulless. Joey replies that he has thousands of souls to occupy the bodies. One of these people is desperate voice actress Susie Campbell. Joey tells her she will bring Alice Angle back to life once again after she takes part in Joeys "small project".

To me, this sounds like how Disney really runs things. Finding young talent promising the world, then, in the end, you’ll sell your soul and become something ugly you don't even recognize. I don't know if theMeatly and Mike Mood had the parallels in mind for the story. Though they really know how to bring my nightmares to life.

I really like some of the Easter eggs they have in the game. Benny's eyes are Pac-Man, there are times where Joey reminds me of Cave Johnson the CEO of Aperture Science in the Portal series. 

"Ok, let's stop it right there. I can only do so many takes of this trash a day. And tell the guys in writing I want more use of the word dreaming in every message. Keep railing on that, get it? Dreaming! Dreaming! Dreaming! People just eat up that kind of slop. Hmm What? It's still on? Well, turn it off, damn it!". - Joey Drew

Wally the janitor finds a big chocolate cake sitting in a chair. Yet another Portal node. I bet there's more that I didn't realize, so comment below on more. Another cool Easter egg is the posters you see on the walls are fan art that they put in the game, along with music created by fans. This is a first for me to see such community involvement in a game outside of it being crowd funded.

This was definitely one of the better first person games I played this year. If you're looking for something different to play this holiday season, Bendy is a good 6-10 hours of gameplay with new tools and a bonus level to play after the first go around. I have it for my Nintendo Switch. So it's great for those night time road trips. 

Though I did get a few borderline indie/triple-A games like Payday 2. I also bought Street Fighter II’ Ultra. Besides that most of the games I played was indie games. The first game that comes to mind is InnerSpace from Aspyer who put out the Layer of Fear port for mobile VR. It was great to see them getting in the Switch market though they only put out one other game besides this 360 sphere glider game.

I played it for a good month and I couldn't get past the second or third level. The controls are simple though kind of hard to line up to for opening places. Being 360 it was hard for me to know if I was right side up or upside down at some points. So without trying to get to many headaches, I had to put this game aside. Though if this is your type of game InnerSpace is the game for you.

I remember the first time I played a Nintendo 64 at my next door neighbor's. My favorite game was Wave Racer 64, so getting one of my favorite mobile games Riptide GP Renegade ported to the Switch, I was super excited. It is the best Jet Ski on the Switch with so many tracks, crazy customization to yourself and your wave racer. I really love this game and play it once a month or so. The controls have a learning curve to them but once you get the hang of them you will be a first place champion.

As you remember, one of my favorite games from last year was Layers of Fear. This winter I got a special surprise with the Legacy edition which has only game out for the Switch. The game is the original PC game along with the Inheritance DLC. This game is a great game to play on trips or under your covers when it is cold outside. The controls are very smooth and translate well from what I would think a PC setup would be. Sadly this is one of the few horror games I played though I think it's one of the top 5 ones you should check out beside the Outlast series (which I still have yet to play) and Bendy (which I reviewed a few weeks ago).

One of my favorite YouTube content creators is The Video Game Historian. One day his mini-documentary on Tetris popped up on my home page and I after I watched it I watched everything he ever put out. I learned a lot about Nintendo. Things I didn't realize as a kid, like how Nintendo versions of violent games were censored, unlike the Sega Genesis versions. So when I saw that games like South Park: Fractured But Whole and Payday 2 were coming to this year-old handheld console I was shocked. I couldn't believe I could play online with someone to rob a bank or escape from the cops. Though the one thing that blew my mind was not the bloody violence. It was the mission where I was making meth. I was freaking Breaking Bad on a Nintendo. I'm sorry South Park, as much fun I had playing this great RPG game and being a White Hispanic trans goth male with time traveling farts. Making meth is the craziest thing I've ever seen Nintendo let happen. That and the mini-game controls are near to impossible to do with one hand.

