Mortal Kombat II

"And now, Nintendo allows the blood to flow like wine."

Everyone who is in to the fighting games genre has played Mortal Kombat at some time or another. This one is a great step-up from its previous counterpart on the Super Nintendo, the original Mortal Kombat. As you may or may not know, due to issues on trying to be a family entertainment system, Nintendo removed the blood from their Super Nintendo version of Mortal Kombat. Here, Nintendo has thrown that philosophy out of the window, and the blood flows like wine. This is the best Mortal Kombat game on the Super Nintendo IMO and one of the best in the series on any console.

The concept of the game is simple - beat the tar out of your opponent, then finish them off with a blood curling fatality. The story goes that Shao Kahn became set on a destruction course to take over Earth from his home, the Outworld, and the forces of Earth have come to stop him. That's the gist of it.

There are 12 selectable fighters in this game, and they are Liu Kang, Kung Lao, Johnny Cage, Reptile, Sub-Zero, Shang Tsung, Kitana, Mileena, Jax, Baraka, Scorpion, and Raiden. The two bosses are Kintaro, a 4-armed monster, and of course, Shao Kahn.

There's something about this game that I love that sets it apart from the future titles in the series, and that is fairly customizable combos. The amount of hits is not kept count of until Mortal Kombat 3, but in every title from then on, you cannot customize your combos. Here, there is no set number of combos that each character specifically has. The most dangerous combo? Kitana's Jump Kick - Fan Lift - Deep Jump Kick - Air Fan Throw - Vertical Jump Kick, as difficult as it to do, it's effective, and you can't do something like that with Kitana when she returns in Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3.

The graphics on this game are crisp and smooth, definitely top-notch for a Super Nintendo game. Every character has excellent points of detail on their bodies. Blood flows like mad from every attack save a sweep or something simple like that. Fatalities look absolutely wonderful and are the best fatalities in the history of the series (except for maybe Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance. This remains to be seen). Who couldn't love Scorpion's Spear-Slice fatality? It's one of the greatest. Or Sub-Zero's Ice Grenade? They look incredible for the time they were made, and an almost-perfect arcade translation to the Super Nintendo was revolutionary for the time this game was produced.

The control is easy to learn. L and R are blocking buttons, Y is High Punch, B is Low Punch, A is Low Kick, and X is High Kick. These are customizable.

The sounds effects are great. Midway did a great job of capturing all of the bone shattering sounds that you would come to expect from the Mortal Kombat series. The background music is really what brings down the overall score of one point, as it is nothing near memorable and gets quite boring and repetitive fairly quickly. Other than that though, excellent sound effects.

Overall: 9/10
In my honest opinion, this is the greatest Mortal Kombat of the series thus far. If you're a fan of Mortal Kombat, or a fan of fighting games in general, this is for you. It shouldn't be too expensive either, as the game was made in mass quantities. It shouldn't be more than about $6 or $7.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/15/02, Updated 10/15/02