Mortal Kombat 3

"The worst Nintendo home conversion of a Mortal Kombat game... that is, until MK Advance."

Midway had a franchise on it's hands, and Mortal Madness was in full sway. Developers were hot off the success of Mortal Kombat 2, and the kiddies were craving more gore. A huge marketing blitz was created, a major motion picture based on the games was in the mix, and the public outcry for Kombat was at a fever pitch. Did the final product live up to expectations? After a successful tour of duty in the arcades, the inevitable home conversions were shipped to Playstation, the Sega Genesis, and of course, the Super Nintendo.
But the results were....something else.
But, on with the review.

THE STORY: 8/10

After losing (once again) to the Earth warriors in the Outworld(Mortal Kombat 2), Shao Kahn decides that the Earth Realm cannot be conquered by obeying the rules of the Shaolin Tournament, and instead decides to break the rules of inter-dimensional travel and claim the Earth through a ''backdoor'' in the dimensional gates.
He instructs Shang Tsung and his dark disciples to resurrect his dead bride's (the former queen Sindel) body in the Earth Realm, and by doing so, he is ''allowed'' to step through the dimensional portals to reclaim his bride. But instead of leaving the Earth Realm, he instead sets up shop and begins a slow transformation of Earth into another region of the Outworld, and allows Shang Tsung to claim the souls of everyone on Earth!
But of course, the Elder Gods and Raiden have taken precautions to defend the Earth Realm, and have selected warriors all across the planet to defend the Earth from total annihilation. This prevents their souls from being taken by Shang Tsung, so Shao Kahn sends armies of his minions through the portals to kill these unclaimed souls. These extermination squads kill most of the warriors, but a select few survive to fight against Shao Kahn in... ...Mortal Kombat 3.

Wow. Wasn't that a downer?? But, it at least attempts at some semblance of drama, and that's a first in Mortal Kombat. I mean, when the fate of the world is at stake, and you use all of your powers to perform a ''FRIENDSHIP'' on your beaten enemy whose intent was to kill you in the first place, it kind of takes away from the heavy-handed feel of the game. And for all that MK3 may lack, it at least had good intentions, and set an appropriate theme and tone for the carnage that ensues.
But no matter how good the story is, this is a fighting game; no less a Mortal Kombat fighting game. And MK was never played to progress a character's plotlines throughout the fights, but rather to engage in mayhem and execute some gut-busting finishing moves, so
the STORY Score will NOTbe averaged into the OVERALL Score.

GAMEPLAY & CONTROL: 6/10

In an attempt to speed up gameplay, a RUN BUTTON was added, and for all purposes, it's a nice touch. It adds a certain dynamic to the gameplay which was missing before, and adds a nervous anxiety to every match. You never know if a combatant is going to casually stroll up to you, or come streaking at you with only the worst intentions. It also makes matches pass faster, and insures more hits per fight, since you can span longer distances with the tap of a button.
Another new addition to the MK series is the ability to string together multiple hits into combinations, and an on-screen indicator instantly displays how much damage you've done by a percentile mark and how many hits you've strung together.
While this may seem like a welcome new feature, it's somewhat bitter-sweet. While it is rewarding to perform combinations and inflict maximum damage on opponents, it's unfortunate that all combos are preset. You cannot improvise combinations or create new ones from scratch; you're stuck with the designers' ideas. Also, if someone's performing a combo on YOU, there's no way to counter it. So, in effect, combinations are just extensions of each character's special moves, the only way to defend yourself is to block or avoid any contact whatsoever.
Due to the archaic fighting engine incorporated in the game, the gameplay is infinitely less rewarding than the arcade version. While that version also lacked in truly intuitive play, character response was always spot-on, the game seemed to run faster, and moves were able to be performed much easier.
The SNES controller does a reliable job of covering all the bases, and all operations feel very smooth. Of course, a joystick controller would feel much smoother as most of the moves require rolling the D-pad in some way, but the standard SNES controller does an admirable job.

GRAPHICS: 4/10

Unfortunately, the graphics suffered as a result of the translation. When over 32 megabits of data is translated/crammed into a 16-megabit cartridge, you can expect a few casualities of the conversion process. But when the final product looks this atrocious and suffers from some major glitches, the developers should expect some fan fallout.
First of all, the backgrounds look washed-out, and several of the areas have devolved from their arcade counterparts. Several of the textures are missing, many of the stages have been reduced and several of the original background design elements were removed completely.
On top of this, one entire Kombat Arena (the Graveyard) has been totally omitted from the game.
It's understandable that certain elements of the game had to be downsized to maintain the speed of the game and the integrity of the updated gameplay, but it's unexcusable to alter so many striking images and themes in the game, making it seem like so much less than the original design. The SNES conversion keeps you out of the game; an outsider looking in, while some other versions did a better job of immersing the player into the game and making everything look more tangible and realistic.
Also, the characters are a little too small, the gore has been toned down WAY TOO MUCH from the arcade version, some animations seem a little choppy, and the finishing moves have taken a large hit; looking much more laughable then they should be, and much less menacing.
Although the characters do look realistic, the animations have been reduced so dramatically in some areas that one can see all the moves occur in segments, instead of flowing as a natural whole, while in other areas the game maintains the arcade version's speed and flow quite well. This uneven production is not fully evident at first, but becomes painfully noticeable as a player becomes more familiar with the game.
Also, a new feature in the game where a player can be smashed through the roof of an arena and into a new one looked convincing in the arcade version, as the view followed the fighter through the roof in one long flowing sequence. Well, that's scrapped in the SNES version, as when the player is sent into orbit, he simply disappears from the screen up into the air, the screen fades to black, and then action resumes in the new arena. Oh well.
All in all, not a good sign for a ''faithful'' conversion, even on the limited cartridge space of the SNES. When the previous game in the series looks better than the new one, you know it's time to upgrade or bail out.

MUSIC & SOUNDS: 2/10

The sounds of Mortal Kombat 3 have taken the biggest hit in the conversion to 16-bit gaming. Every tune is bland and lifeless, and sounds about as gripping and compelling as a band of drunken monkeys banging on their instruments. NONE of the music or SFX are faithful to their arcade counterparts. All of the songs are lifeless, and many times during the course of a match, nothing can be heard but the bass. A stage that incorporates a quasi-jazz score and walking bass line along with drums and a female singer loses it's stride when many times during the song the singer's voice disappears when it's supposed to be playing. While this may seem like nitpicking, it's actually rather disconcerting when you pay attention to it.
Most of the trouble with the music occurs when a player smashes from one arena into another. Usually, the new arena's music score is flawed, and does not sound like it should.
But after about an hour of playing, you grow accustomed to the skewed music in the game, which is about as much as you could hope for when there's plenty of other noises to make you rip your hair out.
Because, every sound effect in this game is horrible. First of all, the ring announcer sounds like he was recorded in another room with a pillow over his head. Many of the male players have laughably bad voice actors that make the carnage seem about as convincing as a wrestling match. The female voice-overs are better, but not by much.
Worst of all, every fight sounds about as real as a bunch of guys in the shower room smacking each other with wet towels. Every hit is actually louder than the character's scream, and solid body hits sound more like a (expletive here)slap than a bone-cruncher on impact. Most of the noises are annoyingly redundant and unbelievably piercing, and makes the player want to turn off the SFX on the Options Menu rather then deal with another round of ear-splitting grunts, groans, and slaps.
Overall, the sounds are genuinely unimpressive, and sound more like a cat-fight than a battle royale between otherworldy forces.

CHALLENGE: UNPREDICTABLE

Here's another annoying problem in this game. The challenge is almost non-existent for the first two-three rounds, and then, like instant karma, your computer opponents actually decide to fight back, and when they do, there's no contest. It's like the game's CPU gives you a few freebie rounds to build you up, and then decide to get serious and wipe the floor with you. There's no middle-of-the-road difficulty in the game, no genuinely challenging experience, no way to predict how a match will go. It's hard to learn how to fight when an opponent acts like a whipping boy for a whole match, and then in the next match he totally thrashes you. There's no give-and-take in this game, no action/reaction. It's either one extreme or the other; and that grows really old, really quick.
But a player might grow accustomed to the herky-jerky feel of this game, and most Mortal Kombat matches have this kind of feel as well, so it's suitable; but ultimately unsatisfying.

FUN FACTOR: 4/10

Don't expect to be converted with this one. If you're not an MK fan going into this, you won't be one coming out, and you'll probably never want to play anything with an MK tag on it ever again. And that's a shame, because the earlier games had some inspiring moments. But this game is so genuinely unfun that I myself, a dyed-in-the-wool Kombat fan, will never play it again, and have thought seriously about never playing another MK offering ever again.
It's THAT bad.

REPLAYABILITY: 0/10 NOT A CHANCE.
While I'll never play this version again, I have found a use for it: TABLE COASTER. I'm not just bashing the game, because the arcade version is generally enjoyable, but this obviously lazy offering is notthe MK3 I once knew.
It offers no redeeming values whatsoever, and the endings pack less of a punch as they lack the cinematic still-screens of the arcade version. Nothing changes once the game is beaten, no hidden fighters appear (although there is one in the game) and no joy is derived upon it's completion.

OVERALL: 3/10

BASED ON THE AVERAGE SCORE OF GAMEPLAY & CONTROL, GRAPHICS, MUSIC & SOUND, FUN FACTOR, AND REPLAYABILITY WHICH WAS 32/100.

You'll have more fun with a book. Trust me.

PROS & CONS

PROS:
* Faster gameplay.
* More fighters.
* More finishing moves.
* New combo system.
* Responsive controls.

CONS:
* Outdated game engine.
* Primitive graphics.
* Muted sound effects.
* Unsatisfying gameplay.
* No depth.

COST

Should go for under $10 over the internet or pawn shops, currently not-in-production, as it was released over eight years ago in 1995.

RENT OR BUY:

Honestly, neither. When a gaming experience can jade even the most die-hard fan of the genre, then you know it's got to be bad. And this is. But, if you still have a strange interest in this game, then by all means...buy it. Then, when you're jaded like me, you can make good use out of it for a match of Ultimate Frisbee.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 07/10/03, Updated 07/10/03