#1195

A playthrough of the hidden character Shang Tsung in the GBA port of Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance.

MKDA for the GBA is one of those surprisingly good games. So good that they did it twice as, due to having to drop a bunch of characters, they ended up essentially splitting the game between this and Tournament Edition, which we’ll cover afterwards.

Both games are, well, I mean, just look at the contrast between this and MK4. This is an early GBA title and it looks pretty damn good, plays great, and is honestly quite a bit accomplishment for the era. It’s a bit novel for most people to go back to nowadays unless you have any real nostalgia for it, but it is a solid game, and that shouldn’t be forgotten.

One of the core things I really like about it though (surprisingly) is that Shang Tsung and Quan Chi are hidden here, like they should have been in the original MKDA. Kinda funny for a portable port to correct something like that, but we saw the same for MK4 so maybe it’s not too surprising. This means of course there’s no Moloch but, hey, no great loss, and it’s nice to see these guys actually have their boss status here. Indeed, it feels particularly good too as Shang Tsung has the ability to transform into basically anyone, which would have made him being playable from the beginning seem a bit overpowered. Which, of course, it still kinda is, but it makes for a better boss at least. Personally to me, it makes him a bit finicky to use (as usual), but it’s still a good thing on the whole and it made for a decently fun playthrough.

Up next, the other half of the Deadly Alliance.