After getting my mind blown with mature rated Triple-A titles I wanted to just relax with a nice story adventure game. I found that escape with Night in the Woods. I game that now that I think of it was another horror game hidden in a great story about finding yourself, while facing your fears and reconnecting to the community you thought once abandoned you. This game is yet another Kickstarter success story, and I'm so thankful for Finji porting this great game that takes you into a very adult Busy World of Richard Scarry story to the Switch. I loved the interactions with the people in the town along with the cute hack n slash dungeon crawler mini-game you could lose yourself in. Along with the bass hero mini-game I could never master, but loved anyway. I played this off and on for months till I finally beat it. This is one of those games that feels like an interactive story, which it really is just that. Another game like this OxenFree, I am super stoked for Afterparty this year. These are my two picks for story based games.

Top-down shooters have been a staple in video games ever since Asteroids. Flowing the game mechanics of the classics, publisher 10tons brings us the follow up to their smash hit Time Recoil with Tesla vs Lovecraft. You play as one of the founders of the modern age Nikola Tesla defending his city against H.P Lovecraft’s monsters. After beating Hotline Miami I thought I had the hang of the genre. Well I was wrong you have hoards of monsters you have to kill to move on and with a fixed control scheme, it is hard to try and get to the next level. Though the game is fun and has a great fantasy ravelry storyline, I'm not very good at the game. This is a great rage game too, just don't break anything.

Speaking of games I'm not good at that I thought I would be, Is one of many love letters to Yero Miyamoto and his beloved Legend of Zelda. The game Hyper Light Drifter, a beautiful pixel art game where you are the drifter, with a sword in one hand and a gun in the other. Along with a teleport action that sometimes goes in the wrong way, or maybe I just am not good at this game. Yeah, I'm not good at it. I've had the game for 4 months and i still can't beat the first boss. This and The Messenger have been showing me that I'm not good at certain video games.

2018 was the year we started seeing mobile games such as Chameleon Run, Fallout Shelter, and Friday The 13th: Killer Puzzles. We also saw a game like Death Road to Canada adding the Switch to its console domination. One part Oregon Trail to one part zombie survival game. I've only play this on my phone so it was nice to use a controller. I think it is a great fit to the Switch along with Don't Starve. It was packed with both Reign of Giants and Shipwrecked DLC content. Though the one thing I was bummed out about was Keli not putting out Don't Starve: Together. My guess is they kinda knew the online service from Nintendo was going to be trash.

The one redeeming thing Keli did to make it up for not putting that out was Mark of the Ninja: Remastered. I love stealth games and I super love Mark of the Ninja. It's up there with my love of Dishonored. I freaked out when i saw this in the Direct. It was the only game i cared about. It is amazing, so amazing that it was used in a holiday Nindies commercial Nintendo made. It was a great surprise just like Drinkbox Studios dropping Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition in the same fashion Eminem did with Kamikaze.

There are so many hidden gems in the eShop you could just miss a 1 or 100. One I missed out on was Horizon Chase Turbo, a homage to classic 16-bit racers that defined a generation of high-speed and frenetic arcade fun like Out Run and Top Gear. This game is super fun though it does have some downfalls. The first thing that takes away from the experience is that every time you play the game you have to re-input your preferred control settings. The second is some of the cars are worse the than the ones you already have. If you're wondering why the game looks like a mobile game, it’s because it’s Horizon Chase - World Tour, a mobile race game from 2015. Though the game handles better with a controller. The touch screen controls is very primitive. After playing the mobile version for 10 mins or so, I do like what they did with the console version. Though it just still has some small issues that could be fixed with patch. We’ll see what’s on the horizon in 2019.

