Mortal Kombat X – Kano Impressions

NetherRealm Studios announced Mortal Kombat X at E3 this year, and since that time the development studio has been steadily announcing new characters. So far the game includes returning favorites Sub-Zero, Scorpion and Raiden, with newcomers D’Vorah, Cassie Cage, Ferra/Torr and Kotal Kahn. Each character sports three fighting styles to not only bring more variety to battles, but also give fans a different to play characters who have been in the series for 20 years.

The most recent character reveal in Mortai Kombat X is Kano. The classic villain returns for yet another romp with death, but this time he’s a bit older. Don’t worry, his old age won’t slow him down at all. Kano is sporting new cybernetic upgrades that tie directly into his three fighting styles and allow him to keep up with the “younger” characters in the game. All of his old specials moves also make a return, including his knife projectile, straight cannonball and upward cannonball.

Kano’s first fighting style is Cutthroat, the cybernetic implant in his chest glows green and he gets a slight damage buff on his attacks. In addition, he gains a few unique knife attacks that give him greater combo potential. Most of the knife combos that are exclusive to this fighting style will require meter, but it’s a safe bet Kano will have more frame advantage and better knife setups in Cutthroat compared to his other two fighting styles.

The Cybernetic fighting style enhances Kano’s eye laser attacks and gives him various grenade attacks. Similar to his knife attacks, Kano can meter burn grenade attacks to give him more combo potential by launching the opponent into the air. The eye laser can be used as a quick and long-range anti-air attack, but when used to end combos, one of Kano’s eye laser attacks gives him enough frame advantage to follow with a safe jump-in attack and continue your offense. You’re sacrificing a bit of damage by ending your combo this way, but if you can capitalize off of the frame advantage you could easily end up with far more damage.

Kano’s most unique fighting style is Commando. In this fighting style Kano gains grapping attacks that may remind you of Jax from Mortal Kombat 9. He also has the ability to counter high and low attacks (with separate counters). This makes Kano deadly at close range. He can use his grapples to inflict serious damage, and you have to be careful when you attack to ensure you’re not countered. It’s unknown if these counters can be meter-burned, but it’s not out of the question that they could potentially lead to a full combo. Even if that’s not the case, both counters ground the opponent, giving you ample time to setup a few shenanigans as the opponent is waking up.

We don’t yet know how any total characters Mortal Kombat X will include, but the E3 demo we played had room for 24 characters on the select screen. There have even been rumors of guest characters such as Rorschach from Watchmen (another Warner Brothers property). The game doesn’t release until 2015, so there’s still plenty of time for more characters to be revealed. Keep a close eye on Prima Games for the latest info and breakdowns of each new character.