Can't see what's so great about Killer Instinct (1994)

^ Absolutely the SNES port of KI was better than all those MK cash-ins, with Rare/Ninty at the helm at the very least it must have passed some form of quality control, unlike some of the games you mentioned above. (Holy shit Rise of the Robots was a disaster)! Actually by the time the guy I was living with acquired a copy, I had imported a US PSX with the MK3 port so his KI kinda got left in the shade :)

Considering I don't think Rare had any previous experience with Vs fighters I reckon the arcade KI turned out exceptionally - think about all the me-too digitized/OTT gore games that came and went during that era - Tattoo Assassins, Blood Storm, Survival Arts etc. Very few could hold a candle to KI technically or playability wise. It still wasn't lumped in with the 'serious' fighters by players in my area, but was very popular anyway.

Of course the SNK and Capcom fighters that came later would continue to prove that stylish sprite art and balanced, rock-solid gameplay wasn't going anywhere, likewise Virtua Fighter 2 and Tekken 2 in the 3D arena.

As someone who has always been pretty much unable to memorize combos, I've always kind of hated the game, myself...

Besides Mortal Kombat (mainly 2 and 3), the only other fighting game I remember wanting to get into back in those days was Primal Rage.

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Originally Posted by fluxcore

Yeah, it was all about the hype back in the day. It was a good looking game at a time when that was still a technical feat. While I know people that still really like KI and get excited to talk about it, I don't know anyone that puts it on a list of 'greatest fighting games'...

IMO the gameplay is pretty clunky, and that's the bit that makes a game stand the test of time. Also I don't think the graphics have held up terribly well on the SNES port. I've actually considered selling my cart of it, due to how much less impressive (and fun) it is than I remember back in the day :/

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Don't get too sad over it, we've all been through that to some extent or another. There are many games from my youth that I enjoyed back then when I was young and ignorant, but feel do not hold up, that is, if they were ever even good at all. Move on and find new games and leave the ones that rely purely on nostalgia buried in your memories. Unfortunately, as someone who grew up with a SNES, this is how I feel with a lot of the games on the console. I only knew KI from watching my cousin play it, but it didn't seem that great either way. But then again, I'm not a huge fan of fighters to begin with.

Whoa, didnt expect so many dislikes for Killer Instict. Ok, this a sega related forum, but anyway, I really think is a very good game. Rare used indeed pre-render graphics on a good way. Seems im alone here! :D

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Originally Posted by Nightwolf

Seems im alone here! :D

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Hey, I said it's better than Rise of the Robots; isn't that positive? :p

Someone brought up the music and sfx, which were admittedly fantastic. Very good sound design! One of those games that I taped the soundtrack off the console to listen to.

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Originally Posted by cabear

The chain combos are what made the game so fun. The arcade version (at least around here) was always packed and had just as much comp as sf2 or any other comparable fighter. It's not a game that plays like much else, as there is a "rhythm" to chaining together moves. It's a solid fighter and introduced a lot of neat ideas into fighting world, or at least got those ideas right (combo counter, combo breaker, level fatalities)

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The arcade game had great presentation with those cool cut-scenes between matches. It was the arcade game that was hyped to be using the Ultra-64 hardware, and when the N-64 got delayed, it was ported to the SNES to tide Nintendo gamers over.

I bought a sealed NIB copy back in 2007, idk where it came from. The store had a stack of them. The game didn't impress me very much, but the arranged soundtrack CD it came with did. I wish I still had it.

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Originally Posted by gamevet

The arcade game had great presentation with those cool cut-scenes between matches. It was the arcade game that was hyped to be using the Ultra-64 hardware, and when the N-64 got delayed, it was ported to the SNES to tide Nintendo gamers over.

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"Coming to your home in 1995". That's what made me want the Ultra 64.

Of course the N64 hardware was nothing like it in the end, I think the arcade ran at around 100 Mhz and benefited from the onboard HD. Having said that KI Gold didn't turn out too bad but if you were expecting the Hi Res graphics of the arcade KIs you were going to be disappointed.

I never did end up bothering with N64, especially when it became apparent that 2D was going to be an afterthought.

Yeah, IIRC a lot of the hype was that the Ultra 64 versions of KI (and Cruisin' USA) were supposed to be "pixel perfect" replicas of the arcade games. So we weren't just seeing a cool arcade game, but also a glimpse into Nintendo's next console.

...imagine if the N64 and the KI arcade hardware were the same, just like the NEO•GEO AES and NEO•GEO MVS...

That would have been an interesting turn for Nintendo, taking an SNK like approach. Makes me wonder what the rest of the game library would have been like... Japanese arcade games with perfect ports? Shmups?

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Originally Posted by AlecRob

...imagine if the N64 and the KI arcade hardware were the same, just like the NEO•GEO AES and NEO•GEO MVS...

That would have been an interesting turn for Nintendo, taking an SNK like approach. Makes me wonder what the rest of the game library would have been like... Japanese arcade games with perfect ports? Shmups?

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Makes me wonder how powerful is the KI hardware? I believe PS1 hardware with an HDD and additional RAM could do the same level of graphics with ease.

Killer Instinct got nothing on the PC Gaming Master Race's equivalent: Pray for Death!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArokvZDGXlg


............ yeeaah.

Sorry about reviving an old thread, but I've just realised that Killer Instinct and X-Men Children of the Atom were released around the same time. While I haven't had a chance to see both of them at the same arcade back in the day, I've checked them back to back on my CRT. And man, these games are like from two different eras. Slow, ugly and stiff Killer Instinct and fast, fluid, beautiful and also much more flashy XMCOTA. Really, KI animations look like badly articulated action figures stop motion in comparison. XMCOTA doesn't have prerecorded CG for backgrounds but its bgs have a ton more details and destructable stuff. I'll give that KI requires a bit more skill to pull off those 40+ ultra combos while X-Men is more button masher friendly but that's barely an advantage for anyone but hardcore KI players.