#1091 Mortal Kombat Deception (PS2) Hidden Characters (4/11): Raiden playthrough.
0A playthrough of the hidden character Raiden in the PS2 version of Midway’s/Netherrealm’s Mortal Kombat Deception.
Back in Deadly Alliance, I had two major complaints about Raiden; 1. He couldn’t teleport and, 2. He didn’t have his torpedo move. What did this game do? They only went and finally implemented them, of course. With the addition of these two moves, Raiden’s moveset definitely feels a lot more defined and unique than it was before. As a trade-off, he’s lost his shoulder charge attack, but that’s perfectly fine as his torpedo more or less replaces that. Oh, and his teleportation even teleports behind the opponent. If only he had Kenshi’s katana, too.
In Deadly Alliance’s story, Raiden actually dies at the hands of Shang Tsung and Quan Chi. When the Deadly Alliance themselves accidentally release Onaga, the Dragon King’s abilities also end up reviving Raiden as a result, however as a result of Onaga’s influence he ends up becoming corrupted and vengeful as a result. Due to this, MKDA Raiden is usually referred to as Light Raiden, whereas this version of him is usually referred to as Dark Raiden, as a result of his corrupted persona.
I didn’t have a ton of fun with Raiden here though, if I'm being honest. The thing that bugged me the most is that the input timing for his staff combos was changed considerably, and is so inconsistent in terms of execution that it was infuriating. Then there were his fatalities, which I attempted to use at various points but never could do as this game reintroduced the bullshit “sweep” and “far” pre-requisites to many of them, turning them into an extremely tedious experience again. Then there’s the fact that the CPU might steal your thunder by performing a Hara-kiri on themselves, and then you begin to start seeing where the cracks in this game are. Deception is bizarre in the way that it’s a great game in many ways, but also extremely flawed and unpolished in others. In some ways Raiden is really great, particularly with the number of knock-back moves he can use to knock the opponent towards the end of the arena. His inputs seemed really inconsistent on the whole however, and as the AI really starts to block special moves in the latter part of the game it means relying on his combos, which I found to be lacking. Not a bad character by any means, and I actually quite like the direction they went with him in this game, but he still feels a bit flawed to me.
Another thing I mentioned a while back is that there are invisible cooldowns for abilities in this game. This is particularly apparent with Raiden’s teleport, where you can’t use it again a few seconds after performing it.
On the whole, I didn’t have a ton of fun with Raiden here. But hey, maybe I’ll have more fun with the other one.
Next up, another returning character from Deadly Alliance.
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