by far the best MK in the series and the best fighting game ive ever played
Konqest mode at first looked really stupid and pointless but it is a good way to get practice with different characters. It was also a good way to introduce a new character into MK Deception. In Konquest mode, you basically go around opening treasure chests unlocking stuff and getting coins where you can use to unlock stuff in the the "krypt" so you basically have to go through the konquest mode if you want all the characters and costumes etc. You play the role of Shujinko who is given the powers to take moves from characters you meet in konquest mode.
Chess kombat is pretty fun. Its normal chess with a twist. Each chess piece is a character of your choice. You can place traps, theres 2 powerup spots on the chess board and instead of taking people out by landing on the enemies square, you battle it out for the spot. Different characters have more or less power and more hit damage etc depending on how powerful the chess piece is. Theres also spells you can cast on the enemy or good spells that protect your own team.
Puzzle kombat is basically a rip off of that arcade street fighter puzzle game. Its basically a tetris like game except each character has their own special move that will mess up your oponent. This is also a pretty fun game on its own.
And of course theres the classic arcade battles where you can go against a person, the computer and theres also a practice mode. All of these modes are playable online (except practice mode of course). Online matches are fairly smooth unless you play someone which a bad connection otherwise its fairly smooth. Online play is like a 24/7 ladder match where theres constantly people fighting eachother to gain rank.
There are total 12 unlockable characters and 24 total. Each character has an unlockable costume giving them a total of 2 per character. Each character also has 2 fatalities and a hara-kiri which is if you lose, you are able to kill yourself before the oponent can do their finishing move. The new character, Shujinko has no moves until you unlock them during the Konquest mode. As soon as you finish the konquest mode, there are little ying yang things you can pick up which is a move for shujinko that you unlock. This includes fatalities and hara kiris. Each character has their own unique combos and special moves. Combos are very important in MK deception. You can also do combo breakers by pressing the block button and towards the oponent.
The graphics in MK Deception are pretty impressive. The stages are very well done and although the characters have a plastic look to them, they still look pretty good. The animations are very well done and the fatalities are bloody and nice and gory. It would have been nice to have actual movie endings but instead they have still images with text and a narirator telling the ending of the character you finish the game with.
Overall, MK Deception is a solid fighting game. Theres TONS of stuff to do and being online, it has LOTS of replay value. It also has a free demo of midways upcoming first person shooter "Area 51". Although its short, it looks like a decent FPS. MK Deception is a very technical fighting game. Theres so much stradegy involved in fighting especially online where there are very good players. MK Deception is the first fighting game ive bought in a while and it was well worth the $60.