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Mortal Kombat: Kenshi DLC Trailer Analysis - News

by VGChartz Staff , posted on 28 June 2011 / 5,047 Views

The DLC Trailer for Mortal Kombat 9's new DLC character, Kenshi, has just landed, and it contains a lot of juicy (or bloody) gameplay footage. Let's dig deeper.



Kenshi in Deadly Alliance and onward felt very much like the series veteran Ermac, just given a new facelift. When Ed Boone, series co-creator, talked about including him, I was wary. The original appeal for him over Ermac was his his fighting style giving him a sword, which added to the range he had in close quarters and could overcome blocking. I didn't see it working with the new MK9, since Ermac basically carried the 'telekinetic' flag by himself, and overcoming blocks has been gone since they dropped weapon styles in MK vs DC.

Luckily, I was 100% wrong. They really went back to formula with him. Ermac's abilities rely on pushing, pulling, and throws. Kenshi is a telekinetic, and he relies on long-range invisible punches. Many times during the trailer he makes a motion with his hand, and a ghost duplicate of him punches or kicks at a distance. Noob Saibot's abilities work similarly, but they mostly rely on 'throwing' his duplicate and getting one good quick hit or throw in, like his sweep. Kenshi is all about combo potential at a distance.

If I were to guess, I'd say the combo is pre-set for 'in front of' the opponent depending on their position. You can see this when he does a two-hit combo on Sonya, then a five-hit Enhanced TK combo a second later that's almost at point blank range. He does a ghost sword-slash a second later that's close as well. His TK sword slash up also has lift, which is a nice extender for combos, and Enhancing it gives it a slash down and is a two-hit. He also has a shoulder-ram, which looks to be just a nice push-away ability, and enhancing it adds an extra sword slash.

Most of his combos seem fairly fast, but they aren't as extensive as, say, Kung Lao, who can best be compared to a blender. His katana attacks give him much more range, and the one combo we can see in the video even has popup properties. What surprises me is he has a projectile-bouncing attack with his sword, which is for use with ranged attacks like Sub-Zero's iceball or Sonya's blaster. If I remember right this wasn't an ability he had, and it sounds like he had difficulties with projectiles in playtesting, so it was added to his repitore. His X-Ray even gets a demo, which has a stunningly long range, but is fairly slow. The demo shows it off with a neat trick of bouncing a projectile and then following it up with the katana, which keeps them stunned in time for it. 

Kenshi is slated for July 5th, but given its difficulties with the Skarlet DLC, this might be a troubled release.


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4 Comments
Seece (on 02 July 2011)

I seriously can't wait - WiseOwl, they made this AFTER the game shipped, so why should it be in the game?

  • 0
WiseOwl (on 30 June 2011)

I will pass on that DLC. They sould have been in the game.

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