Mortal Kombat (Series)

[Ayen]

I love Mortal Kombat! It's one of my favorite fighting games of all times. I was introduced to the series through Mortal Kombat II for the Sega Genesis. Being the little boy that I was I fell in love with the ninjas pretty early on. I just love how the laziest redesigns ever led to some of the more interesting and popular characters of the franchise. My brother would use Sub-Zero a lot and I liked using Reptile. Noob Saibot would always come in and kick my ass in that game, however he quickly became my chosen favorite when I moved on to Mortal Kombat Trilogy. All the different characters and enemies in this game are just so fascinating to me. I love Shao Kahn.

Goro, Kintaro & Sheeva

So far I played MK, MK II, MK 3, MK T, Sub-Zero Mythologies, MK 4 (to my dismay), Deadly Alliance, Deception, Shaolin Monks and the reboot. While I can understand why people wouldn't like them, I liked where they took the story from DA on out. The alliance of Shang Tsung and Quan Chi, taking out Shao Kahn, the death of Liu Kang, the introduction of the Dragon King Onaga and the deceived Shujinko, Raiden finally snapping and going evil, all hell breaking loose in Mortal Kombat Armageddon and the clever way they rebooted the franchise in the new Mortal Kombat game trying to correct the mistakes of the past. I thought it was some of their best stuff story wise and now they seem to have found the perfect balance between classic 2D Mortal Kombat and 3D in the new game that I hope they keep up with.

Discuss.

[Slothy]

Hey now, MK4 is the best pre-reboot MK.

[Ayen]

I just remember being so underwhelmed by 4, though. Which is bad since it was the first game in the series to make the jump to the 3D platform and it was built up by great games like Mortal Kombat Trilogy and Mythologies, at least I think Mythologies was part of the buildup to 4. I don't remember the roster being much to write home about either. It doesn't help that Mortal Kombat just wasn't a franchise that transitioned well to 3D.

[Forsaken Lover]

I loved Deception. Its Konquest Mode was by far the best as it let us truly explore all the Realms.

Plus dat opening with all the heroes defeated and Onaga appears and stomps everyone.

I played every MK except the reboot, which I don't care about. Mythologies is underrated.

Mileena is the hottest MK babe.

[Slothy]

I just remember being so underwhelmed by 4, though. Which is bad since it was the first game in the series to make the jump to the 3D platform and it was built up by great games like Mortal Kombat Trilogy and Mythologies, at least I think Mythologies was part of the buildup to 4. I don't remember the roster being much to write home about either. It doesn't help that Mortal Kombat just wasn't a franchise that transitioned well to 3D.

I think what you meant to say there was that MK4 was a return to form after the series faltered massively with every version of 3, and Mythologies which is one of the worst platformer/beat 'em ups I've ever seen.

With MK4, they dropped the silly dial a combo nonsense that they began with 3, cut down on the number of superfluous special moves, sped up the game substantially, and threw out all of the silly nonsense finishing moves in favour of having 2 really done fatalities each and stage fatalities. MK4 is, in many ways, a better successor to MK2 than any other game in the series aside from the reboot.

And campy as hell cut scenes and laughable voice acting just make it that much better.

And Forsaken Lover, you're missing out if you don't play the reboot. Hands down the best MK title if you ask me. It's closer to being an enjoyable fighting game then any of them, and all of the best violent bits are completely over the top and absolutely delightful.

But one MK that never gets talked about nearly enough is Shaolin Monks. That game was damn brilliant I must say.

[Ayen]

I just remember being so underwhelmed by 4, though. Which is bad since it was the first game in the series to make the jump to the 3D platform and it was built up by great games like Mortal Kombat Trilogy and Mythologies, at least I think Mythologies was part of the buildup to 4. I don't remember the roster being much to write home about either. It doesn't help that Mortal Kombat just wasn't a franchise that transitioned well to 3D.

I think what you meant to say there was that MK4 was a return to form after the series faltered massively with every version of 3, and Mythologies which is one of the worst platformer/beat 'em ups I've ever seen.

With MK4, they dropped the silly dial a combo nonsense that they began with 3, cut down on the number of superfluous special moves, sped up the game substantially, and threw out all of the silly nonsense finishing moves in favour of having 2 really done fatalities each and stage fatalities. MK4 is, in many ways, a better successor to MK2 than any other game in the series aside from the reboot.

And campy as hell cut scenes and laughable voice acting just make it that much better.

Yeah, that's what I meant to say. No idea how I typed out all that other nonsense.

[Botchmun]

I like getting punched by naked girls, so Mortal Kombat is one of my favorite game series.

