Mortal Kombat 4 signals end of era
My daily life from 1993 to 1997 consisted of school, video games and Mortal Kombat. And there was plenty of Mortal Kombat to go around. By the time Mortal Kombat 4 was released, there was so much Mortal Kombat to consume that I probably developed fatigue. I was tired and it was because of Mortal Kombat 4. Having relived the nightmare that was the fourth entry recently, I’m just as tired now as I was then.
Mortal Kombat 4 takes the series in a new and weird direction with a prequel-sequel story and a mix of new and old faces. After the defeat of Shao Kahn at the end of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, a new, bigger, badder set of dudes arrive in the form of Shinnok and Quan Chi. Except they aren’t really new. If you’ve played the equally dreadful sister game of Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero, you should be familiar with the Netherrealm dynamic duo because they are big bads introduced there. Here, about six years later, they re-emerge to wreak havoc on the general populace yet again. On the side story note, there’s something about the Black Dragon being wiped out, Goro returning after being declared missing and Johnny Cage being allowed to return from the afterlife since he was killed off-screen before Ultimate MK3. None of that is super important unless you care about those characters or are a MK lore superfan.
Suffice to say, the story does actually try hard to tie up loose ends from the arcade trilogy era and set up new threads, but some work and some do not. There are characters that join the motley crew that is the Mortal Kombat universe that we care about such as Fujin, Quan Chi and Shinnok and then there’s Kai and Jarek. The latter two are no-name copies of other worthy characters who have been relegated to mentions and cameos, so their addition is not worth the price of admission, quite frankly, with hindsight.
Something else that doesn’t hold up is the graphics. The Zeus engine is one of the ugliest animated systems I have ever seen. There is absolutely nothing pretty about the way MK4 animates, plays, or just looks in the attract mode. Yes, I fully admit that I am biased because I came up in the era of digitization and MK 1992 to UMK3 sprite beauty, but there’s something to be said about how particularly goofy MK4 looks even in an idle mode. I get it: The move away from digitization had to start somewhere, but this is a terrible start. Character designs look … not great … and animate jerkily and disjointed, and the camera is god awful and does the action no favors. The only saving grace are the background designs. They are absolutely stunning and well-designed. But that’s about the nicest thing I can say about the Zeus engine and its rendering failures.
And, along with the hard fail of the graphics, the controls are a hard pass as well. While they are familiar for most older characters and easy to learn for new characters, they are nowhere near as smooth as the older games. I would venture to say that I’d take playing stone ages MK 1992 over playing MK4 at any given time. Combos feel clean but they seem to take a lot of work and the much-vaunted weapon system is junk. Don’t fall for the trap that was set in the hype leading up to the game; weapons do not enhance anything about MK4 and are a nuisance to actually implement into the playstyle. Not only that, but they can also easily be knocked away with a quick hit, which is kind of dumb. True, it’s not Soulcalibur here, but it’s too soft to take seriously.
The other good thing that MK4 has for it is the sound design. Dan Forden did the work, and it shows because there are a few tracks in the game that are absolute bangers. Even the announcer, despite not being the legendary Steve Ritchie, is a decent part of the sound. It’s the one part of the experience that ties it back to the original halcyon days of MK 1992 to MK3, and it’s the one that it so desperately needs to cling to because everything else is terrible.
Mortal Kombat 4 tried with all of its might to keep the franchise relevant but it was clear that it was time for MK to do something completely new. MK4 wasn’t the missing piece of the puzzle in a time that also featured the equally terrible Mortal Kombat: Annihilation and Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero. While we’ve had the benefit of 27 years to rest up, MK4 still manages to contribute to the MK fatigue of the day even now. The greatest warrior is … progress.
Score: 2 out of 5