Retro|Spective 064: Mortal Kombat

[Neon Ignition]

Avoiding the temptation to make this one something N64 related we take a darker turn to indulge in generations of...





Mainline Entry 01 - Mortal Kombat
Formats: Arcade, Amiga, Game Boy, Playstation 2, Mega Drive, Super NES, Master System and Others
Launching twenty six years ago, this fighter arrived with a very strong sense of identity and an aim to make an impact on the exploding fighter genre by countering everything that made the crown holder Street Fighter popular. Where one was colourful MK was dark, where SF was cartoonish MK was violent and whilst Capcom favoured sprites MK sported digitised characters. The result was a wooden yet distinct fighter that stood out from the sea of rivals. With match closing abilities to cause a graphic fatality against one of seven unique combatants. Despite the complexities of the production, the game was made in only ten months and on release the only thing to attract attention more than its violence was the removal of that feature from the SNES version.



Mainline Entry 02 - Mortal Kombat II
Formats: Arcade, Game Boy, Playstation 3, Mega Drive, Super NES, Playstation and Others
Releasing the next year, the sequel built on the original by expanding the moves and cast of the game whilst also giving a little more humour to proceedings with added Friendships and Babalities as a response to the growing complaints about the graphic content. The sequel was a cornerstone moment for the franchise, a huge release for its day and probably mostly responsible for winning fans over so much they would weather the more turbulent years the franchise would face.



Mainline Entry 03 - Mortal Kombat 3
Formats: Arcade, Game Boy, Mega Drive, Super NES, Playstation and Others
Spin Off Entry 01 - Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3
Formats: Arcade, Saturn, Playstation, Super NES, Game Boy Advance and Others
Spin Off Entry 02 - Mortal Kombat Trilogy
Formats: Nintendo 64, Saturn, Playstation and Others
The third game in the franchise received several updates culminating in this compendium title that merged in content from the first two games too. With an added aggression bar and Brutalities (from the 16 bit UMK3 game) the game had ballooned to a character count of 34 with different ports often varying in terms of exact content. By now responses had grown more mixed due to the oncoming 3D era and how increasingly unbalanced the games were becoming. Change was now needed...



Mainline Entry 04 - Mortal Kombat 4
Formats: Nintendo 64, Arcade, PC, Playstation and Game Boy Color
Spin Off Entry 03 - Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub Zero
Formats: Nintendo 64 and Playstation
Aiming to expand the franchises appeal and cash in on fans enjoyment of the series storyline, this action game marries the fighting of the main series with an adventure tale that is set before any of the existing games. It wasn't going to be the last attempt the developers would make but it was for a good while the benchmark for how low the series could go.



Spin Off Entry 04 - Mortal Kombat Gold
Formats: Dreamcast
Spin Off Entry 05 - Mortal Kombat: Special Forces
Formats: Playstation
Mainline Entry 05 - Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance
Formats: Playstation 2, Gamecube, Game Boy Advance and Xbox
After the disastrous Special Forces, MK finally returned with an entry gamers were happy to see. The fifth entry built upon the concepts of the fourth game and began to add in content such as the Krypt that would later become series staples. With environmental hazards the gameplay made use of full three dimensional movement within the arenas and the series expanded upon the successes of this entry throughout the generation in the next two games before a need to refresh again started to set in.



Mainline Entry 06 - Mortal Kombat: Deception
Formats: Playstation 2, Gamecube, Playstation Portable and Xbox
Spin Off Entry 06 - Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks
Formats: Playstation 2 and Xbox
The march to make MK work outside of fighters continued and next up was this adventure brawler that featured co-op between Liu Kang and Kung Lao. Featuring several elements and characters from the main series, the developers finally hit a mark with the game receiving solid reviews and selling over a million copies but plans to follow up on that success never came to fruition.



Mainline Entry 07 - Mortal Kombat: Armageddon
Formats: Playstation 2, Wii and Xbox
Spin Off Entry 07 - Ultimate Mortal Kombat
Formats:Nintendo DS
Mainline Entry 08 - Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe
Formats: Playstation 3 and Xbox 360
Bizarrely both a precursor to the Injustice series and also the official eighth entry in the main series despite not being canon with all other mainline entries. This new title took place in an alternative timeline and pitted the MK cast against DC's finest. Whilst the game handled as you'd expect from the series history, the lack of unlockables and the toned down nature of the traditional series violence left a colder feel to fans.