There has been a few classic PC games that have made their way to the best selling console of the year. We got Another World and Flashback. Both games that were genre changing games for their time. I played Flashback and had a lot of fun. It's great seeing these games on the Switch. I hope there are some long time gamers showing these young gamers how great a great adventure platformer can be. Another game that I really fell in love with was Desert Child. It was not made back in the 90s, though it sure feels like could of been on put out by U.S. Gold for the Amiga home computer. You play as a hover bike racer trying to make your way to the big race on Mars. Once you've won enough races to pay for your ticket to the red planet you find yourself doing odd jobs as a pizza delivery boy, kango wrangler, and bounty hunter. You also get involved doing some shady things including throwing races, hacking banks, and breaking public property. The game is really fun with keeping you occupied with making sure you're making the money for the entry fee to the big race. Along with being fed, and keeping up bike maintenance, you also have to watch out for the cops. Yeah if you steal to many bike parts to help you when races, the cops will be on your back. I never out ran them, though I heard you could. Just make sure your money is in the bank, if not you'll lose whatever you have on you. It took a few run-ins for me to start putting money in the back after becoming an ODB. The more clean cuts you are you’re labeled as such, going from Kenny G, LL Cool J to ODB. I beat the game in a few days. Though with getting stuck with one gun the whole game and a new baseball jersey with every new playthrough, the game has great replay value. It's way more fun than Fallout 76, but a lot of games for $15 are. With a great feel and homage to Cowboy Bebop, Desert Child ends 2018 right.

I did buy Smash Bros Ultimate. It took me a week to open all the characters. This is the first Smash Bros. game I ever got. Even though I did buy Brawlout earlier this year. The one thing I don't like about Smash is for me I have a hard time turning around. I have to press left or right three or four times. So I feel like I don't have the best experience I could have fighting sometimes. I am pretty good with a few people and can beat some beginners. Though I don't know if I'll ever master the fighting game. 

With being a new Switch owner and not been on the Nintendo bandwagon since the Wii and 3DS. I needed guidance, and I found it with a few YouTube content creators that have a love for this new hybrid system called the Nintendo Switch. My all-time favorite is Arlo, a muppet who is a casual Nintendo fan like myself. I really like his point on games. The games he was really excited about are the games I spent full price on. Even though I should have waited for the holiday sale. I really enjoyed Alex over at NintendoLife. They have some great content on their channel. The Screen junkies of video games is Spawn Wave. With some great gaming news, sales numbers, and showing the inner workings of gaming hardware is something I came to really enjoy this year. As always my favorite all around YouTube gaming content creator is my dude Dyan R. aka Yub. He does a lot of game play videos, did a ton of Splatoon 2 live streams on Twitch, along with keeping meme culture alive with the internet's favorite show Check'n The Yub Reddit. Yub gained over 100,000 followers this year despite 2 major threats to his channel two weeks after making YouTube his full time job.

The publisher of the year goes to Raw Fury. Putting out such games as Dandara, Bad North, and Kingdom Two Crowns. They may not have the most indie ports this year, though we know quality over quantity is the best way to go. I'm really excited for Night Call later this year.

I want to thank Novogamer for letting me have this platform to talk about video games. I also want to thank all the devs and publishers who gave me key and codes to play these games. Thank you to the readers for reading my articles. If you have a Switch always check out eShop for great games and sales.

The latest in the Super Mario Bros series is New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe. The game is both New Super Mario Bros U and New Super Luigi U from Nintendo's Wii U system, now combined for the Nintendo Switch. I haven't played a platform Mario game since Super Mario Land 2 and Super Mario Run. That is what NSMBU Deluxe reminds me of the best and worst Super Mario Bros games put together to make an Ok game. It's not game changing like Mario Bros games from the past. Super Mario Bros 1 helped popularized the platforming genre. Super Mario 3 gave us a way to reply levels and a new structure of gameplay. Super Mario 64 gave us our first open world to the universe that led to some of the best sandbox games we have ever played. The mod community forced Nintendo to create the best Mario game of them all, Super Mario Maker.

