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How are the Difficulties in the "new" Mortal Kombat Trilogy?

Are they nearly unbeatable on easy, because the NPC reads your Controller Input, as it was in Mortal Kombat 2 for Example, or is it doable?

I am just not as good in Mortal Kombat and i just like to play some Rounds, Mortal Kombat 4 works perfectly for me in that Case.
But MK2 on the Mega Drive was just no Fun at all.
This question / problem has been solved by Patrol1985image
Unfortunately Mortal Kombat Trilogy, being an MK3 derivative, has the same AI as the previous games being ported from the arcade. This means that the difficulty you choose is not constant, but rather indicates "at which point the 'very hard' difficulty kicks in". And yes - the AI reads your inputs so in order to beat it you have to master some sort of a pattern which it has problems with and then repeat it ad nauseam.

I actually just conducted a test - I set the game to "very easy" in options and picked the "novice" tower. I won the first fight with double flawless victory. In the second fight the AI provided minimal resistance, so it wasn't flawless, but was still quite easy. The third fight I would label as "normal" and I wouldn't mind if the AI stayed at this level for the remainder of the tower... but in the fourth fight constant input reading kicked in and the AI absolutely destroyed me - but at least I caused it some damage. After the loss I picked the 'continue' option... and this time AI beat me with double flawless :)

So yes - I confirm that despite choosing "very easy" in options and picking the easiest tower, there will come a point where you're essentially fighting a "very hard" AI and have to know the patterns.

Obviously the patterns with some fighters are easier than others. For instance - you can pick Smoke (the robot), jump back with a kick, which nearly always makes the AI shoot its projectile, and then quickly perform the teleport followed by a spear and the basic combo to throw them to the other side of the screen... and then rinse and repeat for each and every other opponent.

Same with Noob Saibot - playing with him is generally easier than with others... and obviously picking boss characters, such as Shao Kahn, is also a good idea if you're looking for easy time with the game.

Lastly, remember that if you get defeated a number of times in a row (I don't know how many - around 10-15 I guess) the AI will eventually tone down its difficulty and let you through - but first you have to withstand the beating (unless you know the patterns with which to defeat the very hard AI).
Post edited August 16, 2022 by Patrol1985
Here's a few tricks for getting over the super hard AI. I learned these on UMK3 and they seem to mostly still work.

NOTE THAT THESE ARE SPECIFICALLY FOR THE HARDEST AI SETTING WHICH OCCURS AT DIFFERENT TIMES ON ANY GIVEN TOWER (Ex. It occurs on the 4th fight and every non-boss fight thereafter of the Novice Tower)

#1 - Play as Sindel: Sindel's scream move is sort of overpowered compared to other opponent-stunning moves because interrupting the scream itself doesn't necessarily interrupt the effect. Additionally, if you wait until you're close enough to your opponent before performing the scream, they will almost always try to counter you by throwing their projectile, but most aren't fast enough to actually fire it off before the scream waves take them, even if they do, you'll take the hit but they'll still get caught in the waves. Sindel's generally who I use when I just need to get past somebody. These moves might be less effective against the "Retro" characters since they behave a bit differently that the UMK3 characters.

#2 - Ninja Low-Punch Spam: This move works against any male Ninja but ironically doesn't work if you're ALSO a male Ninja. When a Ninja character gets close to you, such as running in for a combo, just spam the low punch button over and over again. Like most characters, they'll try to counter by doing a sweep kick but for whatever reason, the Ninjas get hit by every alternate punch when you spam the low punch button, because instead of backing off, they just keep trying for that low kick, and since only every other punch hits them, they never stumble-backward like they would if getting hit by the full barrage. NOTE: This works every time in UMK3 but I've yet to test it in Trilogy.

#3 - Ducking Low-Punch Trick: Again, this works with/against a lot of characters but not with/against all. That's why it's important to have a plan B or C in any given match. Anyway: When you've got your opponent down, run over to them before they rise, and duck then throw a low punch. The AI will almost certainly try to jump over your head and hit a drop kick. Quickly hit them with an uppercut, then run over to them before they can get up, and repeat the process as long as you can. This doesn't always work if you're fighting a character whose drop kick comes in at a lower angle, or if your character is particularly tall.

