Mortal Kombat: Deception - Gameplay

Gameplay

The game's arenas are similar to those in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, but include new features such as unique weapons which players can use, and instant-death traps, which instantly kill a fighter who falls into them. The game also introduces the "Combo Breaker", a system which allows players to interrupt combos up to three times per match. In contrast to Deadly Alliance, in which characters had only one fatality finishing move, the Deception characters have two fatalities and a hara-kiri suicide move. The latter is used when the phrase "Finish Him/Her" is shown in the screen and the player is about to lose.

Deception introduces several minigames that use MK characters. Chess Kombat is a minigame similar to classical chess, but uses player-selected characters as pieces that must engage in fights to take a square. Some pieces have certain abilities, ranging from impersonating their opponents to instantly killing one of the opposing pieces. It also adds Puzzle Kombat, a puzzle game similar to Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo which features super deformed versions of the MK characters that attack each other once a player gains an advantage in the game.

The "Krypt" returns from Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, and serves as an interface to access extra content hidden in "Koffins". In Deception, the size of the Krypt was reduced from 676 Koffins to 400 Koffins. A new feature was the inclusion of Koffins that could only be opened through the use of keys that can be found in treasures chests from Konquest mode, or by defeating characters throughout the realms in the mode. Krypts in Mortal Kombat: Deception include 12 bonus characters while this was cut down to 6 characters in the GameCube version.

Deadly Alliance's RPG-style game called "Konquest" also appears in Deception. Deception's Konquest mode explores the history of Shujinko, starting prior to his training with Bo' Rai Cho and ending with the beginning of Deception's main story. While mostly an adventure game, the combat elements take place in the normal Deception fighting mode. In Konquest, Shujinko meets Damashi, a being who requests Shujinko's assistance in collect six powerful items, the Kamidogu, to send to the gods. By the time he collects the six Kamidogu, Shujinko is an old man, having spent forty years completing his mission. However, Damashi is then revealed to be the Dragon King Onaga, who deceived Shujinko to obtain the six Kamidogu. Players seeking to unlock much of the bonus content in Deception are required to play through the Konquest mode.