Though we are not here to talk about that amazing game, we are talking about a port of a Super Mario Bros game from one of Nintendo's most disappointing console next to the Virtual Boy. NSMBU Deluxe may be easy, this is the first time I've seen an option for an easy mode since Super Mario Land 2. A lot of people have talked about the controls and I couldn't agree more, unlike Super Smash Bros you can not remap these to your preference. Playing with one hand using the pro controller I found it kinda of hard to do things like getting a boost with the flying squirrel power. It was also tricky to do a butt breaker first try.

I know we are in 2019, though it is sad when retro looking indie games look better than a triple-A title like NSMBU Deluxe. I wish they gave us a downgrade option in the graphics to give it more of that classic look. To me, it just feels like Super Mario Run meets Super Mario Bros 2 for NES. The reason why I compare this to Super Mario Bros 2 for many reasons. It's the first time you have the option between different characters since Super Mario Bros 2. There are aspects of the game people love about it, along with dislikes. Though even if there is a love/hate relationship with Super Mario Bros 2, which I found out a few years ago was originally Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic (translated as Dream Factory: Heart-Pounding Panic and usually referred to as Doki Doki Panic) in Japan, and remade into Super Mario Bros 2. You'll always be pleasing the hardcore Mario fans. If you're really good at platformers this is a short experience with story mode.

(History of Super Mario Bros 2 by the Gaming Historian)

There is some ok level design in both Super Mario Bros 2 and NSMBU Deluxe. I feel NSMBU Deluxe will have the same fate as Super Mario Bros 2. It seems like RND took the worst parts of the Famicom Super Mario Bros 2 controls and tweaked them to be even worse for NSMBU Deluxe. Though there are some fun aspects to NSMBU Deluxe. The challenge mode is actually quite fun. It's a great break from the story mode. Though I don't know if it is enough to keep people playing. Like I said there are some great indie platformers that have a great balance and are expanding on the genre for a third of the cost of NSMBU Deluxe. You could get four or five indie titles for the same price as NSMBU Deluxe. Though if you are a lover of Super Mario, this game may be for you. For me, I'll play this off and on throughout the year, though I'm holding out for SNES ports to finally make their way to the Switch.

Like I said in the beginning, I have not played a platformer Super Mario game in a long time. I wanted to see what I was missing seeing I never owned a Wii U because I thought it was a waste of money for me because I could never play the gamepad with one hand. So Nintendo graciously sent me a copy to play. I just hope we see some really good stuff seeing January was not so good with first-party titles and delaying Metroid Prime 4 for a few more years. We believe in you Nintendo, you can do it!

The game evolved with every opening of a chest. From getting basic functions as being able to move to the graphics, colors, layers, and sound design updating in real time. I was so surprised this game was on my phone. Though it took me a while to beat it due to phones being stolen or broke. I finally beat the game.

While doing some research for this review I found out that Evoland was made during the Ludum Dare game jam, an online contest where developers attempt to build a game around a particular theme in just 48 hours. Ludum Dare 24’s theme was evolution. "Instead of doing a game where players can make things evolve, we thought that having the game itself evolve as you played would be a far more original approach," Shiro Games CEO Sebastien Vidal stated to The Verge back in 2013 about the idea behind the game that came from Shiro Games co-founder Nicolas Cannasse.

Evoland Classic ended up winning the competition (out of 1400 games) and quickly gathered a very dedicated and enthusiastic fan base, reaching over 300,000 players in the first few months after its release as a flash game. The success led the Shiro team to make a full game which doubled their dev team and took four months to finish something they could be proud of.

It was a true love letter to the RPG genre. Though it's short, 4-6 hours of gameplay. It made us fans want more, and in 2015 we got Evoland 2: A Slight Case of Spacetime Continuum Disorder. Then last year we finally got it for mobile in 2018. (I'm not sure why it took a whole year to get the game to the Nintendo Switch. I would have figured they would have just ported the PC/OS X version over to the Switch for their birthday last year.) The game promises over 20 hours of gameplay I have put in just over 12 hours and am on level 20. This time around the game does a tutorial in Game Boy green then goes into a Game Boy Color. The game’s story starts out in a similar storyline to The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. Where you are found by a villager in the woods and woken up by his daughter with no memory of who you are.

