Mortal Kombat Explained

enemies [Music] in 1991 the arcades were one of the biggest markets of video game culture and they were dominated at the time by many Japanese products such as namco's Pac-Man Nintendo's Donkey Kong and the newest Contender capcom's Street Fighter 2 the World Warrior American video game company Midway games known for their Rampage series and multiple license games wanted to create a competitor to capcom's fighting game Phenomenon with a budget of one million dollars the four-man team of Ed Boon John Tobias John Vogel and Dan forden got to work on this new project that was about to take the arcade World by storm this was Mortal Combat releasing in arcades in 1992 and later published by a claim entertainment for other platforms Mortal Kombat quickly became one of the most talked about games of the year Mortal Kombat is a one-on-one fighting game which featured digitized graphics for its playable cast utilizing actors and capturing images of them performing The Game's different moves creating a realistic look to the game that helped him making it stand out in arcades this was no cartoonish game this was mature bloody and unforgiving the rules to the battles are as follows you will use five different buttons to execute different moves you've got a high punch a low punch a high kick and a low kick some moves can only be executed from a standing Airborne or crouched position such as the leg sweep jump kick and uppercut with the latter being one of the most powerful moves in the game each character further had unique special moves centered around their themes and design such as Sub-Zero's ability to freeze his opponent scorpions get over here where he could grab you with his kunai on a chain oh was it a 10 foot long serpent that came out of his palm you also had the iconic Raiden launch where you would fly across the screen like a rocket shouting the special moves had specific button inputs and certainly brought out the personality to these characters the fifth button acted as a designated block button which was different from other contemporary fighting games which had you auto block if you was retreating or crouching the Block in Mortal Kombat could still take chip damage from regular attacks however so you wasn't fully in the clay when blocking the player that drains their opponent's Health First is declared the winner of the round and the first to win two rounds of three is the winner of the match each round is timed with the timer runs out the player with the most health is the winner of that round at the end of a match is where Mortal Kombat saw another of its Innovations in the form of the gruesome fatalities fatalities gave the winner a last bit of bragging rights allowing you to quickly input a code that will initiate a special finishing move executing your opponent whilst they stood dazed with no way to counter or block they were creative bloody and the button inputs to execute them became playground legends passed around amongst the Mortal Kombat community and would Inspire more coins to be inserted into the arcade cabinets just to see them for yourself maybe you had the courage to try and execute them the fatalities became so notorious that they also attracted the attention of parents media and eventually even the US government they were deemed so violent during the time that Mortal Kombat released along with a few other titles such as Night Trap and doom were questioned by public officials on the violence and mature topics depicted in these games it was concluded in 1993 but the creation of the ESRB rating system which saw all video games legally had to receive an age rating that would be printed onto the cover art of the game outside of the two-player versus mode Mortal Kombat does feature a single player arcade mode which was popular amongst fighting games of the time a string of matches that would end him facing the game's main antagonist and then featuring an ending that would award the player on Conquering the game in Mortal Kombat the arcade mode plays like a ladder or Tower you start from the bottom and climb to the top first you'll face the other characters on the roster then a mirror match against the pallet swapped version of the character you've chosen then you'll have three endurance matches in which you'll battle two opponents one after the other on just one health bar after the endurance rounds you'll drop into the lair beneath the tournament grounds and fight the sub boss Goro a four-armed monster before finally proceeding onto the final boss fight against the tournament's host sorcerer Shang Tsung Goro and Shang Tsung were truly difficult battles and still are to this day Goro especially is very challenging due to its unfair health and damage output he can quickly drain your health to zero with a plethora of different moves he can't be affected by throws and your attacks will deal significantly less damage to Goro than any other fighter Shang Tsung is noticeable for his ability to transform into any other character on the roster even Goro this was due to development limitations at halted Midway for making a full moveset for Shang Tsung and thus allowed him to transform and mimic the other characters moves between stages you can compete in the test your might minigame which is inspired by this similar mini-games from Street Fighter in test your might you'll hit the face buttons as fast as you can to fill up a meter on the side of the screen to get it past a certain point the Mini-Game returns throughout the game getting more difficult represented by the item changing it starts off as wood then it goes to Stone and then steel Ruby and Diamond can also be attempted but only in two player now Mortal Kombat features seven playable characters on its roster all unlocked from the start from top left to the bottom right we have Johnny Cage a martial arts Superstar made famous with his Hollywood action movies like dragon fist Dragon Fist 2 and sudden violence he joins the tournament to make a name for himself as the new champion and to also test his martial arts skills which may be more than just martial arts he also seems to be able to utilize a form of green energy Johnny Cage is heavily inspired by 90s action star Jean-Claude Van Damme who was initially planned to be the star of the game until license issues drove that idea out of production still Johnny Cage retains many of the ideas from jean-claude's character such as having a split groin punch move as seen in the movie Bloodsport Kano a devoted member of the black dragon Clan a clan Infamous throughout the criminal underworld which consists of all manner of mercenaries and Cutthroat criminals Kano enters the tournament by hitching a ride to the island when trying to escape the law Sub-Zero all that is known of the blue Ninja Sub-Zero is that he is a member of the link way Clan he is also a syromancer allowing him to control freezing temperatures and generates ice from his fingertips it stated that he joins the tournament to assassinate Shang Tsung paid a wealthy sum of money by a competitor to carry out the task although it's never identified who has paid Sub-Zero Sonia blade a member of the US Special Forces a