Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks

What items and locations get randomized?

Items

• Red Koins (68)
• Movement abilities:
  • Long Jump
  • Fist of Ruin
  • Wall Climb
  • Wall Run
  • Wall Jump
  • Double Jump
  • Swing
• Progressive health upgrades (4)
• Progressive Blood bar upgrades (3)
• The final boss arena health pickup (the one from beating Kano)
• 1000 EXP (filler)

Optional (configure in options)

• If Shopsanity is on:
  • Progressive special move upgrades (amount depends on character)
  • Combos (amount depends on character)
• If Lock Special Moves is on:
  • Another set of progressive special move upgrades (one per move to unlock each one)
• If Randomize tournament victories is on:
  • Tournament victories (5)
• If Mana Upgrades is on:
  • Progressive mana upgrade (4)
• If Portal Start is on:
  • Wu-Shi access (without the item the bridge to Wu-Shi from the Portal won't appear)

Locations

• Collecting a Red Koin
• Collecting a health upgrade
• Beating a boss
• Collecting a medallion

Optional (configure in options)

• If Shopsanity is on:
  • Purchasing an upgrade using EXP
• If Fatalitysanity is on:
  • Performing each one of your character's finishing moves
• If Smoke Missions is on:
  • Completing a Smoke mission

What is the goal of this game?

There are two possible goals to enable, at least one goal needs to be enabled to generate a seed.

Boss goal

Defeat a set amount of bosses to clear the goal. You can configure in the options which bosses are needed to complete the goal.

Red Koin goal

There are 68 Red Koin items shuffled in the item pool. The goal is to find a set amount of them. You can configure in the options what percent of them are needed for goal.

Options

You can use the Options Creator in the Archipelago launcher to customize the options. You can press the random button in the creator to randomize an option instead of picking one.

Character

The character you will play as in the run.

Choices are:

• liu_kang
• kung_lao
• sub_zero
• scorpion
• baraka
• kitana
• reptile
• johnny_cage

The game will force the character picked to be your in-game character.

That means you don't need to unlock Scorpion and Sub-Zero before picking them.

The VS mode exclusive characters are also available, but due to how they work they always start with fully upgraded special moves and combos, except for the R2 special move.
You can still purchase upgrades in the shop with VS characters if Shopsanity is on.

If Lock Special Moves is on you will first need to get a progressive special move upgrade to use that special move.
That is for both story and VS characters.

For some characters some Red Koins, specifically from shooting a projectile, are impossible to obtain. Therefore, the game will spawn those Red Koins without needing to shoot a projectile.

Red Koin goal percent

What percent of the 68 Red Koins are needed for goal.

Choice is a number from 0 to 100, for example:

• 0 means collecting Red Koins is not required to complete the run, and they will become filler items.
• 80 (default) means you need 54/68 koins to complete the goal.
• 100 means you need all 68 Red Koins to complete the goal.

Sometimes when some extra location settings are disabled, there isn't enough room in the pool for all 68 koins.
There is a tracker in the pause menu that shows current amount / needed for goal / total in the pool.

Boss Goal

What bosses are needed to be defeated for goal.

Choices are:

• no_bosses - no bosses are needed for the goal, only collecting enough Red Koins.
• shao_kahn_only (default) - only the final boss of the game is needed for the goal.
• main_bosses - all main bosses are needed for the goal, including the final boss.
• main_and_secret_bosses - all main and secret bosses are needed for goal, including the final boss.

If Randomize tournament victories is on you're technically not required to beat any main boss to complete the game.
Beating a boss is still a check, plus the medallion they drop, so you may still need to beat a boss to complete a no_bosses run.

Fatalitysanity

If on, adds checks for performing each one of your character's finishing moves. That includes all fatalities, multalities and brutality.

VS mode characters can only perform fatalities.

You can find a guide on all the finishing moves here.

Shopsanity

If on, adds checks for purchasing special move upgrades and combos in the pause menu. If off, the shop acts like in the vanilla game, special move upgrades and combos are not randomized.

If Lock Special Moves is on and Shopsanity is off, you still need to unlock a special move before being able to buy upgrades for that move.
If both are on, you can buy the upgrade checks for a special move in the shop even before you unlock it.

Smoke Missions

If on, adds checks for completing each of the 5 Smoke missions.

Mission progress is autosaved.

Lock Special Moves

If on, adds one more set of progressive special move upgrades, one per move, and makes it so now you have to get a special move upgrade before being able to use that special move.

If Shopsanity is off, you still need to unlock a special move before being able to buy upgrades for it.
If Shopsanity is on, you can buy a special move's upgrade checks in the shop even before you unlock the move.

Skip Tutorial

If on, the game skips all the beginning tutorials in Goro's Lair. Irrelevant when Portal Start is on.

