Should I Buy Mortal Kombat 1 on Nintendo Switch?

Mortal Kombat 1 is here, and it’s great if you’re playing it on a new-gen console. But on a Nintendo Switch? There are more than a few issues, and if you poke around on X (formerly Twitter) you’ll find plenty of people complaining about their experience. So just how bad is it? Should you buy Mortal Kombat 1 on Nintendo Switch or give it a miss? I’ve got the answer.

What’s Wrong With Mortal Kombat 1 on the Nintendo Switch?

Mortal Kombat 1’s character models have been heavily criticized. On a big screen, the characters look washed out, no matter how you meddle with the game’s brightness. On top of that, they’re poorly detailed compared to the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X | S versions, with some seriously limited facial expressions and a special line in staring eyes.

You might be thinking, “Well, what did you expect?” But Mortal Kombat 11’s models are superior, possibly because there’s less of a performance drop between the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch. It’s less noticeable when you’re playing the game undocked but even then, every now and again you’ll register how off the characters look.

But there’s more. The game also suffers from graphical glitches, such as the one I’ve pasted below. Objects sometimes get stuck in mid-air, Reptile’s lower jaw clips through his skin, that kind of thing. And while the launch patch has made the game run a little smoother, I still ran into slowdown and the occasional stutter.

On top of that, while it’s not a glitch as such, you can’t play MK1’s Invasion mode offline, nor can you earn Tower rewards offline. So, if you’re playing in handheld mode in a place without internet, all the Tower progress you make will be lost. Plus, if you are going to take Mortal Kombat 1 on the move, you’ll need to download 29GB of data before you can play with all the characters. It appears that the lion’s share of the game is not on the cart.

Do those issues make the game unplayable? Not entirely, but there’s another reason I’ve shelved my Nintendo Switch copy of Mortal Kombat 1. The loading times are absolutely dire — you can wait for up to a minute between matches. That might not seem like a lot, but when you factor in how many fights you’ll get into playing Tower mode, it really adds up. There’s also an awkward pause, even longer than usual, when you execute a Fatality.

The one exception is the story mode (which uses pre-rendered cutscenes). I’m assuming that’s because the game begins to load the next pre-determined fight in the background, but even just firing the game up can result in a lot of annoying pauses. And do you want to spend $70 just for the story mode?

Should You Buy MK1 on the Nintendo Switch?

Right now? No. According to the BBC’s Newsbeat, Ed Boon has said that the game will be fixed. The loading times, certainly, need addressing, as do the graphical glitches. But there’s no word of the price being dropped. Because for a $70 game, this is a pretty poor show.

The answer, then, as to whether should you buy Mortal Kombat 1 on the Nintendo Switch is, for now, no. Give it a month or two to see if the issues are fixed. And in the meantime? If you’re kraving some Nintendo Switch Mortal Kombat, you can pick up a physical copy of MK11 for less than half the price of the new game.