Mainline Entry 09 - Mortal Kombat
Formats: Playstation 3, PC, Playstation Vita and Xbox 360
The ninth entry rebooted the timeline of the series by following the last games events and having Raiden attempt to rewrite history to alter the outcome. The gameplay returned to a more two dimensional style of play and placed an emphasis on bone breaking special moves. Many of the current staples appeared here with a ballooned Krypt and DLC guest fighters also being added to the growing content list, later repackaged as the Komplete Kollection.



Mainline Entry 09 - Mortal Kombat X
Formats: Playstation 4, PC and Xbox One
Released in a similar manner to the ninth game of the base game and DLC included XL version, the latest entry continued to darken the tone of the games whilst also leaping the story along by 25 years and thereby including main characters kids. Outside of issues taken up with the PC version, the game was very well received and became the fastest selling entry in the series. Riding a wave of popularity again, the series next looks to return with the rumoured XI.



Come Over Here! And your thoughts and memories of the series

[Atticus]

I always disliked Mortal Kombat. Never liked the way it looked with those digitised characters ... and from the little I played too many characters shared too much move dna with each other. I think by the time I played it I'd been well and truly spoilt by SFII. It drew people in with the blood but it didn't have a lot of guts.

Maybe it evolved into something better but it lost me from the get-go.

[Leon Retro]

I thought Mortal Kombat looked amazing when I first saw the coin-op version -- the sprites and overall graphics are quite a bit more impressive than the home versions. It really was stunning to see what looked to be realistic graphics mixed with a fighting game.

When I finally got the SNES version, i didn't like it. Then I remember the MK2 being a huge thing for the SNES because it came on a 24mb cart. It turned out to be stunning port, but I still couldn't get into how the MK games play.

So after that, I didn't go near any further MK games. I like all sorts of fighting games, but the MK series has never gelled with me.

[Neon Ignition]

It's an odd franchise because it's always felt like to all intents it should have died a long time ago, I struggle to think of another running fighting franchise that plays worse than Mortal Kombat and yet I do come back for each instalment.

The original game was one I mostly played on the Mega Drive and it never really impressed that much at the time. The digitised characters were interesting and the attempts to promote the storyline in game and via comics etc but it played wooden and unfair. The second time around and that hadn't changed but the hype was so big that it was hard not to get caught up in it again and I did enjoy it more I think mostly because of the general tone of the game, it felt like the entry that best represented what Mortal Kombat was about on all fronts even if the bosses were still cheap. MK3, I mostly remember for the PS1 version with the higher quality audio. It played a little better because it was faster than the second game but the Earth element took some of the appeal out of the game. After that, I've played each of the subsequent PS1-PS2 era entries briefly at some point but I lost my way with the games. MK4 is almost surprising that it's got a decent write up, it felt rough at the time so got little time on it, the PS2 games got decent write ups too but felt bland. I mostly came back with MK9, by then an air of nostalgia and fan pleasing is really playing into things with the franchise. I was glad to see it go back to the original trilogy era but disappointed that the visual style of those games didn't come back too. MKX, to be fair, is a solid jump improvement on the ninth game and by now they've tied in the combo system pretty well but it still to this day plays wooden and the darker tone is fine but I do miss the MK2 aesthetic.

It's hard to explain the enduring appeal of the franchise because it's not tied to the core gameplay.

[DeathAdder]

I don't much like the series, but I enjoyed the chess game I played on, I think, the PSP.

[JazzFunk]

It got better. But it was always rubbish. I never liked how it played (apart from the uppercut) but loved how it looked and sounded.

I think MK3 has an excellent vibe to it, I love the unimaginative post-apocalyptic backgrounds, they have a stark, ethereal look to them, I always felt this cyberpunky Shadowrun-y Escape From New York vibe.

I'll play 2 and 3 for the aesthetics alone, but only for like 15-20 minutes, max. I never liked the original at all, backgrounds were so wishy-washy and uninspiring.

[Neon Ignition]

I won't lie, I expected this to be one of the more debated franchises

For next week:

Clue - You've got to be Kidding me

[Asura]

I'm going to be quite blunt here in that case @Superman Falls.

I loved the first two games back in the 90s. I wasn't the biggest Street Fighter fan until the Alpha series (though I certainly played the games) and while I didn't think MK was "better" (it was clear to me that SFII was a far deeper and rewarding fighter) I always found MK 1 really fun. MK 2, then, felt like a much better fighter with a great roster of characters, but even so...