#4 - Sweep Kick : A lot of the time the AI will charge at you just after getting attacked. Get a feel for when this is likely to occur and you can often catch them in many consecutive sweep kicks. Here's how: When they're charging at you, if you perform the sweep kick early enough (Usually just as they start to run so it's better to kind of 'know' they're gonna do it, which is easier than it sounds when you get used to their behavior) the AI will run right into the kick because you did it too early for it to detect that it needs to dodge it, yet by the time they reach you, they'll get hit with it. Then, IMMEDIATELY do another sweep kick. They'll often jump backwards to get away from you and much of the time, when they land, they'll charge at you again, so throw another sweep kick just after they land, and if they do charge, they'll get hit with it just like they did before, and if they don't, you're still probably fine since they'll just hang back, allowing you to recover. This is one of those tricks you don't even realize you're learning until you're an expert at it.

There's also a number of tricks you can use against specific opponents (Such as jumping over Striker's grenade) but for now I'll just stick with these since they work against many opponents.

I credit these tricks with me having the port of UMK3 on the Nintendo DS, which I played the hell out of in bed and thus, every time I rage quit but was too lazy to get up, I'd just go right back to playing. After a thousand or two matches or so, you start to notice some things.
From the first five games (Mortal Kombat 1-3, UMK 3, Trilogy), only the first one is doable without too much trouble. With the second one, the AI became cheap and constantly reading your controller layout, like the people here pointed out already. The normal Mortal Kombat 3 is a little more forgiveable, but with UMK 3, they will kick your ass harder than you can actually plan your next move. Trilogy is based on UMK 3 and it inherits the AI of UMK 3. So it is brutal and cheap.

Still, I've managed to clear a tower (the second one, I think it's Novice) once again after so many years that have passed since the last time I've played Trilogy. Started, of course, on "Very Easy" but I'll be serious, there isn't much of a difference if you start a game on the first three difficulty settings. Cleared the first fights with Sub-Zero, when they AI became cheap, I also became cheap and picked one of the bosses from the bottom row of the roster. For Shao Kahn at the end I've picked Liu Kang and whacked him with his lower Fireballs. That trick always worked. Sub-Zeros Ice is also effective, but it takes more time than Liu Kangs Fireballs.

I will surely try the trick with Sindels scream next time.
Post edited August 16, 2022 by QueenZeppelin
avatar
QueenZeppelin: From the first five games (Mortal Kombat 1-3, UMK 3, Trilogy), only the first one is doable without too much trouble. With the second one, the AI became cheap and constantly reading your controller layout, like the people here pointed out already. The normal Mortal Kombat 3 is a little more forgiveable, but with UMK 3, they will kick your ass harder than you can actually plan your next move. Trilogy is based on UMK 3 and it inherits the AI of UMK 3. So it is brutal and cheap.

Still, I've managed to clear a tower (the second one, I think it's Novice) once again after so many years that have passed since the last time I've played Trilogy. Started, of course, on "Very Easy" but I'll be serious, there isn't much of a difference if you start a game on the first three difficulty settings. Cleared the first fights with Sub-Zero, when they AI became cheap, I also became cheap and picked one of the bosses from the bottom row of the roster. For Shao Kahn at the end I've picked Liu Kang and whacked him with his lower Fireballs. That trick always worked. Sub-Zeros Ice is also effective, but it takes more time than Liu Kangs Fireballs.

I will surely try the trick with Sindels scream next time.
You know, it's funny, even though Liu Kang is my UMK3 main (Sindel's a tad too easy once you've got the hang of that scream thing) it never occurred to me to just inundate Kahn with low fireballs, even though, yes, that would logically work great on him. My trick for Kahn is a lot simpler yet harder as it's more about flawless timing - once I got him down on the ground the first time (Usually by waiting for him to try a shadow-knee and uppercutting him out of the air), I would just simply run over to him and hit another uppercut at the precise moment that he got to his feet and started to do a move, and I would do this repeatedly, until he was beaten. It's really tricky though because if you throw the uppercut too early, he'll block it, and if you throw it too late, he'll hit you with the move. Kahn ALWAYS responds to being downed by immediately hitting one of his moves, IE doing a wake-up move, so with a lot of practice you can just repeatedly hit those uppercuts on him in that brief space of time between when he starts to do the move and before it actually hits.

However in Trilogy this is a LOT less reliable because they added those grappling moves to Kahn's arsenal, where he grabs and slams you or grabs and punches you, and those moves seem to fire off almost instantly, so if he tries one of those when he rises, and he often will since you're so close to him while doing this uppercut trick, he'll probably successfully hit you. That said, when I played through the Novice tower earlier today the uppercut trick did still eventually work but it was a lot more luck based, hoping for a streak where his wake-up move would be a kick or punch instead of a grapple.
Just an observation:
Was watching the old Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins film and noticed narrator's line about Shang Tsung saying: "It was as if he could look into the man's thoughts and read what he could do next". Which sounded very much like a nod to a AI input reading for me (=

Here's that snippet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXNBO-9EOGI&t=39s