Mortal Kombat 11 Switch Test

By Mitchell Saltzman

At the fundamental level, the Switch port of Mortal Kombat 11 is quite correct. It operates at a relatively constant frame rate of 60 frames per second, both in docked mode and in portable mode. (almost) all the modes present in the Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC versions are counted; and although a ton of visual sacrifices have been made to make it work with Nintendo's much less powerful hardware, few, if any, of them affect real combat gameplay. That being said, there are many absolutely confusing differences between the Switch version and its more powerful brothers, resulting in a port that is in many ways better than expected, but at the same time worse than expected.

Before diving, be sure to read my review of Mortal Kombat 11 for console versions to get an idea of ​​what's best, because this review will focus on the technical differences between these and the version. of Switch.

The Switch version was co-developed by Netherrealm and Shiver Entertainment, and we really feel that something has been lost in the translation. Krypt offers very different prices on its treasure chests, each check costing a ridiculous amount of coins compared to other versions. We must take advantage of the already fragile economy of the game in Mortal Kombat 11 and make it even more crazy.

The graphics in general seem worse, but even at its basic level, Mortal Kombat 11 is an absolutely beautiful game, many of which come out in the Switch version. It operates at an almost constant rate of 60 frames per second; the character models look great, although a little fuzzy; and the stellar artistic design stands out even on the much less powerful material. Instead of the characters, the most important sacrifices for the visual elements were mainly related to the appearance of the scenes. The environments have a low-resolution appearance, with muddy textures and extremely basic light effects. In addition, Krypt looks like an absolute mess, with the fog of the PlayStation One and its total absence of skybox.

Beyond pure appearances, character-specific tutorials are missing (there is a placeholder that says "Coming Soon"), movements that can make a Krushing Blow have their requirements excluded from the launch list for whatever reason, the tournament mode and the ranking are missing, the tournament variants being simply replaced by a generic variant simply indicating "Default".

Of all the main modes of Mortal Kombat 11, it is the Story mode that is best reflected in Switch mode, but even in this case, it is not so nice. The transition from cinematic quality to gameplay is overwhelming because of the sudden shift in character model and texture quality. Then, the transition between gameplay and cinematic is almost always followed by a substantial acceleration of the video rate for a few moments.

This is the condition "always online" that particularly hits the Switch version. An attractive aspect of Mortal Kombat 11 on the Switch is the ability to play it at any time, but as many of its tent modes are only playable online, playing outside the wifi range seems particularly blocked. Without a stable online connection, you absolutely can not play both Towers of Time and Krypt, the two modes needed to get the currency needed to unlock the huge safe of skins, coins and coins. Equipment, death and brutality of Mortal Kombat 11, and more. This is exactly the kind of thing I would like to do during a train ride.

When connected, online gaming via the Nintendo Online service is generally excellent, although it is significantly less fluid than on other platforms. The majority of games I've played have worked well, even in wifi, although a few have dropped dramatically in display frequency, which I have not experienced in other versions.