Top 10 Hardest Fights in Mortal Kombat

“Mortal Kombat” (1992)

The original “Mortal Kombat” is already a tough game with every character having a substantially limited moveset compared to later games. While Goro may have put just about every player through the wringer, the real challenge was Shang Tsung. The manipulative sorcerer not only came with his own unique moves like shooting flaming skulls, but also wielded the ability to morph into any one of the fighters featured in the game, Goro included. You basically had to work with what little you had against a swiss army knife.

“Mortal Kombat” (2011)

Simply accessing the secret fight against Noob Saibot is already a tall order in itself as you will have to first - hold a fight at The Temple, second - make sure Noob is in the background, and third - win the whole fight without blocking. What makes things more grueling is that MK9’s Noob Saibot has some of the most annoying special moves in the game. Expect him to relentlessly spam Ghostball, which disables your blocking, and Teleport Slam. So, don’t get frustrated if you don’t win in your first few attempts.

“Mortal Kombat: Deception” (2004)

This fight was just super unfair. The final fight against Onaga is such an arduous battle because of how much stress is weighed upon you. First, you have Onaga's ridiculous size that gives him a good amount of reach to land almost any hit on you. Then, there's the requirement of navigating around the arena to smash each Kamidogou, which our Dragon King will often try to camp around. But the worst part is that if you and Onaga are spaced out far enough on either end, you cannot progress any further until one of you closes the gap. It is a doable fight, but it's an aggravating one.

“Mortal Kombat” (2011)

Jade is another one of the four secret fights you can discover in MK9, and if you played the game back when it was poppin’, you know why most players picked Jade as their main. That staff had some insane reach, allowing her to pop off some absurd combos from a comfortable distance. So, you can almost imagine how spammy the AI can get with strings knowing some of the tactics developers use when designing boss fights. If you want to experience this yourself, simply get a double Flawless Victory against Shang Tsung and perform a finishing move on him. Good luck!

“Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance” (2002)

With both sorcerer and necromancer serving as bosses in this game, it was hard deciding between the two. Besides, it isn’t exactly them that make their fights hard; it’s more or less the “Deadly Alliance” itself. Look, we understand that a lot of new concepts were being explored with the hardware in the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube. However, the controls feel a bit rigid, making it hard to execute decent combos. Couple this with both of their long-reaching weapons and projectiles, and “Deadly Alliance” is a tough game to want to finish.

“Mortal Kombat” (2011)

So, this is a secret fight that most folks label as a glitch, but given the game’s acknowledgement and change of color palettes for Sonya, we can’t help but feel this was intentional. Assuming you’ve fought Sonya and triggered the secret fight against Reptile, you can back out to the character select to restart the fight. This time, the secret fight will trigger immediately, but you will fight a green-haired Sonya, and she is a beast. We all know how strong Sonya’s strings were in MK9; you might wind up asking the game when you can have a go as she’s kicking you mercilessly.

“Mortal Kombat II” (1993)

Of course we had to put Shao Kahn on here. The big bully has widely been known as one of the hardest bosses in fighting games. However, we’re separating his original fight from his MK9 fight for reasons you’ll see later. In MK2, though, he was pure harassment. Magic spears, shoulder tackles, the high-damaging kicks - it was all just irritating to no end. Your only hope of beating him was to wait for a window to sucker-punch him while he’s taunting you. Otherwise, you’re going down in three to five hits.

“Mortal Kombat 11” (2019)

We’ll save our spiel on why Kronika is the worst villain in the franchise for another day, but looking at her from a pure gameplay perspective, she’s definitely one of the hardest. We’re not just saying that because she can control time either. Her hitboxes often feel out of whack, and the amount of time she can keep you immobile in some attacks is ludicrous. On top of that, she is not affected by Fatal Blows, grabs, Krushing Blows, and pop-ups, meaning you have no chance of juggling her like any other character in MK11.

“Mortal Kombat” (2011)

Kintaro was hard as hell in “Mortal Kombat II”, but he’s even harder in the 2011 reboot. In case you’ve never faced off against this rejected Frosted Flakes mascot, just think Goro but with the ability to spit fireballs. And if he manages to grab you with his X-Ray, you can kiss most of your health bar goodbye. Oh, and he can negate whatever knockback or stun some attacks can inflict thanks to his armor. Good luck putting this kitty down and coming out fine.

“Mortal Kombat” (2011)

What you have here is the most grueling, oppressive set of fights ever to exist in the "Mortal Kombat" franchise. Challenge #300 sees you fighting Goro, Kintaro, Mileena, and Shao Kahn using one fighter with the same health bar across each battle. Making things worse is the fact that each of them is at the top of their game. The AI here will rush you down with each character, and considering three of them have armor to negate almost any stun or knockback, you will feel like you're ramming your head into a wall. And what do you get upon beating this obscenely unfair challenge? You get a costume for Mileena where she's wearing the bare minimum amount of bandages to cover up.

Which foe gave you the beating of a lifetime? Let us know down in the comments.