NetherRealm Studios is bringing Mortal Kombat to PlayStation Vita and the portable version is based on Mortal Kombat: Komplete Edition. You get all of the downloadable characters (Skarlet, Kenshi, Rain, and Freddy Krueger) plus PlayStation exclusive guest Kratos and all of the downloadable costumes.
So, what’s new? When I played Mortal Kombat on Vita I tried a Fruit Ninja style challenge game called Test Your Slice. This challenge has players swipe a finger to cut skulls and torsos, but watch out for bombs. If you touch three of those and you’ll fail the challenge. NetherRealm also added Test Your Balance, a tilt control mini-game where you have to keep a fighter from falling into the pit. The first level is a walk in the park. As long as you don’t swing the Vita around, but later levels force players to lean towards the edge while body parts try to push you over into a piranha tank.
Mortal Kombat for PlayStation Vita also has over 100 new missions to clear in the Challenge Tower mode. Some of these utilize the touch screen like a mission where you have to defeat Baraka while wiping blood from the screen so you can see the fight. Rubbing away blood restores your health, so the missions wasn’t difficult to complete and a team member at NetherRealm explained the blood wiping gimmick is only in the Challenge Tower. Another mission put me in control of Raiden and his head ballooned during the fight. I had to tap his head to stop it from exploding while stringing together combos. The touch screen super meter (tap it to do an enhanced special move or an X-ray attack) came in handy here.
After winning an ad-hoc fight, I asked more questions about the fighting system and if anything had changed. I was told Mortal Kombat for Vita will be rebalanced compared to complete Komplete Edition, but NetherRealm Studios wouldn’t say how this version is tweaked because they want players to discover differences instead.
Mortal Kombat comes out for PlayStation Vita for May 2.
