#1170 Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks (PS2) Bosses (15/15): Ermac gameplay

Channel:

AdmiralMcFish - Bosses and Hidden Characters

Subscribers:

9,040

Published on January 11, 2021 9:38:44 AM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnvuxkGL9aY

Game:

Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks (2005)

Category:

Let's Play

Duration: 6:25

1,724 views

0

Gameplay of the boss Ermac in Midway/Netherrealm’s Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks.

Ermac’s moves:
• Square: Auto-combo
• Triangle: Uppercut (Infinite!)
• Circle: Knock-Back attack
• R1+Square: [Same as Square]
• R1+Triangle: [Same as Triangle]
• R1+Circle: [Same as Circle]
• Square+Triangle: Telekinetic Slam
• Triangle+Circle: Teleport Punch
• Circle+Square: Projectile
• R2: Force Pull
• L1: Glitched Teleport Punch

Goddamn. The best secret of the entire game, the MK team, mad lads that they are, actually decided to go ahead and implement a hidden Ermac battle. And even it takes place in the statues stage from MK1, and incorporates the statues as enemies! It’s ridiculously badass, and it impresses me as much now as it did back then. If you thought Shaolin Monks was already an overload of fanservice, this part was certainly the tipping point.

Unlike many of the bosses, Ermac absolutely rocks in human hands. It helps that his moves are really good, but they also seem to link into one another better than most. His uppercut is an infinite, and can be used on down enemies, meaning that it’s a great follow-up to his telekinetic slam or force pull attacks. His telekinetic slam not only deals a ton of damage to opponent, but can affect multiple enemies at once. Likewise, his force pull attack hits the opponent twice, hits multiple opponents, and knocks them down pulling drawing in them close so you can then follow-up with an uppercut or two, making it a crowd-control move and a set-up for an infinite at the same time! His projectile is pretty good, his teleport punch attacks come in handy in tighter situations, and even his combo is pretty decent for just getting a few extra hits. The only problem with most of his attacks is that, if they miss, they’ll leave him wide open for punishment. As a result, his telekinetic slam is a bit of a risk/reward move, as it deals the most damage if it hits but also leaves him relatively vulnerable, making it often safer to use the force pull attack as the delay is shorter, seems to affect a group of opponents more consistently, and often allows you to uppercut them all at once. Speaking of, his uppercut is one of my favourites as he actually moves forward while he doesn’t, closing the distance to the opponent every time in the process, and making for a ridiculous easy infinite as a result.

On the whole, this just makes Ermac absolutely brilliant. A playthrough with him, quite frankly, is probably entirely doable, and I’m actually quite tempted to do one myself. He was a great inclusion here by Netherrealm, and a testament to that is how well he plays even controlled by a human. On the whole, a great way to end the coverage of the bosses.

Not done yet, however, as we still need to look at both the unplayable characters, and the regular hidden characters. The NPCs will be up next, starting with everyone’s favourite patriotic cyborg.

Here’s an interesting tidbit. There are actually two values for Ermac in the game’s data; one for his boss form, and another one which completely lacks a move set. This value just so happens to be in the range of the game’s unlockable characters. Could it be that, at one point, the MK team was actually planning to make Ermac an unlockable character of some kind? This certainly suggests that.

That’s it for them bosses. Up next, the unplayables.

Other Statistics