Mortal Kombat (1992)

Preliminary: This has always been an important game serires for me, and I got my younger brother realllly into it (MK4 was when he was young so he grew off that era, but he's good at all of them even the earlier ones). I had MK2 for gameboy and MK Trilogy for SNES. Nowadays, we have an arcade machine at our parents' with the first 3 MKs on it. I might wait to finalize rating this until I play it on there but yea.

Like Street Fighter II this finally had the expectations one can have for a fighting game, comapred to the earlier examples. The AI seems to actually learn what you're doing and you can't just spam something forever lol

The sound effects of the audience reacting, the Finish Him voice that is so emblematic, the graphics for its time, all just very impressive even if I will never be as into fighting games as my brother and even if I find end game too difficult. Hopefully now with savestates right before an enemy in end game I can actually finish this.

Yessss Sony'a face during the block breaking minigame lol

Those super close battles are a lot of fun and I am soooo grateful for savestates before a battle to avoid headaches

My favorite characters when I was young was Repitle and a lot of the women characters, which are sadly missing in this first one. Mostly men. I played as Sonya lol whom I didn't play as much as a kid.

I feel like the Mirror Fight is the peak of my difficulty for this. Why now Endurance before we get to Gorro etc, I was hoping to wrap it up!

Yeah I may continue this tomorrow or just accept that end game is always just too ridiculous for its own good. The computers clearly can type in special moves faster etc (or maybe it's just me haha) and it always plateaus. But up until now this was likely a 4 or 5 star cuz I was having fun with t he clsoe calls! Now it's just getting ridiculous

Yeahhh on Day 2, it's still simply true I can't handle late game. It stops being fun to me.

Look: 8/10

Sound: 8/10 Love the little extras

Play: 7.5/10 Fighting games will never be my penultimate genre, but this one and Street Fighter II really are impressive for their time.

Feel: 8.5/10 Very important series for me

Attachment: 8/10 I mean, I continue to replay this. Preferably with family/friends on the arcade machine.

Overall: 8/10

I played the Sega CD version because it is the arcade game but on console.

Mortal Kombat is easily one of the most influential games that have ever existed, without it the ESBR wouldn't exist, M RATED videogames would be a rarity, etc.

The game introduced juggling. You could chain an uppercut into a flying kick to keep hitting the opponent; this is pretty much the winning strategy against human players and the AI to a degree.

The game also helped popularize simple special attacks. Most characters didn't even need a command button to do a special move, just move a certain direction certain times.

The game also introduced character bios and lore. According to Ed Boon, many people weren't playing the game, they were actually reading the biographies of the characters to know more about them; this inspired Midway to focus more on the story, and even worked with the screenwriters of the Mortal Kombat movie to flesh out everything.

The gameplay is simple, yet somewhat difficult to master. You can spam special moves but it won't get you far at all, especially because they can get punished easily; this forces you to be always on the move, always dodging or trying to outsmart the opponent.

The graphics were impressive for its time, nobody at the time had seen digitized actors on a videogame, and despite being limited by the hardware they look quite decent. They look like people and somewhat move like real people, just greatly exaggerated.

The music is memorable and intense, the tunes were even remixed in later entries. They have the asian feel they are supossed to have.

Characters aren't well balanced, for example Scorpion is broken with an AI but a human player is almost defenseless because his spear is easy to punish and his teleport doesn't work when on the edge of the screen, Sub-Zero is super useful against AIs because they can't handle his ice blast, but his slide move is almost impossible to do by a human player. And Sonya can just chaingrab you with her legs and kill you in three moves.

The A.I is unfair. It will almost always find a way to punish you or ignore move cooldown; Reptile is the worst offender, since he moves twice as fast as any other character so you can see him cheat more often. In fact, I say Goro and Shang Tsung are easier than the average fighter, Shang Tsung can't block and Goro's A.I is separate from the average fighter A.I.

Conclusion.

Mortal Kombat may look rough, but it was an important title in the history of games.

About the Game:

Mortal Kombat was definitely one of the more defining games of my childhood. The first time I remember being exposed to the first game in the series was at a skating rink in Rialto, CA. My mom would give me money for drinks and snacks and whatnot, but every quarter I could come up with went into that arcade cabinet.

I believe the first time I owned this game it was actually on the Genesis. At the time I was more of a Street Fighter fan and preferred the SNES controller for fighting games, but Mortal Kombat always held a special place for me.

Gameplay:

For me, the pinnacle of Mortal Kombat was always Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, and playing anything prior to that just felt slow and shallow. With those expectations in mind, I was actually surprised to see that MK1 still provided a fun play experience. Sure, there's no combos, damage is completely unbalanced and the movement could be incredibly wonky, but there was still fun to be had.

You're given a choice of seven iconic characters, all of which play identically save for their 2-3 distinct special moves. Combat itself is limited to said special moves, a punch button and two kick buttons. Block is relegated to Start. I initially thought playing this game with a 3-button Genesis controller would be extremely awkward, but it actually felt pretty comfortable and natural. You're able to set your difficulty, then it's off to fight against all the other combatants, a mirror match, three endurance rounds, then the final showdowns with Goro and Shang Tsung.

The initial seven matches are pretty straight forward, with you simply needing to win two out of three fights against a single opponent. The following three endurance matches require you to deplete the health of your opponent, only for a second to appear it full health. You only have one health bar with which to defeat both opponents. Goro is the first of the game's two bosses. He's big and mean and can end you quickly if he gets his hands on you, but he also folds to aerial attacks. Shang Tsung is the final boss, and has the ability to shift into any other character (even Goro!) in the game.

What's really cool about Shang Tsung in this game versus his appearance in all the sequels is that he'll generally only shift into another character just long enough to use one of their special moves, then back into his original form. It's really cool to his phase into Scorpion to throw his spear, then straight into Rayden to torpedo you across the field! In other games, he simply changes into another character for a set amount of time, then back.

Story / Value:

Mortal Kombat still hadn't figured out what story it was trying to tell at this point, and that wasn't particularly uncommon for fighting games. In fact I'd argue that the story in this series didn't actually start mattering until the very recent Mortal Kombat 9, which is still my favorite game in the franchise.

That said, there's still a reasonable amount of gameplay here all things considered, especially when you decide to plug in a second controller.

Presentation, Music and Sound:

The visuals in Mortal Kombat just do not hold up. Characters are blurry and ugly, background textures are boring, and projectiles barely look like they're from the same game. Compare this to Street Fighter II which practically can't age due to it's graphical style.

Additionally, and I don't know if this is the case for all versions of MK1 or just the on Genesis, but the sounds effects come across as muted and low quality. Even Scorpion's "Get over here!" seems to have lost a lot of its impact. Music is a mixed bag of decent and okay, but nothing really stands out.

Fun:

So I kind of thought I was going to hate playing this game, but I was pleasantly surprised by how much that was not the case. Sure, it's still not something I'd recommend to anyone over other options from the era, but it does well enough to stand on its own. All in all I had a pretty okay time with Mortal Kombat, though I don't know if I'll even pop it in the Genesis again...

Review:

Playthrough: