Rom Mortal Kombat Ultimate Sega
Avery Blaschko
The game was a response by Midway to Capcom's highly successful fighting game Street Fighter II, which spawned a number of sequels and related games. However, it used a fighting system different from the Street Fighter formula, which was used in all sequels until Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance. The controls consisted of five buttons arranged in an "X" pattern: a high punch, a high kick, a low punch, a low kick, and a block button, as well as an eight-way joystick. Unlike Street Fighter, characters did not block while retreating or crouching, but required pushing the block button to low block. Even then, characters would take chip damage from any hit while blocking - Sub-Zero's ice projectile is the unique exception. If the two fighters were close to each other, hitting any of the attack buttons would result in a different strike: a low punch turned into an unblockable throw, a high punch turned into a heavy elbow or backhand, and either kick turned into a knee strike. Crouching and hitting either punch resulted in an uppercut, which was the heaviest strike of the game. Jump kicking and crouch-kicking were executed in a similar fashion to Street Fighter.
The game retained a similar scoring system (based on successful hits, the Test Your Might minigame and other bonuses) to those games; this would be dropped in later entries to the Mortal Kombat series in favor of counting wins but then be brought back in the current timeline games.
Another of the game's innovations was the Fatality, a special finishing move executed against a beaten opponent to kill them in a gruesome fashion. For example, Sub-Zero would grasp a defeated opponent by the head, then rip off their head and spine while the body crumpled to the ground in a pool of blood. Fatalities could only be executed after you had defeated your opponent in kombat, and essentially served as a memorable and gruesome sort of victory dance.
Mortal Kombat also introduced the concept of juggling, an idea so popular it has spread to later installments of the series and even other fighting games and genres. Juggling takes advantage of the fact that when a character is knocked into the air, the player is unable to control his or her character until he or she lands and gets up again. The idea behind juggling is to knock the enemy into the air and then follow up with other combat moves to keep them there. Theoretically, one could juggle one's opponent to death without ever taking damage, though this was difficult to accomplish in practice.
Finally, Mortal Kombat also changed the way special moves were performed. Street Fighter (and many other fighting games) performed most special moves in fractions of circles (usually full, half or one-quarter) on the joystick followed by a button press (such as a quarter-circle forward, plus punch). Mortal Kombat was the first to introduce moves that did not require a button press (such as tap back, tap back, then forward), and only a few of the special moves required circular joystick movement.
500 years ago, the annual Shaolin Tournament, long the most prestigious fighting tournament in the world, was interrupted by the appearance of an old sorcerer and a strange four-armed creature, who entered the tournament and defeated the Great Kung Lao. This Shokan warrior was the half-human, half-dragon fighter named Goro, and he became the ultimate fighting champion for the next five hundred years. This was all part of Shang Tsung's plan to tip the balance into chaos and help Outworld conquer the Earth Realm.[1]
A worthy shaolin monk named Liu Kang would go to the tournament with the intent to restore balance alongside the Hollywood martial artist Johnny Cage who also entered the tournament and befriended Kang when a fight broke out between himself and Kano.
Lin Kuei warrior Sub-Zero was invited to join the tournament by Shang Tsung himself, two years after his ordeal with Shinnok's Amulet.[1] According to his MK Ending, his reason for joining the tournament was to assassinate Shang Tsung, by the request of a wealthy enemy of Tsung's. This, however, was never mentioned again. The undead Shirai Ryu ninja Scorpion entered the tournament intending to kill Sub-Zero, believing Sub-Zero to be responsible for killing him (in Mythologies, it was also stated that Scorpion thought that Sub-Zero had murdered his family and clan as well)[1].
Raiden, the God of Thunder, was also asked personally by Shang Tsung, and Raiden himself boasted that "all those who would oppose Raiden would be crushed." He took the form of a mortal in order to participate in the tournament.
Kano, the Black Dragon's most diabolical thug, was being chased by a U.S. Special Forces Unit, led by Lt. Sonya Blade, when he managed to get onto the boat leading to the tournament; his goal in the tournament was to loot Shang Tsung's Palace (where the walls are rumored to be made of gold). Once Sonya and her men arrived, Shang Tsung had his personal army ambush them. The Special Forces Unit got caught in the surprise attack, so Sonya had no choice but to take part in the tournament in order to save her team. Thus the tournament was set.
With Outworld already having won 9 tournaments in a row, our heroes would have to avoid handing Earth Realm the 10th loss, or all of humanity would crumble into the darkness of the Outworld (the "10 tournaments in a row" detail was first mentioned in-game in Mortal Kombat Trilogy, although it had first been mentioned in John Tobias' Mortal Kombat II comic and had also been a key plot point in the film adaptation of the original Mortal Kombat)[1].
Bio:A martial arts superstar trained by great masters from around the world, Cage uses his talents on the big screen. He is the current box-office champ and star of such movies as Dragon Fist and Dragon Fist II as well as the award-winning Sudden Violence.
Ending:Through the battles and life-or-death situations faced during the tournament, Johnny Cage learns the true importance of his fighting skills. He also realizes the full potential of the tournament.
Bio:Mercenary, thug, extortionist, and thief - Kano lives a life of crime and injustice. He is a devoted member of the Black Dragon, a dangerous group of cut-throat madmen feared and respected throughout all of crime's inner circles.
Ending:With the defeat of Goro and Shang Tsung, Kano will bring his own brand of treachery to the Tournament. His Black Dragon organization forms a monopoly over the contest that brings shame and torment to all those involved.
Bio:Once a member of the super-secret White Lotus Society, Liu Kang left the organization in order to represent the Shaolin temples in the Tournament. Kang is strong in his beliefs and despises Shang Tsung.
Bio:The name Raiden is actually that of a deity known as The Thunder God. It is rumored he received a personal invitation by Shang Tsung himself and took the form of a human to compete in the Tournament.
Ending:Raiden's victory comes as no surprise to him. He was never impressed by Shang Tsung's inferior sorcery, Goro's brute force, or the challenge of the other contestants. He quickly becomes bored with his mortal competition and soon invites other gods to participate in the contest.
Bio:Sonya is a member of a top U.S. Special Forces unit and paramilitary police force. Her team was hot on the trail of Kano's Black Dragon organization. They followed them to an uncharted island where they were ambushed by Shang Tsung's personal army.
Ending:Captured by Shang Tsung, Sonya's Special Forces unit was taken hostage - their only hope was the tournament. Shang Tsung promised to release the entire team...only if Sonya could win the contest.
His only goal in the tournament was the assassination of Shang Tsung. He was paid a large sum* of money by one of Tsung's wealthy enemies. With his mission accomplished, Sub-Zero will collect his fortune and retire from his dangerous profession.
Mortal Kombat featured two bosses. One was a sub-boss (whom you'd have to face before challenging the main boss of the game). The sub-boss of the game was a four-armed Shokan warrior named Goro, a half-human, half-dragon beast. Upon Goro's defeat, the player would then face the game's main boss, Shang Tsung. Despite the sorcerer's old age, he moved with incredible speed and summoned skull fireballs at will. Shang Tsung's darkest magic empowered him to steal the souls of fallen adversaries. Due to this sorcery, he also had the ability to morph into any character in the game, including Goro, and assume their appearance and their special abilities. Upon defeat, the many warrior souls that Shang Tsung used during battle would leave his body and then he would be engulfed in flames.
From a marketing perspective, the 1993 launch of Mortal Kombat for video game consoles by Acclaim was probably the largest launch of a video game up until that time. A "Mortal Monday" TV campaign featured a flood of TV advertisements, which were unusual for video games at that time, and all four home versions of the game (Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy and Sega Game Gear) were made available for sale on the same date. Other ports were eventually released.
Versions of the original Mortal Kombat game appeared on several different formats, most notably the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis and Nintendo's SNES. When the first game in the series was released for the SNES in North America, Nintendo of America had a strict "Family Friendly" policy towards the content of the games released on their systems which required the removal of graphic violence, religious imagery and themes, mentions of death, sexual themes, and other sensitive subjects. Hence, the first Mortal Kombat game on the SNES had the blood recolored gray in an attempt to pass it off as sweat, and the various Fatality moves were graphically changed to be less gruesome. The SNES version was graphically superior to the Mega Drive/Genesis port, but all violence was censored.
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