NetherRealm Studios was on-hand at the 2014 Evolution Fighting Game Championships this past weekend in Las Vegas, NV. Just after crowing the Injustice: Gods Among Us champion, Ed Boon took the microphone to show off the Raiden announcement trailer for Mortal Kombat X. While Raiden retains a familiar look and feel, he has quite a bit of variety between his three fighting styles, so let’s take a closer look at each one.
Just like every other character in Mortal Kombat X, Raiden has a few universal special moves that he can use no matter which fighting style you choose to play with. At the moment, these special moves are his Superman (Torpedo) special that works on the ground or in the air, and his electricity projectile. Other than these special moves, his three fighting styles vary quite a bit.
The first fighting style that was shown off is the Thunder God style. In this fighting style Raiden gains access to numerous combos that end with electrocution attacks. We don’t have a lot of details about what makes these attacks differ from Raiden’s normal attacks, but it’s assumed that he can dish out more damage than normal when compared to the other fighting styles.
Many of his attacks knock the opponent across the screen, and Raiden can freeze a lightning projectile in the middle of the screen, setting a strap for an opponent. If the opponent hits the projectile, Raiden can follow with a combo. The projectile can be used as an anti-air attack, or as a setup to knock an opponent into the trap, then combo after it.
Raiden’s second fighting style is Displacer. This fighting style makes heavy use of Raiden’s ability to teleport. We don’t see Raiden use a traditional teleport in the other two fighting styles, but it’s not yet confirmed whether or not the normal teleport is limited to the Displacer style.
In Displacer Raiden can is not limited to teleporting directly in front of or behind an opponent like in previous games. Instead, he can teleport to different parts of the screen and even delay his reappearance to keep an opponent guessing. Most of his combos in Displacer look very similar to his flashy teleport combos from Mortal Kombat 9.
The last fighting style for Raiden is called Storm Lord. In his fighting style Raiden uses a plethora or lightning traps. The traps are somewhat similar to the single from his Thunder God style. However, he can setup several traps at various points around the stage, then link any two traps with a destructive strand of electricity.
For example, Raiden puts one trap just above his head, and another trap directly in front of him. When he connects the two traps with lightning, an opponent can’t jump toward Raiden until the lightning dissipates. If they do jump, they’ll be caught in the lightning and Raiden has plenty of time to follow with an additional attack or combo.
So far it looks as though Raiden plays similar to his classic self, but with a lot of new strategies and tricks layered on top of that. Raiden players from Mortal Kombat 9 will havea good basis to start from, but it’s definitely going to take some time to figure out all of the intricacies in his three fighting styles.
Stay tuned to Prima Games as we bring you more information on Mortal Kombat X in the coming weeks and months.