paramilitary police force she was hot on the trail of Kano from the black dragon which ended up with her participating in the Mortal Kombat tournament Raiden in this game he is not connected to Liu Kang instead he's simply he is the Thunder God who personally was invited by Shang Tsung to compete in the tournament and so took a mortal form to enter likely so Shang Tsung could eliminate the god from ever interfering in his future plans Liu Kang once a member of the secret White Lotus Society Kanga since left that organization to join the Mortal Kombat tournament representing the Shaolin temples he is the arch nemesis of Shang Tsung and fights to bring order back to the tournament and finally scorpion not so much is known about his origins in this game all we know is Scorpion was killed before the events of Mortal Kombat by the blue Ninja Sub-Zero he is now resurfaced as a fiery Undead Specter out to avenge his death the Sprites of Scorpion and Sub-Zero are merely palette swaps of each other from yellow and blue this will be a popular technique used by Midway to create new characters the characters were digitized in the game and the actors were filmed with a high eight camcorder the character sprites featured around 300 frames of animation and still look really good for 1992. Carlos Pacino plays Raiden whilst his brother Daniel pasina plays both Johnny Cage and the ninja character Scorpion and Sub-Zero whole sung pack plays Liu Kang and Shang Tsung Richard De Vizio plays Kano whereas Elizabeth Malecki plays Sonja Goro however is especially interesting being created by using a stop-motion model which is fantastic for the time digitized stop-motion would become a not too popular trend of some later 90s video games like skull monkeys and the neverhood the story of Mortal Kombat is only thinly mentioned in the game's intro character bios and character endings but it still manages to include a lot of interesting details and sets up lots of room for further exploration set in Earth realm the Mortal Kombat tournament was once held in high regard by The Shaolin temples however 500 years ago a half human half dragon monster known as Goro defeated the champion Kung Lao and in doing so the tournament fell into the hands of the corrupt sorcerer Shang Tsung for the past hundreds of years Goro has remained the Mortal Kombat Champion winning the past nine consecutive tournaments if he wins once more it could mean Doom for Earth realm our new Champions entered the tournament which takes place on Shang Tsung's island with the seven stages in the game depicting different parts of the island canonically it is Liu Kang who wins the tournament bringing an end to Shang Tsung's control over Mortal Kombat and placing it back into the hands of the Shaolin temples pride and respect had been restored to Mortal Kombat if you completed a special set of conditions on the pit stage you could qualify to fight reptile now reptile is a green color swap of Scorpion and Sub-Zero that uses both of their move sets as he doesn't have any unique moves of his own you'll fight him in the bottom of the pit which is the only time you get to fight on this stage reptile is the only secret character in Mortal Kombat 1 but magazines and rumors in the 90s might have you believe there was a second secret character who was even more hidden there were some errors in the audit section of the game's code that read ermax being shot for error macro but this led people to believe that was another secret character called Ermac in the game the rumors spread even more when a magazine included faked pictures of a red ninja called Ermac it was a hoax but Midway ran with the rumors and would make this an actual character in subsequent Mortal Kombat sequels foreign a year later Mortal Kombat came to the four main consoles of the time the Sega Genesis the Super Nintendo the Sega Game Gear and the Nintendo Game Boy they all released on the same day of September 13 1993. it was one of the biggest video game launches of the time with them having a huge marketing campaign surrounding it calling the launch mortal Monday these commercials is also where the Mortal Kombat yell derives from the Super Nintendo version of Mortal Kombat was slightly more arcade accurate than the Genesis version however due to Nintendo's family-friendly policies blood effects had to be changed to look like sweat and the fatalities which made Mortal Kombat so popular were changed to less violent Renditions the Genesis version also saw the censorships however the blood and fatalities were available by entering a cheat code ABA cabb on the Genesis controller The Game Gear version felt like a Auto downpour of the Genesis version lower graphic quality a mission of the reptile secret battle and playable character Kano but to get back the blood and fatalities you could again input a cheat code 212 down up the fourth version was for the Game Boy this version is certainly the least appealing due to its less expressive Graphics laggy gameplay input delay and omission of not only the fatalities and the reptile secret battle but also playable character Johnny Cage the only plus side to the game boy version is it does feature Goro as a playable character later in 1994 there were more ports released to other consoles the Sega Master System version which was based on the Game Gear Port PC versions for dos and Amiga and the port of the Genesis version for the Sega CD which featured all the uncensored content straight out of the box with no cheat code required finally on August 31st 2011 Warner Brothers interactive released the Mortal Kombat arcade collection as a digital store game for Playstation 3 Xbox 360 and PC it featured arcade remastered ports of Mortal Kombat Mortal Kombat 2 and the ultimate edition of Mortal Kombat 3. in the arcades Mortal Kombat was one of the most popular games for many months after its release it was also the best-selling Sega CD game in June of 1994. almost two years after its debut the four home ports of Mortal Kombat for the Super Nintendo Game Boy Genesis and Game Gear had combined sales of over 6 million units worldwide and the arcade cabinets grossed over 570 million dollars Mortal Kombat was inducted into the 2017 world video game Hall of Fame despite its basic gameplay formula today and its dated animations that don't display much martial arts Mortal Kombat is still a solid fighting game with beautiful Graphics moving backgrounds full of detail and incredible soundtrack fun characters and an awesome secrets and special moves fatalities and more to discover there

Channel: Don Critic

Views: 73,523

Keywords: Mortal Kombat history, Mortal Kombat evolution, Mortal Kombat Arcade, Mortal Kombat 12, Mortal Kombat documentary, History of Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat all characters, Mortal Kombat ranked, Mortal Kombat review, Every mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat deception, Mortal Kombat theme, Mortal Kombat 1 playthrough, Arcade games, Street fighter, Fighting games, Beat fighting games, Mortal Kombat retrospective, Mortal Kombat legacy

Id: 7MQ0GDyB_B4

Length: 15min 51sec (951 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 27 2023