Mortal Kombat

 It's come to my attention that last week was the 30th anniversary of one of gaming's most iconic franchises: Mortal Kombat.

I can't believe it's been 30 years since the bone crunching, blood gushing debut of MK, a franchise that's now a household name even outside of gaming circles. It may not have always given us the best games, but few IPs have had as much impact on media as a whole as Mortal Kombat. Not going to lie, I wasn't quite there from the beginning. I was only 4 in 1992 when the original game hit the arcade, I was dabbling in video games at the time but it's not like I could get in the car and drive myself to an arcade. It wasn't really the next year, when MKII hit the arcades where I got found the franchise for the first time. I will never forget walking into the arcade at the now-defunct Bowcraft, seeing the cabinet with Raiden calling down thunderbolts and thinking to myself "I have to play that." Of course my parents let me, there was no ESRB or rating system at the time, and I was hooked from then. It just so happens that the home console ports of the first game arrived at around the same time. I've been looking at series' first games quite a bit this year, I've already looked at the first Street Fighter and Mega Man, so I figure it's time to cover MK 1. Mortal Kombat is one of those games that was ported to just about everything with a screen, but I will be playing the Genesis version. Those were the first two ports I remember and as we all know, Sega actually got the blood and uncensored fatalities.

Unlike Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat came out of the gates strong. The first MK isn't perfect and most of its sequels are better games, but it's still an excellent fighting game that is more than worth playing today. It's even still played competitively in some circles, though that is largely because of how easy it is to break at the highest levels. It is a little stiff and rigid and the digitized graphics aren't as breathtaking as they were back in the day. The fatalities, considered so brutal at the time, pale in comparison to what you would find in modern MK. But it's still a fun game to play, even if it is a bit simplistic. The series' basic mechanics were put in place here and anyone that has had any experience with MK at all will feel immediately at home.

The lineup is small with only seven selectable characters, but what a lineup it is. Anyone who has played any amount of video games could probably name every single character from memory and every single one has become iconic in the MK universe to this day. The plot is simple, but similarly iconic. A tournament pitting warriors from two realms, the Earthrealm and outworld, brings together the best fighters from each plane. Win ten in a row and you get to invade the opposing realm...and outworld has won nine straight. The evil sorcerer Shang Tsung and his champion Goro, a four-armed beast from the Shokan tribe, are looking to put the final nail in Earthrealm's coffin. The duo appears to be unstoppable, with Goro trampling Earthrealm fighters with ease and Shang becoming more powerful by enslaving the souls of fallen warriors. Raiden, the god of thunder and protector of Earth, sees the writing on the wall and knows he needs to act. He summons Earthrealm's strongest fighters, though he quickly determines one of three unlikely warriors are his best hope: revenge seeking Shaolin monk Liu Kang, arrogant movie martial artist Johnny Cage and Special Forces operative Sonya Blade. But their opposition will be fierce. The spear wielding specter Scorpion and the Lin Kuei ninja Sub-Zero are dangerous foes and Black Dragon crime boss Kano lurks in the shadows. It's a pretty streamlined plot, but it's more than most fighting games offer.

Of course, we all know that what made MK stand out was it's over the top, crazy violence. The blood, the fatalities, all of it was part of the spectacle that was Mortal Kombat. It wasn't the first violent or bloody video game, but it was one of the first to have mainstream success and a ton of it. To put simply, MK and Doom are the reason video games have a rating system, I guess Night Trap as well. It may pale in comparison to game violence today, but it was absolutely shocking at the time. Fatalities like Sub-Zero's head rip freaked out parents and politicians everywhere, and they came after MK hard. But all that did was add to the spectacle. Like Doom, the controversy it stirred up did nothing but turn more eyes to the series. I don't know if any game series, perhaps maybe Mario, had as much press in the 90's as Mortal Kombat.

The controls are simple, you have high punch and low punch, high kick and low kick and a block button. A ducking high punch will always result in an uppercut, holding back and pressing high kick will always throw a roundhouse kick and back and low kick will perform a sweep. Special moves are performed with button combos rather than charging or rotation, things like down forward low punch or back forward high kick as opposed to a quarter circle and then punch. Each character has two or three special moves, many of which became iconic throughout the series. Scorpion's Spear, Sub-Zero's ice ball, Liu Kang's flying kick, all of them got their start here. You take damage on all blocks, a major differentiator from Street Fighter, and it almost feels like regular attacks do more chip damage than specials. All the characters have similar normals, but their animations are different enough that it doesn't feel like they all play the same.

While the controls are technically very good, MK1 is still very rough around the edges. For one, you can anti-air opponents just by throwing punches, which really shouldn't be the case. I'm not going to say it's an easy game to break, I know I can't pull off any crazy juggles or anything, but it's definitely much easier to abuse its mechanics than it is in other fighters of the era. Seriously, watch some experienced fighting game players face off in MK1, it's like even a basic punch can result in a touch of death combo. Of course, you aren't likely going to have to contend with that when you are playing against your buddies or the computer, but you will still have to deal with some weird hit detection and less than responsive special moves. Some moves seem to work better than others, I never had an issue getting Johnny Cage's shadow kick to fire, but his projectile almost never worked. The characters as a whole are pretty balanced, but that is largely because normals are so powerful here. Special moves are insanely imbalanced and some are incredibly busted. Sonya's leg grab is a profoundly broken move and Raiden's torpedo and Sub-Zero's slide are pretty beastly as well. I can't fault them too much because it was the first game, but it was definitely noticeable.

Both the Genesis and SNES versions have their unique flaws as well. As I mentioned previously, I played the Genesis version primarily, as it is widely considered superior and has the blood, unlockable with a code. It definitely plays a little more smoothly, but it looks and sounds significantly worse than the arcade version. The characters look small and I find they are very pixelated. The sound is also terrible, I'm sure that is partly because of my bias against the Genesis' sound capabilities, but there's no denying it's a substantial downgrade from other versions. The Super Nintendo version looks and sounds way better, not quite arcade perfect but way better. Unfortunately, it's also extremely sluggish and stiff. Both versions have hit detection issues, but it's way more prominent in the SNES version. And, as we all know by now, it doesn't have any blood and censored fatalities. It was a bit tough getting used to the inferior presentation of the Genesis version, but gameplay trumps visuals all day every and there is no denying the Sega version played better.  There were also versions of MK1 released for more advanced consoles, like the Saturn and Sega CD, but the 4th gen/16-bit ones were what I was most familiar with.

At the end of the day, the MK1 is still worth playing today. It's just that pretty much all of its sequels are more worth playing. There isn't too much variety and there are plenty of flaws. However, it was definitely way better than most series firsts, and you won't regret firing it up for a quick playthrough. The violence may not seem as over the top, the digitized graphics don't look as revolutionary and the mechanics aren't fresh and unique anymore, but there is something to be said for going back to the beginning. Sure, MK has a lot of tropes...but that's because it created those tropes. I'm not going to recommend this over other MK games, but I still think it's a title most gamers should experience at least once.

8/10