I am a huge fan of MK, especially since MK II, and it is frustrating to see how this franchise has turned into FIFA: it's the same game as the previous one, with a few changes here and there, and that's it. Of course everyone is ranting about WB charging for silly, unnecessary fatalities. And I even felt pity when someone did that fatality on me cause I felt really sad thinking "poor guy, he has spent 10 dollars, he has to do it". But I really want to address gameplay and balancing:

- When almost EVERYONE you play against online uses the SAME character (Johnny Cage) and with the SAME kameo it gets tiring. This also happened with the mass of Scorpions in MK 11. It seems like everyone chooses the character/kameo combination with the longest combos just to win, or at least they watch who the pros play with, copy their combos and do the same thing. If everyone decides to choose the best character, with the best strategy, then that is actually bad design: barely no one uses Tanya, Sindel, Rain, Ashrah or Kung Lao. If they choose the other characters, prepare to see the same combo over and over again. There were lots of times that I won against Johnny Cage players, or Raiden, or Baraka/Cyrax, but it didn't feel rewarding at all to win in those cases: it made me feel exhausted, and not wanting to go through the same ordeal again

- Netcode works REALLY bad: my character (mainly Sindel) kept doing things online which I specifically haven't asked, making me doubt that my controller wasn't working correctly or that I was not pressing the right buttons. But then I realized that when the ping was lower, I was able to play correctly. And I didn't have those issues when practicing or playing the towers

- Kameos are a lazy Tag system that is poorly balanced. They had a similar kameo system in the Towers of Time in MK 11 and for some reason they thought it would be a good idea, but nothing is better than tag combat as in MK 9: the combos were limited and you could tag whenever you want if you wanted to change your strategy. I feel like this is like having some extra special moves added to your own character. It doesn't even make sense story-wise

- Combos are VERY repetitive and extremely long and boring: it's annoying for both players to wait for the other to finish their 20 hits combo, to make a mistake and then see the exact same combo. Instead of making players be creative, it restricts everyone to choose the best strategy and use that same thing each time. Also, the animations in some cases are so long that they affect the dynamics of the combat itself: you have to wait for the other to see a combo or for the fatal blow to end to keep playing, as if you are watching a cinematic. I think they should include a system like "Maximum Damage" from MK 4, limit the amount of hits or damage per combo, add systems like stamina or maybe increase the difficulty of extending a combo after a certain time.

- There are no rewards for taking major risks during battles: it seems that if you make a mistake, you are bound to see a minute-long combo while realizing that your meter is slowly increasing. You can only break from a combo after your meter is full, but that will happen after the combo ends. So am I supposed to carefully control my meter and not use it to enhance special moves? I thought I didn't like the two-meter system from MK11, but seeing this I realize that it was much better as it separated attack and defense. Also, the meter fill rate should be higher after a certain number of hits. It seems like the game is made not to let the other play, but to play alone.

Overall, I loved it and played a lot, probably due to nostalgia and fanaticism, but the gameplay imbalance, with the addition of bugs, poor ping, bad netcode and lousy monetization and economy decisions (I lost count of how many currencies you can manage in the play, and how some are really unnecessary and inflationary) make me not recommend MK 1, at least until they fix it properly. When that day comes, I will reinstall it for sure.