... I kinda feel like their style - the digitised visuals, the daft sound effects, the gore; it was like a funny joke. But it's been 20 years now and that joke isn't funny anymore. Every new MK game I see makes me imagine Budweiser doing an annual remake of the WAAAAZZZZZZZAAAAAAAAAAAAAP advert. It'd just be depressingly embarassing.

I keep seeing these new MK games with their grittier visuals, more serious-looking tone and realistic depictions of incredibly gruesome injuries, and I don't get it. It's like Budweiser made an epic movie trilogy of the WAAAAAZAAAAAP advert. I think they play badly too. I just don't get the appeal, and I can't believe that one of them went to Evo.

It makes me sad that MK persisted when fighters like Bloody Roar have fallen by the wayside.

[Leon Retro]

I
I think MK3 has an excellent vibe to it, I love the unimaginative post-apocalyptic backgrounds, they have a stark, ethereal look to them, I always felt this cyberpunky Shadowrun-y Escape From New York vibe.

Yeah, totally agree that MK3's design is really effective. A friend who was a fan of the series always told me MK3 was his fave.

Every new MK game I see makes me imagine Budweiser doing an annual remake of the WAAAAZZZZZZZAAAAAAAAAAAAAP advert.

[DeathAdder]

Streetfighter 2 is The Beatles.

Mortal Kombat is The Spice Girls.

[Leon Retro]

Mortal Kombat is The Spice Girls.

Is that better than the Sugababes?

[JazzFunk]

Never forget the IMPACT of Midway cabinets. As much as the main game was vastly inferior, the arcade version of MK2 was *majestic*, *booming*, it dropped bombs in terms of crisp noise n' presence. SF2 could be on any cab as long as it had two sets of six Button controls. Even the official cab wasn't majestic.

Midway had some majesty, bravado. But Marius said it all, when it comes to a Grand National do you bet on a horse with three or four legs?

[wakka]

I love Mortal Kombat. My history with the franchise stems from the Megadrive trilogy, which I played a LOT with my next door neighbour/best mate when I was a kid. 2 got the most play, however we enjoyed all of them. I think he actually owned them but we swapped them back and forth all the time.

Very fun games at the time although he did mostly win which was annoying, the bastard (note to self: must let that go).

I replayed them at uni about 10 years back and boy, they have not withstood the test of time at all. Apart from the nostalgia, there's not much reason to play them these days.

What I DID play a lot of at uni was Mortal Kombat 9, however. That game was absolutely superb in 4 player. Just loads of fun - living with mates at the time (and being lazy buggers) meant that we had tons and tons of tag team matches, and it was always a terrific laugh. None of us were really fighting game aficionadoes - in fact I tend to be particularly poor at them - so the game's slow pace, simple techniques and large input windows were ideal for our lazy playstyle. Plenty of teleport uppercuts from me - never got tired of those.

What's more, it had the best single player mode I've seen in a fighter. The story was engaging and fun, with just the right level of 90s-esque cheese. We played through this a couple of times taking turns, and I got a lot more fun out of it than I ever have your classic 'Arcade' modes or Tekken's dodgy scrolling beat em up side modes.

After that, I actually picked up MK X as my first PS4 game. With Witcher 3 on the way and MK X's (eventually cancelled) PS3 release some months off, a bundle with the machine and 2 pads at £329 made sense.

Bit of a disappointment that one though. The story mode was back, but shorter and not as well executed as in MK 9, although the Krypt with its first person exploration was a fun way of unlocking items.

There were two main issues with MK X for me. Firstly a lack of content (presumably resolved by the later XL release). It only had half a dozen fighters and as many stages, which was frankly incredibly stingy in a £50 release. What's more, the DLC was hugely overpriced, something like £30 for a few fighters and no new stages.

Secondly, no tag team. Removing this mode was absolutely criminal in my view, as it was a key part of why I liked 9 so much.

I never played anything between MK3 and MK9, so can't comment on any of the PS1 or 2 era releases. I do like the series' aesthetic as a whole though, and how consistent it remains with the early titles. There's something so wonderfully naff and tasteless about it. The bright colours, stupid outfits and over the top violence is distinctive and directional. And as I say, I'm crap at fighters, so the slow pace and low skill bar required to play work well for me.