[Sephex]

I was so ridiculously hyped for the original Mortal Kombat to drop on consoles back in the day. That commercial I just posted was caused me to nearly throw my family's TV through the front window based on hype alone. I was lucky enough to experience Mortal Kombat in the arcade (and by arcade I mean local pizza joint), so I already knew what it was. I was also lucky enough to acquire the game AND Super Street Fighter II: Turbo on the actual famed Mortal Monday (thank you grandma)! My favorite will always be Mortal Kombat II, but Mortal Kombat was the first launch even I was ever apart of, which in those days was incredibly rare.

Now to start some kontroversy.

At the time, I had a SNES. While I would later get a Genesis, I never got the Genesis version. For those of you who are young, lived under a rock, or just don't remember, the Genesis version had a blood code in it which let the player experience the game unedited in terms of violence. The SNES version, meanwhile, had a sweat looking substance come out of kombatants when they got hit and some fatalities were edited.

I liked the SNES version better.

But I didn't have a Genesis, you say! It had the real version, you say! Well, at that time, my SNES was mainly housed at my greatgrandmother's house. I had a friend across the street that had a Genesis. So combined, we had access to both consoles (until we would both get the other eventually). He had the Genesis version, obviously.

Anyway, while it was cool to see blood and the actual fatalities, I felt the animation was far superior on the SNES version (even with a little lag). I also thought the sound, music, and especially the amount of colors was truer to the arcade experience. Seriously, go back and look at the Genesis version. The console was FANTASIC, but there were way more cut corners porting that version (not counting the edited content in the SNES version).

While some of the edited fatalities were downright silly on SNES, it added an element of humor to the game. I mean, using Johnny Cage's leg hump fatality, especially against Kano, still makes me laugh until the point of tears to this day. Also, I felt that the non-silly edited fatalities were much better. The unedited version of Mortal Kombat had a lot of fatalities were it involved the head coming off the body somehow.

Both Sub Zero and Raiden had a fatality that affected the head along with Johnny Cage. Seeing the freeze and shatter fatality (and MKII had a similar fatality) from Sub Zero was more chilling to me (pun intended) and watching Raiden turn an enemy to dust sans skull was much more fitting with his theme.

I won't lie. I wished there was actual blood in that version, and ultimately, I prefer the arcade version since it is available to me now. But between the SNES and Genesis version? I'll take the SNES version, even if it was edited.

[Del Murder]

MK1 was great fun although a little simplistic. MK2 is my favorite because it opened up the series and was a lot more polished. MK3 and MK4 were also pretty fun. I think I had Ultimate MK3 for N64 and had a great time bashing the snot of my roommates in college.

Haven't played the reboot but I hear it's good.

[Forsaken Lover]

All I know is that I played the hell out of MK3 for the Genesis back in the day (younger Sub-Zero forever) and beat it many times.

More recently, I played the MK thing on Xbox Arcade and I could NOT for the life of me defeat Shao Kahn. I do not remember him being that damn hard. It was like I was playing MK2 again and not 3. maybe because it's Ultimate MK3 or MK Trilogy or whatever and it's different but goddam he stomped me a few dozen times before I just said hell with it.

[Elskidor]

I was one of those dorky kids that got Street Fighter so I grew up believing MK was the enemy. I've only played a couple, but recently bought MK VS DC for ps3 and it's alright. I don't really understand the thrill of fighting games though. I lose interest after a few hours and forget they exist.

[Ayen]

Scorpion could have been the main boss in the second Mortal Kombat, that how big of a pain he was on single-player. My memory is bad but I recall Kintaro and Shao Kahn being easy compared to him. Especially if you're playing Sub-Zero and just spam freeze the hell out of them. My brother used to always freeze Kintaro right when he was jumping and then got a free kick in.

[Sephiroth]

Mortal Kombat: Nerd vs Scorpion - YouTube

[Ayen]

Mortal Kombat: Nerd vs Scorpion - YouTube

Nerds are their own worst enemy.

[Slothy]

I think I had Ultimate MK3 for N64 and had a great time bashing the snot of my roommates in college.

MK Trilogy actually. The third release of MK3 and console only as I recall. Though Ultimate MK3 before it did come out on damn near every console. Even the SNES and Genesis got it and they could barely handle the port.

I was one of those dorky kids that got Street Fighter so I grew up believing MK was the enemy.

To be fair, almost every iteration of Street Fighter from SF2 on is better than MK. Certainly better than their contemporaries anyway. Sadly, they lacked the massively over the top violence.