Mortal Kombat II

"A big step-up over Mortal Kombat, and a FANTASTIC home conversion to boot !!"

FOREWORD

Having enjoyed every single blood-splattered moment of the carnage and violence of the original Mortal Kombat title, both at the Arcade and (although less so to varying degrees) on the home console releases, I was chomping at the BIT to get my hands on the Super NES version of Mortal Kombat 2 when it came out ...

... was it worth getting that excited about ? Or should I have just stamped reject and moved on ? Read on ...

OVERVIEW AND OBJECTIVE OF THE GAME

With Shang Tsung's failure to defeat the Earthrealm's champion Liu-Kang in Mortal Kombat, the disgraced Sorceror returned to Outworld to answer for his failings to his lord and master Shao Kahn.

Outraged at his underling's incompetence, Shao Kahn is about to execute Shang Tsung, when the cunning sorceror reveals a plan to lure the Earthrealm fighters into Outworld for the next Mortal Kombat Tournament, where they are sure to meet their doom at the hands of Outworld's finest.

Shao Kahn spares Shang Tsung's life, and the plan is set in motion. Kahn restores Shang Tsung to a more youthful version of himself, so that he can compete in the tournament anew.

GRAPHICS - 9/10

Graphically this game represents some SERIOUS eye-candy. The characters are big, the overwhelming majority of their frames of animation have been preserved, along with all the special moves, fatalities, friendships, babalities, stage fatalities and hidden characters.

This game is literally packed FULL of excellent graphical twists, and I am particularly pleased that the animation on the fall from the Pit II to your death below has been done as well as it has (compare it with the Megadrive version and your jaw WILL drop - they've taken advantage of the Mode-7 scaling functionality the Super NES boasts to actually slightly rotate the image of the ground as you're falling ? It's really quite spectacular).

The sense of contact which you get from one character striking another is satisfying - not QUITE on par with the arcade, but better than Mortal Kombat the original title on the Super NES, and the game flows smoothly with no appreciable lagging.

Considering this is an arcade-to-home port, there are times when you actually have to pinch yourself, the developers have done THAT good a job with the conversion.

... and yes, this time the blood is ALL in there ;)

SOUND - 8/10

Whilst the sounds are not *quite* as impressive as the arcade originals, only very minor reductions in the quality are apparent, and the sound-effects throughout the title are faithful to the arcade original, and MASSIVELY contribute to your enjoyment of the title. From the screams of falling adversaries off the Pit II to the agonising sound of them being impaled on spikes on ceilings, every fatality, uppercut and leg sweep - it's all in there.

The music is well reproduced as well, and Shao Kahn's laugh is both chilling and evil. Where digitised speech has been used, it is clear and perfectly audible - as I say, the only drawback is that, when you compare it with the arcade original, you can tell that it is just not *quite* on par with that (but we never expected it to be) - this is a VERY healthy and impressive effort from the developers, and I take my hat off to them for it.

CONTROLS - 9/10

Excellently reproduced throughout the game - the finishing moves are easy enough to pull off and, whilst there are a LOT of them to remember (as you are no longer limited to just fatalities - you can do friendships and babalities as well), once you have got a couple of characters down, you will find yourself working them masterfully.

Fighting is easy to get to grips with, and the basic controls are fine (high punch, low punch, high kick, low kick and block buttons), so regardless of whether you are playing this game as a Mortal Kombat veteran, or a Mortal Kombat virgin, you will get along with it just fine.

Distance is something you have to pay particular attention to when executing finishing moves in this title, however, and that is something you should try and spend a bit of time getting down. My personal suggestion is that if you are to do something at jump distance ? Stand adjacent to your enemy and jump away from them, doing the finishing move in mid-air as you go. You'll land and execute it perfectly.

PLOT - 7/10

The plot to Mortal Kombat 2 is decent enough, and makes a fair degree of sense. The disgraced Shang-Tsung would surely be held accountable for his woeful failure to defeat Earthrealm's champions in Mortal Kombat, and his master would invariably be RATHER PUT OUT at this state of affairs, so the plot is both delightfully predictable, and still varied (as a fighting game should be - each character involved (and there are quite a few of them) has their own reason for entering the tournament - even the secret characters do !!

Therefore, whilst it is best to view this title as a part of the series in terms of its plot, it would be a simple affair for anybody coming into the series and not knowing anything about Mortal Kombat, to be able to pick up the plot from this title.

GAMEPLAY - 9/10

Make NO mistake, this is a SERIOUSLY fun title to play. All the arcade-style action of the coin-op version has been lovingly ported across to the little Super NES, and what you wind up with is a title that is literally BRIMMING with power and potential.