The story is an extension of the Evoland humans versus demons. In our second story we find that there has been a great war between the two. You find yourself saving the villager's daughter in the forest where you were found. After you save the daughter she joins you on your journey to find out who you are. This gives you a special ability where she uses her super sword move.

As you journey through the forest you stumble across three demons who are trying to activate an ancient artifact called the Magilith. The only way to activate the Magilith is to summon the forest guardian and harness it's Magi energy. Though the demons find out the guardian is more power than they thought, so it's up to you to defeat it before it makes its way to the village. Though after your victory the Magilith activates and sends you back time during the great war. This leads you on a whole other adventure of trying to get back to your original time. Though as you find out the Magilith always just sends you to another time. In each timeline you become friends with someone new that gives you a new special move. Even though this is a review I don't want to give away the plot to the whole story. I'll tell you this, you become friends with next to the demon thrown and an archaeologist who helps you along the way.

With each timeline comes a different graphics style. The time you start your adventure in is a classic 16-bits over the top layout, the past is an 8-bits over the top layout, and the future is 128-bits (PS 2) angled down layout. As the game goes on it becomes more then a love letter to RPGs. To get from a mountain top to the top of a pyramid the game becomes a top down airplane shooter. Once you get to the pyramid the boss fight is a tribute to Street Fighter II where you have the same moves as Ryu or Ken. In one level you have to play classic Atari games such as Space Invaders, Pac-Man, and Snake to name a few that opens the doors to the next room.

The controls are simple. There are only three buttons: action, jump, and special character swap. The physical buttons are way more intuitive than the touch screen ones. Though you can't remap them, but it still works play with one hand. The layout feel natural and I got through game faster by dying less.

If you can't wait for Link's Awakening and Dragon Quest XI S, or you just want something different in your RPG, give Evoland a try. It just might be the game that holds you over till the one you're waiting for comes out later this year.

Along with watching movies, I found myself playing video games in the same vein. I was introduced to them by my buddy Dylan who had become a YouTube gaming content creator. One of the games he made a series on was Layers of Fear from an indie studio called Bloober Team out of Poland.

If you didn't know the gaming industry is really big in Poland. So big in fact that the Prime Minister gave President Obama a copy of The Witcher II as a gift. Some of my favorite indie games like Layer of Fear, GoNNer, and Butcher have been ported to the Nintendo Switch are from Polish developers.

Bloober Team solidified themselves as a studio who could sit at the adult table with Layers of Fear. Now with Observer, there are talks that Bloober Team could be one of the studios to remake Silent Hill. That's only if Konami wants to follow the trend set by Capcom with the Resident Evil 2 remake.

Observer takes the theme of a futuristic Poland where cybernetic enhancements are a common medical practice after the last world war. You play as Observer detective Daniel Lazarski (voiced by Rutger Hauer of Blade Runner) who gets a strange call from his estranged son Adam. Like in most horror games taking place in one place. You find that Adam has been living in a rundown tenement building (which is a real building that one of the developers live) where drug and hologram addicts live.

(Screenshot taken from Nintendo Life's video on making the Observer)

You get yourself in Adam’s apartment, which has been ransacked. You find a body with its head cut off, which triggers a security shutdown to the building. Without being able to get a positive ID on the body Dan has to find a way to get out of  Adam’s apartment to find the killer. This starts the more core mechanics of the game. Opening and scanning everything you can, searching for clues, and hacking into keypads. Once you override the security system to the apartment you roam the halls trying to find a way out. Along the way, you have the opportunity to interview the other tenants.

With clues leading you to other dead bodies, you use your title as Observer to link into their memories to find out who and where the killer might be. Though linking up doesn't just give you access to the victims past, your past with Adam as a boy mixes in with those memories. The way these memories play out is where the horror and puzzle aspects of the game shines. With winding hallways, and puzzles where if you take the wrong turn you are back at where you started. Observer builds on what Bloop Team learned with Layers of Fear and ramped it to 11. This time around you have villains, the murderer and this rag doll monster that looks like something out of the movie 9 that you have to sneak by while trying to find an exit.

