The challenge it presents is frustrating but rewarding when you’re unable to land a combo or counter a nasty move, you know it’s on you-not janky controls. Like the game before it, “Mortal Kombat 11” fighting centers on focus, control, and timing nailing all three without being distracted by the gruesome nature of the game is a challenge. New abilities are exciting to learn, and perfecting old moves is rewarding.

There’s so much in “Mortal Kombat 11’s” fighting, with plenty of complexity to focus on. If you think too hard about your own teeth being crushed by a fist’s impact, you’re not going to want to play this game for too long. It’s a different experience than with a film the horror of a murder scene will pass, but “Mortal Kombat 11” is about experiencing that over and over again. (The characters do show some damage in “Mortal Kombat 11”, with increasing blood stains or gouged out body parts-even so far as just sweat building on characters’ faces.) But the dissociation is essential in simply being able to watch the gruesome “crushing blows” or “fatalities” over and over again.

Plenty of times, Johnny Cage will get sawed in half just to jump right up to continue fighting. It’s not only because the game requires a suspension of belief in how characters survive, despite otherwise unsurvivable circumstances. To play “Mortal Kombat 11,” which is available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch, it’s necessary to remove any sort of humanity from the game.

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