Portal Start

If on, pressing new game will not put you in the normal Goro's Lair start but in the Portal. In order to have more varied seeds the game will prevent access to Wu-Shi Academy from the Portal until getting the Wu-Shi access item. Without the item the bridge to the portal to Wu-Shi will not appear. You can also reach Wu-Shi Academy without the item by beating Baraka in the Soul Tombs and taking the portal after his fight. You can still get to Goro's Lair from Wu-Shi after finding the Fist of Ruin ability.

Because the ko-op only Red Koins are collectible, there is always a check you can do by collecting the ko-op only Red Koin near the start so you're never stuck.

Turn this option on if you're more familiar with the game and want a faster start and more varied seeds. Turning this option on means you don't need to find Long Jump immediately to leave Goro's Lair, that makes it so that Evil Monastery is not accessible 100% of the time at the beginning of the run.

Randomize tournament victories

If on, shuffles 5 tournament victory items in the item pool, all 5 are required to open the door to the Foundry in the Portal.

If off, the door to the Foundry acts like in the vanilla game, that means you need to beat all 5 main bosses to open the door.

There is a tracker in the pause menu that shows your current tournament victory amount.

Mana Upgrades

The vanilla game doesn't include mana upgrades, so here it's an optional feature you can enable.

If on, adds 4 mana upgrade items to the item pool, each upgrade increases your max mana by about 25%, meaning that your max mana is doubled after getting all 4 upgrades.

Mana regenerates faster with each upgrade, so a full bar takes about the same time to refill no matter how many upgrades you have.

Logic

Abilities

Most of the game's logic revolves around the 7 movement abilities. Almost every area in the game is gated behind an ability, with some areas requiring multiple.

Logic requires you to have the required abilities to collect Red Koins.

Here's a small overview of the main areas and their logic:

• Goro's Lair: Fist of Ruin (if Portal Start is on)
• Wu-Shi Academy: Long Jump / Double Jump (if Portal Start is off), Wu-Shi access (if Portal Start is on), or by beating Baraka
• Evil Monastery: Long Jump / Double Jump
• Living Forest: Fist of Ruin
• Soul Tombs: Wall Climb
  • Baraka's arena requires Fist of Ruin, and a projectile special move if Lock Special Moves is on
• Wastelands: Wall Climb + (Wall Jump / (Wall Run + Double Jump))
  • inner areas of Wastelands require Fist of Ruin and Wall Run
• Netherrealm: Swing + (Double Jump / Wall Run)
  • the second half of the Scorpion fight requires jumping long distances, and if you miss the jumps you fall down and become stuck unless you have Wall Run or a Double Jump, so that's why they are in the logic here.

Fatalitysanity

If Fatalitysanity is on, the required amount of Blood bar upgrades is needed to perform finishing moves.

• Fatalities require 1 upgrade.
• Multalities require 2 upgrades.
• Brutality requires all 3 upgrades.

Shopsanity

If Shopsanity is on, the logic expects you to be able to reach a certain amount of main bosses before being able to buy upgrades.

In general, logic expects you to buy upgrades in order, from least expensive to most expensive. Pricing and amounts of upgrades vary by character.

• The first R2 special move upgrade is always free and can always be bought from the start.
• When you're able to reach 2 main bosses, the logic expects you to buy the first tier of upgrades (3000 EXP each)
• When you're able to reach 3 main bosses, the logic expects you to buy the second tier of upgrades (all combos, 5000 EXP each)
• When you're able to reach all 5 main bosses, the logic expects you to buy the rest of the upgrades.

You can obviously farm EXP to buy all upgrades early, which makes them out of logic checks. Generally you're not expected to farm, unless you haven't been doing your combos and barely earning EXP throughout the game.

Lock Special Moves

If Lock Special Moves is on, logic expects you to unlock your character's projectile special move before:

• Collecting the Red Koins from shooting a dragon koin, the closed eye in the Living Forest, or the moon in Goro's Lair.
• Entering Baraka's arena in the Soul Tombs.

The projectile special move is:

• Square for Liu Kang, Sub-Zero, Baraka and Johnny Cage
• Circle for Kung Lao, Scorpion and Kitana
• Square or Circle for Reptile

Characters who can't shoot those Red Koins get them spawned without shooting (see Character), so for them those Red Koins don't need the projectile special move.

The Red Koin from launching a Tarkatan onto the flying bird in the Soul Tombs needs your R2 special move upgraded twice, so one more R2 special move upgrade if the move is locked.

Smoke Missions

If Smoke Missions is on, logic expects you to complete the missions in order:

• Mission 1: reaching the Soul Tombs
• Mission 2: reaching Wu-Shi Academy, with Fist of Ruin
• Mission 3: reaching the Soul Tombs
• Mission 4: Long Jump or Double Jump
• Mission 5: right after mission 4

The Foundry

If Randomize tournament victories is on, logic expects you to have all 5 tournament victories before being able to reach the Foundry.

If it's off, logic expects you to be able to reach and beat all 5 main bosses before reaching the Foundry.

