Midway

After the series’s beginning in ‘91, Mortal Kombat became a huge name within the genre and mainstream media. Being wrought with controversies and censorship problems, which single-handedly created the ESRB. You know that sticker that companies have to place right in the middle of someone’s artwork, that was because of Midway.  They then created the basis of their cabinet with newer technology and tweaked graphics, while introducing new and improved characters. But to see whether these intended changes are genuine, we must look at both the combat and visuals to see whether any presumptions are looked into in the affirmative stances within the FGC.

The combat saw a couple of new introductions and improvements, with inclusions of a new low punch and high kick, while stepping away from the more arena control moves we saw in the previous title. Where its predecessor took more of an approach to copying the style of the second Street Fighter, they began to provide a more aggressive playstyle, based on juggles and combos. This included the return of the chunk of the original cast and additions such as Kitana, Mileena, and Kung Lao. This is followed up by all new hidden characters with Jade, Smoke (who is hitting that dark evil GOAT pack) and Noob Saibot. While these new characters are cool, they added two more finishers for each character, these being the babality and a friendship. These were to get past censorship issues while using the window for fatalities to either turn your opponent into a baby, or show them an act of friendship. A deleted user on Reddit comments that they like the differentiation from the first to second game.

“It is a good game that is world-building and brings in new characters. The Fatalities are more gruesome, and the design crew trolled the people, claiming the games inspire violence with Friendships and Babalities,” the user said.

The visuals were improved due to the incorporation of the new hardware in the cabinets and the scaled-down assets of the characters. Their art style really shines through in this game with the inclusion of its copy and paste philosophy for new characters. Jay Wolf says the visuals are quite advanced even to this day.

“The visual style and finishing moves stand out most in my mind,” Wolf said.

Overall, this game is by far the best Mortal Kombat and stays that way until Mortal Kombat X which wouldn’t release until 23 years later. It’s just a perfect example of a game being able to lay the groundwork of a series while keeping up with future entries.