There are two glaring and major flaws with Deadly Alliance. The first is simple and could (should) have been avoided: No Joystick Support. The Cube controller is designed with the traditional pad as more of an afterthought, plenty of games don't use it, or relegate it to the equivalent of menu-hotkeys. It's front and center in a game where fluid quarter-circles are part of nearly every character's special moves. The second is a bit more difficult to grasp, at first. The problem is that this installment in the MK series isn't a big enough step foreward, it's not keeping pace within it's genre. The 3-D movement is difficult and an afterthought, at best. The combos are fluid, but sometimes obscenely difficult to execute. The multiple-stance engine could have worked to the developer's advantage with more variance and simply more moves. Instead, it feels more like a blatent attempt at Soul Edge/Calibur franchise mimicry. We added stances to have weapons, essentially. Everyone sword or knife weilding charater has the exact same set of moves, high, low, sweeping, etc. And more than half of them have an "impale" move, which removes their weapon stance by burying it in an opponent, slowly draining life. There are stance shifting combos, but because stance shifts are L, they're nigh impossible to execute, because the button isn't registered as an attack, it has what feels like lower priority.

It's a pain to fight in this system.

The frills are what pulls this out of the toilet, however. The two mini-games in Arcade mode are simple, but well done. Then there's the Konquest mode, which has 10 missions for each character, over 200 in sum. It helps get a grasp for what the characters can do, and even, on occasion, highlights combos not in the moves list. There's also Kurrency, which you earn in both Arcade and Conquest, and use to open Koffins in the Krypt (K?). These contain sketches, arenas, outfits, etc etc. The outfits are all fanservice, regardless of your gender.

It's not a solid staple fighter, but fans will enjoy the nostalgia, and the, essentially, 2-d nature of it.

Overall Game Score: 3.0

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