The story is well thought out. You have multiple people this time telling their side of how they either fought against Chiron (the mega-corporation that took over Poland and started the Fifth Polish Republic) or those who were apart their cybernetic experiments and the people who are addicted to drugs and/or holographic stimuli. If Layers of Fear deals in psychological horrors of a painter in the 1920s, Observer deals with the psychological choices made in a future where we can be anyone and have anything, though it may cost us our life.

That is the real horror about this game. That this fantasy could someday be our reality. This game may have been overlooked, but this game is just as brilliant as Detroit Become Human, and if you just own a Nintendo Switch longing for an immersive thought-provoking game, Observer is that game. This is already a cult classic, why not let us make it a critical success.

Acclaim also acquired an Austin Texas developer Iguana Entertainment. With the growing popularity of the first person shooter genre, Acclaim gave the team at Iguana a chance to turn Valiant's dinosaur Hunter into an FPS for Nintendo's upcoming home console the Nintendo 64. With a few months of delays Turok: Dinosaur Hunter was released to the North American market on March 4, 1997. The game paved the way for the FPS genre on the newest home console, selling 1.5 million copies and boosted sales of the N64.

After three sequels, one reboot, and three Gameboy games Nightdive Studios acquired the rights to the game and put out a remastered port of the N64 version on PC in 2015, then last year the studio ported the game to Xbox, now in 2019 Turok made its way back home to the Nintendo, and all I have to say is I want more N64.

Growing up my next door neighbor Ryan had the latest consoles so when he got the latest thing from Nintendo I was over at his house play the N64 after school, weekend and all summer long. I played Mario 64, Wave Racer and when Goldeneye 007 came out I tried to play it, though being disabled with only one good hand to use I couldn't due to the control layout itself and the mapping in the game. I wasn't able to play an FPS until I got a PlayStation.

So this is my first time playing a classic console FPS. Even though the game has retro graphics, primitive controls, and game play, I have been able to enjoy the game. I've enjoyed it so much I'd love to see more classics like Turok 2, Doom 64, and Quake on the Switch.

If you have never played Turok you play as a native American named Tal'Set, who is the protector of the barrier between Earth and the Lost Land. The Lost Land is a primitive world where time has no meaning, it's inhabited by a variety of creatures, from dinosaurs to aliens. Along with weapons from bows n arrows to staffs that shoot a lasers. 

The game is everything I'd want from an N64 port, mappable controls, cheat codes and a way to do away with the things like fog people complained about when the game was first released. Though we have to wait for the second game to get everyone's beloved multiplayer feature. Besides that, and no true save state to start the game where you left off, this is a great first N64 FPS port for the Switch. 

With this new budding relationship with Microsoft and Nintendo, we may be able to see a Perfect Dark port from Rare. Though Nightdive is the leader of the pack and they are not stopping with just one. I hope to see as many classic games they can get to bring back to life for us retro gaming fans. For $20 this is worth the price for this classic FPS. Pick it on the eShop or right here online.

I remember I had Mortal Kombat II on my Gameboy. I played it when we went to my grandparents every weekend. It was one of my favorite games of all time. I even bought the midway collection on my PSP Go just so I could have Mortal Kombat I-III. Now here we are in 2019 with 40+ fighting games on the Switch (though most of those are Neo Geo arcade classics) this is the first time we've seen Mortal Kombat on the system. I was stoked to play this new version of the game. I had played Mortal Kombat XL at my local arcade bar The Cidercade on a Japanese arcade machine that runs on Steam. I just fought the CPU or another person.

