"would you like to enable screen reader" option immediately on startup, is not screen reader enabled.

I don't remember which was the default but I can foresee this being an issue if they don't fix it pre-launch

better accessibility options otherwise though, there's descriptive audio for cinematics now

CONTROL SETTINGS I CAN TURN RELEASE CHECK OFF THANK GOD

OOH you can manually adjust game sfx for things you might need. Hit/block sounds, footsteps/cloth movement, vocalization, you can reduce environmental noise to 0 and keep everything else, etc.

there's extra audio feedback available for distance from opponent, health thresholds, hitting the stage corner, whether someone's ducking or blocking or not, unique sounds for mid/overhead/low hit types... (I don't need audio accessibility but I might turn this one on for the sake of learning through play since I can't lab long)

they're going all-out for the visually impaired players this installment (or anyone else extra audio cues would help), this is very cool!

okay, starting with a tower on very easy as a pseudo-training mode

I'm not being very effective at training

I'm impressed with the AI though

even Very Easy knows to always confirm into Fatal Blow and how to do armored reversals

Johnny comes with an audience that cheers for him when he wins and boos or laughs at him when he loses

voice lines have been added to certain special moves

end result

Johnny: loses to combo ending in ice slide
Sub-Zero: "Are you hibernating?"
Audience: laughs

stole his audience!

also Sub can't stop cracking bad ice puns! even the stress test had "Ice to beat you", which I haven't heard yet. I hope it's still in

TEAM CRYOMANCER

causing water/temperature damage to all Johnny's shit

Johnny's audience will also laugh at the opponent if they get hit by his sunglasses toss. Closest thing to a projectile he's got but it's such short range it's not really a zoning tool, just a combo ender/resource build

have now heard "ice to beat you" - it probably has a reduced appearance rate for being the single corniest line he's got

had a wonderful long set I forgot to record!

I saved the last half hour of it at least...

new corny round end line discovered: "Under the weather?"

Aggressive, abrasive, overzealous, dad joke humor.

Bi-Han, what am I going to do with you

the man's the messiest menace around, undead or alive!

but god. I won all of twice??

and both me and the opponent just kept hitting rematch immediately

I think I got better at doing the blender/strike-throw thing! I'm used to a more defensive/reactive playstyle, and NEITHER of my definite mains do this. I mean Sub can but he's not very good at it. Might be okay at it with Kano, but Frost's lack of ambush moves basically means she's a set of cancelable specials

more AI observations, after clearing the tower on Very Hard - the main factor difficulty plays is frequency and quality of execution. Very Easy doesn't typically just stand there for long, unlike previous games, though notably longer than higher difficulties. Very Hard feels more like a real fight, except for repetitions of a few unlikely mistakes

(Liu Kang continuously did his aerial fireball when I showed no signs of jumping. Free uppercut? Don't mind if I do!)

But for the most part harder difficulties:
-Attack more often
-Punish your unsafe actions more consistently
-Perform longer combos when they do hit
-Block and Flawless Block more efficiently

It did not feel like my inputs were being read

All difficulties
-Confirm into Fatal Blow, though they may sometimes try to hit you with a raw one if you're blocking incorrectly for theirs
-Will use armored reversals to get out of your pressure and break combos if they can
-Punish unsafe actions when successfully blocked

in previous titles it wasn't uncommon for Very Easy to just be a glorified punching bag that maybe threw a punch now and then so this is interesting.

omg the background NPCs in the teahouse stage will run and cower behind the furniture if a Brutality happens

(and presumably a Quitality but I was fighting CPU here)

they are perfectly content to remain very close to a brutal, bloody fight otherwise (aside from one lady close to the fightline who starts scooting her chair back early in the round and the one staff member who pauses for a second then turns and runs)

shoutout to the lady at what I assume are Outworld docks who stands there scolding the fighters for carrying on (she has no voice lines), gesturing angrily back at the other citizens behind her as if to say "there are innocents here! Children! What is wrong with you!?"

which is really funny because in the right circumstances she could be scolding
-one or both princesses of the realm (possibly the empress if Sindel is in)
-the First Constable of the Sun Do
-the leader of the royal bodyguards
-actual celestial beings

Actually I wonder if she will behave differently if any of Outworlds esteemed factions are in the fight...

the workers in the Outworld plaza stage or whatever in MKX would stop what they were doing and bow to Kotal Kahn as he passed if he was one of the fighters.

god this game is so fun, I can't wait for launch

after a win I barely squeaked out. (Kenshi on Very Hard is fun!) No character damage, at least in this build. But I assure you most if not all of that blood is his own

or if it isn't it should be, because that was one hard-won fight

(there is SOME degree of blood splattering onto the attacking fighter, otherwise Frost would be totally clean)

and here I tried to capture the subtitles for the “ice to beat you” line but all I got was Sub-Zero and his pretty particle effect

you can see the round was close since the FB indicator hadn't vanished yet