{"id":258,"date":"2024-05-10T18:59:50","date_gmt":"2024-05-10T18:59:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gaminginsurrection.com\/mortalkombatmayhem\/?p=258"},"modified":"2024-06-28T23:42:21","modified_gmt":"2024-06-28T23:42:21","slug":"game-review-mortal-kombat-1992","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gaminginsurrection.com\/mortalkombatmayhem\/index.php\/2024\/05\/10\/game-review-mortal-kombat-1992\/","title":{"rendered":"Game Review: Mortal Kombat (1992)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Tame SNES version of MK 1992 fails to impress<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Editor’s note:<\/strong> This review originally appeared in 1Q2012. It has been edited for spelling, grammar and clarity.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"Mortal Monday. Sept. 13, 1993, was one of the most anticipated days in the history of fighting games. Mortal Kombat was coming home for a variety of systems, and depending on which system you owned, this was either a reward or slap on the hand. In the case of the Super Nintendo version, Mortal Monday wasn’t necessarily a good day.<\/p>\n

There’s not much that can be said about the Mortal Kombat series that hasn’t already been said in the nearly 19 years since its original release. Pick a character, fight to the death through a tournament and save the world along the way. It’s a premise that has essentially worked for the series the entire time and it works best in the original game. While its controversial finishing moves and gore were sometimes the focus, there was and still is a solid fighting game experience to be had underneath. The engine actually makes sense and moves work.<\/p>\n

The SNES version MK has a lot in common with its big-brother arcade counterpart in terms of looks and sound. The graphics are gorgeous faithful representations of the arcade original. The feel of playing at a standup cabinet of yore is there and the sound is at its bone-crunching best. There are only a few places where I could tell the difference between the arcade and arranged music, and even then, it was slight.
\nThe port also controls fairly well, considering the translation of moves from arcade to console was something that not every company managed to correctly do at the time. It’s a smooth motion to perform moves, and it’s not hard to pull off finishing moves. There’s a lot of leeway given in the timing and it’s helpful, especially when attempting the Test Your Might stages.<\/p>\n

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\nI’ll admit it: I have a soft spot when it comes to Mortal Kombat. However, where I have major problems with this port are the ridiculous decision to censor the game and the cost prohibitive silliness of the cartridge format at the time. Whoever decided at Nintendo to censor the game made the now-defunct game publisher Midway pay a steep price. Blood was nowhere to be found and fatalities were changed. A game that prides itself on being the goriest and most realistic on the market was reduced to a cut-up shell of itself thanks to Nintendo’s policy of family-friendly products.<\/p>\n

The SNES port could have been the definitive version of the game, with near-perfect graphics and sound, yet Nintendo felt the need to hamper it by meddling with the foundation of the Mortal Kombat experience. Throw in the fact that the SNES port also cost $70 when it was released, and you have a sure-fire recipe for low sales. Don’t get me wrong, though, it still sold. It sold like hotcakes, but it is a known fact that the SNES version sold nowhere near the amount of copies that the Sega Genesis port sold and it’s for these reasons mostly.<\/p>\n

So, where does Mortal Kombat hold up in the sea of fighting games? It’s a gorgeous port of an arcade classic and now that prices of SNES games are in the single digits, it’s beyond affordable. Two years ago, I purchased the cartridge again to complete my collection of MK games, and it was at best $8. If you can get around the fact that the basic foundation of the game is ruined by Nintendo’s misguided policy of the early ’90s (which was “corrected” in time for the release of Mortal Kombat II, by the way), and that you have to use a Game Genie cheat code to change the “sweat” into “blood” (which still doesn’t fix the altered finishing moves), then the SNES version of Mortal Kombat is your game.<\/p>\n

Otherwise, I’m inclined to pick up the excellent Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection and let the SNES version call it a day. There’s simply too many options out there today to dally with a poor representation of an 18-year-old game.<\/p>\n

Modern Score: 2.5 out of 5<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Retrograde 2012 Score: 2.5 out of 5<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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