Hands On: Mortal Kombat Skarlet DLC

Skarlet, Mortal Kombat’s first downloadable kombatant, is now available on the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live. As an added bonus, classic costumes for Cyrax and Sektor are available as a free download.

Skarlet’s primary gimmick is blood. You’ll see her dematerialize into puddles of blood for her fatality, leave trails of blood when she slides, and she can even throw balls of blood at the opponent by cutting herself (she loses a small amount health in the process). What’s neat is that you can change the direction of the blood balls to confuse your opponent. It’s a relatively slow projectile, so it’s not something you’ll be using often. Her X-ray acts as an overhead attack which is likely to catch people off guard. It’s relatively weak and pretty easy to combo into.

I immediately noticed that Skarlet has a bit of a zoning game. Her standing projectile throws two daggers at the opponent. You can even delay the second dagger from being thrown by holding the button down. This will make her a little less predictable from full screen. Her air projectile can be thrown straight across the screen or at downward angle to hit opponents from a close range. Her enhanced air projectile actually throws three daggers in three different directions. It seems like it could be a useful tool in some situations.

Like many characters, Skarlet has a teleport attack. It can be done on the ground, in the air, and you can cancel it off normal attacks. Her teleport is pretty fast and it seems like some characters will have a difficult time punishing the move on block. It’s difficult to properly test this on my own since MK9’s practice mode is missing some basic functionality.

She also has a dash special attack. The dash can be turned into a slide for a quick low attack or you can use it to do a fast Up Slash or Down Slash. The dash is a very useful tool because you can cancel many of your normal attacks into it, leading to new combo possibilities. You’ll find yourself using this move quite frequently during juggles.

Most of Skarlet’s day one combos seem relatively easy to do and deal a good amount of damage. For instance, you can do the following combo for 41% damage:

j1, b2 ~ db2, dash, b2 ~ db2, dash, 2 ~ df2, dash, 1 ~ df1

If that doesn’t make any sense to you, don’t worry, it’s actually not as complicated as it looks. The notations are merely abbreviations of actions. Front punch is 1, back punch is 2, front kick is 3, back kick is 4. If you see the letter “j” that just means it’s a jumping attack. The letter “b” stands for pressing back on the directional pad or stick. If you see something like “db2” that just means you press down, back, back punch (or triangle if you’re using default controls on the PS3). The “~” signifies that you’re doing a 2in1. Basically you’re cancelling your normal attack into a special attack.

Alternatively, here’s the notation using MK9 style buttons thanks to this nifty website:

Here’s another easy combo that can do 33% damage:

j1,f2,1,2,1+2,~df3,~f2,~dash, f3 ~ df1

You can follow up that combo by doing other attacks after the dash. There’s plenty of room for exploration. As a Sindel user I’m tempted to make Skarlet my secondary character. I’m liking her quite a bit.

NetherRealm Studios did give Skarlet a proper ending in Arcade mode. However, I couldn’t figure out how to unlock her second costume. Every character in the game, except for Cyber Sub-Zero, has at least two costumes (even Kratos). I tried beating Ladder mode as Skarlet and that didn’t do anything. It’s not available in the Krypt either. Maybe she just doesn’t have one.

All in all, Skarlet is worth the $4.99 (400 MS Points). She’s definitely a fun character to play as and it seems like she has some real potential. The latest episode of the MKast should give you an idea of what she’s like. Be sure to check it out.