Autosave

The client implements a sort of autosave feature that the vanilla game doesn't have.

Each time you exit a room or save in a save statue the client saves your progress to the server, and it restores it when you re-enter the game.

That means you can safely exit to main menu and press New Game to go back to the starting area, as the Archipelago specs require.

That also means that if you make different save files in different spots in the game, you can load them to act as a sort of fast travel.

All checks, upgrades and EXP are shared between save files while the client runs, so you won't lose progress loading an earlier save.

It is recommended to not overwrite your save at Wu-Shi Academy, because it's the nearest save file to the Portal. Meaning you can always come back to it when you want to go to a new area.

If Portal Start is on then you can always press New Game to go back to the Portal.

If Smoke Missions is on then Smoke Mission progress is autosaved, meaning you can accept a mission, quit to menu, load a different save, complete the mission, load a save near Smoke, then talk to him to complete the mission.

Notes:

• You should always choose New Game in the main menu to start a run.

• If you try to load a save file that is not associated with your current slot then the client will notify you, and it will stop changing the game until you return to the main menu and load a save from your current slot or press New Game.

• Red Koins that get checked from outside the game (for example by !collect or a release) won't spawn anymore the next time you enter their room.

• Some areas in the game allow you to enter, but not to leave without a required ability, it is safe to enter those areas, collect the checks that are there then exit to main menu and load a different save file.

  For example:

  • Entering the Oni Warlord boss in Goro's Lair without Long Jump means you can't leave the arena, even if you have Double Jump, the jump to get to the top of the room is really hard, so it's safe to exit to menu and load the save spot from the start of the room, using Double Jump to clear the broken bridge is possible and logic expects you to do it.
  • Entering the Reptile fight without Long Jump / Double Jump means you're unable to complete the snake sequence.
  • Also entering the Reptile fight without Wall Climb means you can't leave the arena after the fight, it is safe to exit to menu after beating Reptile and getting the check for beating him.
  • The area in Wu-Shi Academy where you unlock Wall Run, without Wall Run you can't leave the area. You can safely enter the area, collect the check, exit to menu and load a save.
  • If you enter the Sub-Zero fight without Fist of Ruin, you won't be able to break the ice wall to enter the next room, if that happens you can exit to menu and load the previous save file, you will have to fight Sub-Zero again.

• Sometimes exiting to menu might break some game sequences, like exiting to menu after beating Orochi in Soul Tombs without returning to the main room and seeing the laser. If you don't return to the main room naturally, the game doesn't spawn the laser to open the Baraka door.

  • In that case you can manually walk back to the Orochi room, then back to the main room.

• If you got the Wu-Shi access item while in the Portal starting room, leave and return to the room in order to make the bridge appear.

The general flow of the run is this:

• At the start you press New Game
• Then you can make save files in different spots, always making a new save file and not overwriting old ones.
• Then you can exit to menu and "fast travel" to old save spots.

Deathlink

Deathlink is supported and can be turned on by using the /deathlink command in the client.

What other changes are made to the game?

• Removed needing to perform a Fatality / Multality / Brutality to progress the game in the rooms where you acquire them. That means you can complete the game without unlocking the Blood bar.
• Made it so all ko-op Red Koins can be collected, you can open ko-op doors by pressing only one of the buttons.
• The health pickup in the final boss arena is unlocked by the Final boss health pickup item instead of by beating Kano.
• Made it so that the Red Koin that is in the room where you unlock the Brutality after beating Reptile can be collected without beating Reptile first.
• Made it so that the room before the Goro fight is pre-completed, meaning the portal to the Dead Pool is always open, and you don't have to beat Goro to progress.
• Added Mana upgrades that are shuffled into the pool if Mana Upgrades is turned on.
• Made it so that if Randomize tournament victories is on, you don't need to beat all bosses to open the Foundry door, only requiring to find all 5 tournament victories.
• Made it so that the UI for the health bar and EXP never leave the screen, so you can always see incoming messages.

When the player receives an item, what happens?

The EXP text above the health bar changes to display the message about the received / sent item. You can always pause the game to see your current EXP if there is a long queue of messages.

Universal tracker

If you have Universal Tracker installed, the client adds a Tracker tab which lists all currently available locations to check. You can get Universal Tracker here.

Can I play offline?

No, a connection to the Archipelago server is required to receive items, even in a single-player multiworld. You can always use the Archipelago launcher to locally host a server on your PC.

If the connection to the Archipelago server is lost it is recommended to exit to main menu, reconnect and load a recent save.

Known Issues

Mileena boss softlock

Sometimes when fighting the secret Mileena boss while still in the same in-game session of beating the Kitana fight, beating Mileena can softlock the game. To avoid this fully restart the game before going to fight Mileena, exiting to main menu isn't enough.

In-game messages

Messages disappear after a few seconds, messages can disappear during cutscenes so sometimes you might not see new messages, always check the client itself for missed messages.