A little extra muscle is a good thing to have around.

As you defeat enemies you’ll gain experience. This experience can then be traded in for new moves, combos, and fatalities. However, environmental kills will not earn you any experience. This is strange as the environment kills are the most entertaining and they take a little planning and work to pull off, so it’s unclear as to why the game provides an active deterrent to performing them.

Shaolin Monks is one of those games that’s fun in short doses, but whose repetitive nature really comes to light during longer gaming sessions. Even with the extensive combo system, button mashing works pretty well on its own. The juggling attack is also a bit too powerful and you can simply bounce around enemies like volleyballs without too much difficulty. There’s also a fair amount of backtracking in the game, perhaps as a way to hide the fact that the game is on the short side of things. I found myself really enjoying the game for a bit, and then suddenly looking for one of the sparse save points with ever increasing anxiety. I’d then come back to it later and begin to enjoy it again. It’s just one of those types of game…

The game pays a lot of tribute to previous games in the series, and is thus a treat for most die hard fans of the Mortal Kombat games. As a casual fan I noticed many of the references, but I’m sure that there are plenty more for those who have played every MK game to come along and can actually keep the series’ mythology straight. Even if you don’t fit into that category, you’ll probably derive some enjoyment from Shaolin Monk’s over-the-top fighting. Call it a guilty pleasure and have some fun with it for a little while, but don’t expect it to eat up your gameplay hours for very long.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 80%. MK fans will rate Shaolin Monks a fatality – others will find it surprisingly fun in short doses.

« Page 1 of 2