This game has an excellent story line, and I don't mind the retro 2-D fighting style. However, this game is ruined by terrible controls. The pressing a button to change directions is annoying, but I could live with that with practice. The fighting was choppy, but even that is forgivable for me, for I am accustomed to old games like the original Mortal Kombat, an old favorite of mine.
I cannot, however, get over the extreme difficulty of jumping from ledges. He jumps merely by pressing up on the control pad, and that is so easy to do accidentally. I have fallen to my death too many times when I either had no intention of jumping or was unable to jump when I needed to. Unfortunately, jumping from ledges is nearly half the darn game. So, half of it is ruined. With the easy difficulty, I was able to have a lot of lives, I think something like 12, plus 6 continues I believe it was.
It's a real shame it is. So much thought put into a brilliant story line, pretty good music and sound, tough, well designed enemies, like the Air elemental guard. But it is all ruined by the difficulty of the controls, especially in the air level. Nearly the entire air level was jumping from ledges and such. I, however, was so impressed by the potential of this game that I would recommend they try again. Make a new version for Nintendo Game Cube perhaps and work out the flaws. Maybe even switch to a 3-d fighting style. Oh, and am I the only one who thinks this would make a great movie? So, I gave it 4 out of 10. I got some enjoyment out of it, getting a far as when Sub-Zero meets Raiden and goes to the Nether region (or whatever it was). Unfortunately, you can't go farther on the easy difficulty, and you can't get that far on the harder difficulties because you don't have enough lives to keep falling to your death over and over and over. Sub-Zero's echoing yell is tattooed to my brain.
