Mortal Kombat (Arcade 1992)[]
Story[]
Around 500 years ago, an Emperor of an unknown world enacts a plan to conquer Earth. But the gods of the Earth decreed that the only way for the Emperor to conquer earth if his best warriors fight and win in a Martial Arts tournament to give Earth a fighting chance, the tournament would be called "Mortal Kombat". For the last 450 years, the Emperor has won the tournament 9 times (as he must win 10 in a row). The current generation of fighters all over earth are eager to fight in the tournament in hopes to keep Earth independent from his evil emperor.
Gameplay[]
Unlike Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat puts it's emphasis on simplicity of timing of moves rather than the strength of a character's special moves. Most of the characters have the same normal attacks and they only thing that differentiates from them are (ironically) their special moves. But the very meaning of the game comes from the Fatalities which the opponent (after winning 2 rounds) can kill off their defeated opponent. Mortal Kombat also has an elaborate story behind it and a rich environment. Instead of drawing animated (or cartoonish) sprites, the sprites here are digitized (which isn't something new or original to the game) where real-life motion actors use their fighting styles and perform their moves and have it integrated into the game.
Reception[]
Along with the great success of the game, it also brought along a good amount of controversy due to the (for the time) graphic nature and the realism of the game's sprites and also depictions of blood and dismemberment of certain body parts (e.g., the Head).
Trivia[]
- There are a set of sprites for certain characters that went unused.
- Johnny Cage had another special move which is a somersault kick where he flipped in the air and kick his opponent. But because this would be similar to Guile's Special move (as it had the same name and motion) it was scrapped. But the move would come back in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance
- Shang Tsung once had a Fatality where he would take a sword (or dagger) and chop off his opponent's head with it. This was originally for Shang Tsung to perform Fatalities. This was a part of the original idea for only Shang Tsung to perform Fatalities before the idea was to have the playable characters perform them
- Along with Liu Kang having multiple names, other characters also went through multiple name changes.
- Sub-Zero was originally called Tundra for his freezing abilities, though it would be scrapped for Sub-Zero, but the name would be used for the younger brother of Sub-Zero.
- Johnny Cage was originally called Michael Grimm.
- Goro was originally called Rokuro, another name of Japanese mythology.
- The bottom of the Pit stage contained many mangled bodies and severed heads of the game's 4 main developers such as Ed Boon and John Tobias.
- There is an interesting glitch when you perform Johnny Cage's fatality, he would perform this fatality 3 times. This glitch would remain in Mortal Kombat 2.
- The secret character: Reptile will (on an occasion) appear before a fight and give you a tip on how to fight him.
- Look to La Luna~Meaning that the stage to find him would be in a stage with the Moon in the background, which is (in this case) the Pit
- Blocking will get you nowhere~At the Pit stage do not block your opponent's attacks.
- Alone is how to find me~You can only fight him if you're playing a one player game.
- Perfection is the key~Defeat your opponent by getting a double flawless (2 perfect rounds) at the Pit Stage.
- Tip eht fo mottob~This is a meaningless anagram for "Bottom of the Pit" which states is where you have the fight against Reptile.
- You must find me to beat me~A meaningless clue.
- Fatality is the key~You must peform your character's fatality along with 2 perfect rounds in the Pit stage.
- You can not match my speed~This is a warning that Reptile is (arguably) the fastest character in the game.
- 10,000,000 points of you destroy me~If you perform a Fatality on Reptile, you get 10,000,000 points.
- When the game was released to Home Consoles, many fans of the franchise would prefer the port for the Sega Genesis over the Super NES port. the reason for it is because the Genesis port has a code where the gamers can uncensor the game with blood and the character's original Fatalities. More interestingly, the code (ABACABB) can be a reference to the band Genesis which had a song called Abacab.
- Contrary to popular belief, Mortal Kombat is *not* the first game to have blood and dismemberment of body parts. The first video game to do this is a game called Tecmo Knight, which is a medieval themed fighting game which has characters kill off their opponents in a similar style to Mortal Kombat.