With the reveal of Mortal Kombat 11 I was happy to see it come to the Switch. Though this is not the Mortal Kombat of my adolescence. This is something different, this is something that at times triggers my anxiety and makes me very angry. That is what I want to talk about in this review/article. Mortal Kombat use to be a fun escape. Even if I lost I never really got mad. I lost that was it, just retry and move on.

Though with Mortal Kombat 11 there are reasons to win besides moving up the tower.  Now we have daily challenges like I've seen in the Mortal Kombat mobile game. If you complete these daily challenges you earn Kombat Koins that you use in what is called the Krypt. A Shaolin monk temple set up where you open chests for a chance to earn different outfits, soul stones, other kustomizable items, and concept art from the game just to name a few things. YouTuber Boogie2988 made a point about the how a company like Nintendo has stayed away from this microtransactions platform. (Yes there is a fighters pass for Smash Bros Ultimate, though it's only $25 compared to Mortal Kombat's $40 fighters pass.)

I waited to see how this port panned out seeing we didn't get any news on it till PAX East. The game had its downfalls, though it was nothing like we saw with Anthem or Fallout 76. Switch owners had to wait til the 1.0.4 patch to sync to their Mortal Kombat Mobile account. Did the NetherRealm team not do any quality control with Shiver Entertainment?

Even though there are moments of frustration with these non consumer friendly tactics, I love talking my Switch with me and play Mortal Kombat with other people in public. Win or lose I'm having a fun time. Though when I am playing online with other people and seeing how many times they've won and what my percentage is of winning the match I'm not having fun. I'm anxious and if I lose, I get upset, yelling obscenities to a person that can't hear me. I become very frustrated. I don't even get this upset losing at my weekly local Smash Bros tournament. There is something about the way things are set up that cause me to be overwhelmed and frustrated.

I'm not the only one that Mortal Kombat 11 has caused emotional stress either. An developer that was on the cinematic team told Joshua Riviera at Kotaku:  

“I’d have these extremely graphic dreams, very violent,” they told Kotaku in a call. “I kind of just stopped wanting to go to sleep, so I’d just keep myself awake for days at a time, to avoid sleeping.”

Eventually, the developer says they saw a therapist who diagnosed them with PTSD. They attribute this to their work on MK11—not just the content of the game and having to process and discuss its violent cinematics frame by frame, but also being surrounded by the reference materials artists used for research.”

Now with video game addiction being a mental disorder. There are talks about how these live service games are part of the problem. I have to agree the grind in these games are more than most RPGs I play. Though with public outcry NetherRealm has been coming out with 10+ GB patches for the game to make this grind not as taxing as it was at launch. Though PC players are one ones who are getting the updates first seeing it's the easiest platform to update. There are no approval process to go through like there are with the consoles.

I wonder if this digital age has made developers lazy in creating full gaming experiences. With gaming before consoles had a dedicated internet connection games had to be perfect. for the most part they were. Mortal Kombat 1-3 were complete games to me as an adolescent young man. Though I've read that some arcade MK2 and MK3 were sent out "unfinished", and ROM chips were sent out to machine owners to upgrade the games over time. Though were the arcades just as buggy as this new game? Is this standard practice of the NetherRealm team? What I do know is that Mortal Kombat has slowly become inaccessible for me as an abled gamer.

I entered my first Mortal Kombat 11 tournament at Dreamhack Dallas, and what I found out is that the button layouts are not universal. I thought I would do good seeing I could press in the left joystick for block. Though the PS4 version of the game you don't have that option. So I spent hours relearning the controls after I've had muscle memory started to sit in playing the game on the Switch. Though I had some help from Houston Esports pro Handy Savage showing me some new tricks with tournament layouts, seeing I've been playing with casual player layouts.

There is also no option to hold the back button to block like you can in Injustice 2 either. Though I understand there are different game mechanics between the two games, but it would be nice. My hope is that NetherRealm with make a patch where I can hold either joystick down for block or hold back. Though the sad truth is that accessibility for abled gamers are not a high priority for NetherRealm. I'll just have to relearn how to play this game that is a rollercoaster of emotions.