Don't make me laugh
Written: Jun 24 '04
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Graphics,Music,Atmosphere
Cons: Censorship went made,Glitches went madder,almost unplayable
The Bottom Line: Only those out for every MK should even touch this.It really does stink to play.
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| flash-hammer's Full Review: Mortal Kombat for Super Nintendo |
Mortal Kombat is often regarded as one of the best fighting games of the 16-Bit era, and its outing for the Sega Megadrive/Genesis was a pretty fun, if incredibly flawed port of the arcade title that had kids throwing coins away like they were going out of fashion. But how would it fare on the Super Nintendo? The traditional home of MK’s greatest rival Streetfighter 2?
The story of the game is that Mortal Kombat is a martial arts tournament held every thousand years, and its time for this generation’s tournament. Entering to represent the Earth are Liu Kang (Bruce Lee), Johnny Cage (Jean Claude Van Damme), Sonya Blade (Cynthia Rothrock) Raiden (Thunder from Big Trouble in Little China), Kano (random criminal hardman), Sub Zero (ice-throwing ninja) and Scorpion (fire spewing undead Ninja).
To win the tournament, they will have to face each other, face themselves, face the half man-half dragon Prince Goro, and face the shape shifting sorceror Shang Tsung to win.
For a more in-depth look at the story, see my Mortal Kombat for Sega Genesis review.
The game’s controls are pretty simple. Y is High Punch, B is Low Punch,A is Low Kick, X is High Kick L or R is block.
They all respond, to a decent degree, and are set out in a manner that is well suited to the 4-Face buttoned Snes pad.
The graphics in the game are actually better than on the Sega, but as you would expect, nowhere near the arcade. The fighters look bigger than their Sega counterparts, and a lot more detail can be made out on them.
As I made a big deal out of in my other review, the atmosphere MK sets is brilliant, so expect to see the dragon logo rendered in Stone all over the place.
Sonically, the game shines in the way of music. As I mentioned, where MK succeeded best was creating an atmosphere, and the music is a big part of that. Be ready for some Kung Fu film style tunes to scrap to.
In case you don’t know, the game is a one on one fighting game in which you bash each other until one person has won two out of three rounds, at which point the game’s selling point comes into play. Your opponent stands dazed, and the words “FINISH HIM!” appear, at which point your goal is to enter a certain button and D-Pad sequence and kill your opponent with a gory death move.
Only not in the Super Nes case. You see, quite a storm was kicked up about these, so on the Sega, to access the blood and gory death moves, you had to enter a code. The SNES has no such code, so you not only get no blood, but the death moves aren’t at all impressive. Instead of the infamous Sub Zero head rip, in the Snes he freezes his opponent and they shatter. Instead of uppercutting the head off your opponent with Johnny Cage, you deliver a Shadow kick that sticks in their chest. Funnily enough, the last one, done properly, would probably have made for a better fatality than his real one. But as it is it just looks like the game has crashed as you delivered a Shadow kick and the game froze.
You see, as I mentioned in my review of the Sega version, MK was really all about the Death moves, and was never too hot in the gameplay department, so not having them at all condemns this version right away.
To add further insult, the game is so horribly programmed that it makes the Game Boy version look arcade perfect. Prepare to see punches go through opponents, sweeps to knock you to the floor when there is about 5 inches of screen between you and your opponent’s foot and jumping kicks that connect 1 out of ten times.
If we are being honest, MK sold because of Death Moves and blood, and when you play the game when you cannot have either of these, it becomes apparent just how mediocre it actually is. Throw in the fact that this has to be the most horrible version of it ever released( seriously, the rare Sega Master System version is more playable) just makes it a sickening cartridge in general. It carries on all of the faults of the other versions, lack of moves, aged graphics, the fact that a mirror match is nigh impossible to tell who is who, the fact that uppercuts take off more energy than special moves…
At the end of the day, Snes Mortal Kombat is an incredibly poor title, that only die hard MK fans who wish to own every version of the game should even consider touching. The Sega version has the blood and proper fatalities, and despite being a tad over-rated, is at least playable, unlike this horrible mess of glitches and faults.
It does still have the MK atmosphere, but it is so horrible to play that it really cannot be recommended to anyone who actually wants to play a game.
Other Mortal Kombat Reviews
Mortal Kombat
Mortal Kombat for Sega Genesis
Recommended:
No
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flash-hammer
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