Mortal Kombat II

"The gore is back....on Nintendo!"

Everybody knows the story of the console versions of Mortal Kombat. The Snes version was released without the gore, and with sweat replacing blood. The Genesis version, looked worse, controlled worse, and was overall worse than the Snes version. However, the Genesis version was more popular than the Snes version. Why? People want gore, and they want copious amounts of it. The Snes version of Mortal Kombat II evened the score, and gave the players what they wanted: blood by the bucketful.

Mortal Kombat II is one of the best arcade to 16 bit translations ever. All the arcade characters are here, and all their moves a retained too. To anybody who's unfamiliar with Mortal Kombat games, the object is simple. It's a fighting game where you must beat your opponent with bloody moves for the best two out of three rounds, and then you get to preform a "fatality" on him/her and kill them dead. This may sound one dimensional, and it kind of is, but it's surprisingly addicting.

Mortal Kombat II added to Mortal Kombat in graphics, variety, gameplay, and overall fun. Not only was the gore added in the Snes version, but Mortal Kombat II bettered part I by adding more characters, giving them two fatalities each (Shang Tsung has three), Friendship and Babality moves (as an alternative to fatalities) and more secrets. Then end result is a fun game, that if you have a second player, hardly ever gets old.

The graphics are top notch, and are some of the best graphics seen on the Snes. The characters all look like they should, and they control like they should as well. The sounds aren't QUITE as good as the Arcade version, but that's easily overlooked.

All of the hidden characters are here on the Snes version, and so is the game pong! All fatalities, babalities, and friendship moves are in this version as well! The only thing this translation didn't have is the Armory glitch where the floor moved after Reptile did his head eating fatality, but it's almost unnoticable. This is one of the best arcade translations to a 16 bit system, so if you like fighting games, or if you just like to see your friend decapitated in a puddle of blood (in a video game of course) than try this game out, it won't disappoint.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/01/99, Updated 08/07/01