Not only are there 12 standard characters to choose from, but there are 3 hidden fighters to do battle with (Jade, Smoke and Noob Saibot), and 2 boss fights to be engaged in as well.

The developers of Mortal Kombat understood whilst making the game that the general public would LOVE the possibility of slaying your enemy after the combat was through, as it rounds off the bout and makes the winner feel truly victorious (particularly if the battle is very one-sided - there is NOTHING like totally dominating an enemy in battle), and so they have increased the number of *types* of finishing move from 1 to 3. Now you can either slay your enemy with one of a number of fatalities (at least 2 per character), you can demonstrate your love for them by doing what is called a "friendship" (give them a flower, bake a cake, that sort of thing), or you can revert them to the childhood by using a "babality" on them !!

The friendships and babalities may SOUND ridiculous and ... well ... they are really, but they are REALLY funny the first time you use them on somebody let me assure you.

Coming back briefly to the fatalities (which are obviously the finishing moves that most people will use, most of the time), they have all been done with a degree of skill and consideration that retains much of their horror (even when the action is totally implausible). For example, one of Liu Kang's Fatalities is to metamorph into a Dragon, and then take a huge chunk out of his enemy (leaving just their legs standing). Doesn't even just READING that send a chill up your spine ? It does mine and I've DONE it !!

Add to this already wonderful mix, the introduction of more stage-based fatalities (notably the Pit II which is a great stage to fight on, the Dead Pool and the Kombat Tomb), and you wind up with a fighting game that has serious reason to brag in the marketplace.

The boss fights themselves are also very satisfying, and rather challenging. I can recall chucking my toys out of my pram MANY a time fighting Shao Kahn, screaming at him how BIFF he was and how much I hated him, but ultimately even he will fall to you.

Years later you are likely to still remember the first time you did this move, or the first time (friend x ... or probably EX-friend x) did THAT move on you.

This is a strong and stable part of the Mortal Kombat series that is vastly superior to its predecessor and, in the minds of many, to its successor as well !!

REPLAY VALUE - 9/10

Whilst this value will diminish over time (particularly after you have mastered all the moves, and your mates get tired of losing to you all the time), the short- to mid-term replay value of Mortal Kombat 2 is VERY high. There are so many finishing moves to be mastered that you will most likely not want to rest until you have seen them all.

Likewise with the hidden characters, you will want to find and fight each of them to see what they are like, and how they perform against you, so it will take you a fair while to get through all of that before you can consider yourself a master of the title, and able to set it to one side.

VALUE FOR MONEY - 10/10

When you look at the cost of purchasing this title on the Super NES -v- the cost of buying the arcade original, this title represented FANTASTIC value for money when it hit the streets. It was as close as I can ever remember (at that point) to having an arcade machine in my lounge, and I was AMAZED at how cool the game was.

Even now (although it will be difficult to find yourself a Super NES and a copy of the game), it is well worth picking up if you can find a copy, and DEFINITELY something to hold on to if you already have it.

OVERALL - 9/10 (This is NOT an average)

Mortal Kombat 2 boasts a number of significant improvements over Mortal Kombat for the Super NES. There are more characters, more hidden characters, more stage fatalities, more fatalities per character, more ways of finishing your opponents, more detailed arenas to fight in - the list goes on and on, and deservedly so.

This is a highly polished port of a fantastic arcade game that is a proud symbol of the quality of games the Super NES could have attributed to it during its hay day.

MAIN GOOD POINTS

* More fatalities per character than Mortal Kombat
* New methods of finishing your enemies (friendships and babalities)
* More stage fatalities (Pit II rocks my world)
* More hidden characters to find and fight against
* Better graphics and sounds than its predecessor

MAIN BAD POINTS

* There really aren't any, believe it or not !!

SO SHOULD YOU GET IT ?

Yep, I think this is a title EVERY fighting game fan should have. If you don't have a copy of the Super NES version then you should definitely consider picking yourself up either a copy for the PC, or a copy of Midway Arcade Treasures II for the Gamecube, Playstation 2 or X-Box, which features Mortal Kombat 2 as part of it.

In terms of home conversions, then apart from the PC version which is virtually arcade perfect, this is the best CONSOLE release you can buy. The Megadrive version once again pales in comparison to this, and most other versions pale in comparison to that, so yeah - if you're a Super NES owner and looking for another slice of prime Super NES history, then you should DEFINITELY scope this beauty out.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/16/07