Anyone else feels that Mortal Kombat 3 was underrated?

Not just the Genesis port, but the game overall.

I mean, everyone loved Mortal Kombat II for its striking characters, locations and overall orient style. MK3 contemporary setting with cyborgs and stuff was seen by many as lame. General opinion on the Genesis version is that it's a good port of a mediocre game.

I love Mortal Kombat II as well, but mostly for nostalgia. The setting is indeed brilliant and in my opinion, everything from the characters to music to backgrounds is classic. The gameplay though - it's the other way around. I just can't bring myself to play MKII now. It's just too stiff and unresponsive. Not as bad as SNES port of the first Mortal Kombat game which has awful input lag, but still totally not fun to play. MK3 on the other hand plays rather well. Chain combos is not everyones favorite mechanic, but other than that, the game feels good and more responsive. There are more opportunities for juggling combos too. It is even fun to play against the AI, which was nonsense in MK2. Yep, the setting is juuust a little bit lame, but so was Killer Instinct setting. Actually they are not that different.

As for the port, some graphical cutbacks aside, it plays just as well as the arcade version. I also really dig Genesis version of the soundtrack. Some themes, such as Soul Chamber (also used in main menu) and Pit III theme have a slightly different feel, which I actually like more than arcade originals.

TL;DR MKII is remembered more fondly, but gameplay wise it aged like milk while MK3 is still fun to play.

I'm a fan of (U)MK3 and don't really care about the first two games at all (at least as far as MD, 32X and SNES versions go). Not sure how the arcade versions are like though.

I also think MK2 is really loose and doesn't control very well. None of the punches and kicks seem to have any sort of inertia to them either. (U)MK3 controls way better for my liking, punches and whatnot feel like there's some impact to them too.

Not really played any of the Mortal Kombat games in any great detail. I think i played it on a amiga back in the day and thought it was ok. I always liked streetfighter 2 as my goto fighting game. Are the Mortal kombat games worth playing if so which is the one to get on the genny?

If we're talking about UMK3, sure. I've never really found a reason to touch the vanilla version in lieu of the upgrade, but the gameplay and character selection are pretty great. I wish they didn't put as much of an emphasis on the dial-a-combos and instead gave most characters a 2- or 3-hit pop-up, but aside from that and the lack of polish, it's probably just about my favorite classic MK to play. It may be palette swapped to the point of absurdity, but all my favorite characters are ninjas anyway, so I have few fucks to give in that regard. It's too bad they couldn't have had a few more months to finish things up.

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Originally Posted by Rustybolts

Are the Mortal kombat games worth playing if so which is the one to get on the genny?

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You're never going to get an easy answer on this; many people love the games, but many think they're junk. I'd break it down like this: MK1 is a slow, stiff game with limited playability that got by on its atmosphere, presentation and gore; MK2 is a better game in all aspects and plays quite well but can still feel limited compared to the likes of Street Fighter; (U)MK3 is hands-down the best-playing game of the trilogy, but drops the ball on some of the more extraneous elements.

As far as which Genesis MK to own, I'd prefer to tell you to skip them all and find a way to play the original arcade games (this is imperative for understanding the hoopla surrounding the first two games). The MK1 and 2 ports are notoriously awful (see the extensive Probe-bashing in every MK thread on this forum) for everything aside from gameplay (or music, if you're one of those people); and while MK3 is the best port in terms of arcade accuracy, UMK3 had to cut voices and backgrounds to fit on the same cart size as its predecessors. If you must play MK on the Genesis, I'd personally recommend UMK3; it's the most complete in terms of character roster and, again, is the best-playing game of the trilogy.

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Originally Posted by Rustybolts

Not really played any of the Mortal Kombat games in any great detail. I think i played it on a amiga back in the day and thought it was ok. I always liked streetfighter 2 as my goto fighting game. Are the Mortal kombat games worth playing if so which is the one to get on the genny?

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The Amiga port of Mortal Kombat is probably not the best way to get any sort of accurate representation of the series given how it crams in a lot of different inputs onto a single button*. Remember we're talking about a game where every of those inputs has a very specific meaning (unlike Street Fighter II, where it's two actions available in different speeds).

*It seems MK1 supports two button controllers which eases this off a bit, but MK2 doesn't x_x

EDIT: OK now I find something that says that MK2 supports two-button controllers, and the MK2 manual says that it doesn't work on an Amiga 1200 specifically, yet it doesn't even document the two-button controller mappings as if implying it just doesn't work. The heck is going on?

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Originally Posted by Assman

If we're talking about UMK3, sure. I've never really found a reason to touch the vanilla version in lieu of the upgrade, but the gameplay and character selection are pretty great. I wish they didn't put as much of an emphasis on the dial-a-combos and instead gave most characters a 2- or 3-hit pop-up, but aside from that and the lack of polish, it's probably just about my favorite classic MK to play. It may be palette swapped to the point of absurdity, but all my favorite characters are ninjas anyway, so I have few fucks to give in that regard. It's too bad they couldn't have had a few more months to finish things up.



You're never going to get an easy answer on this; many people love the games, but many think they're junk. I'd break it down like this: MK1 is a slow, stiff game with limited playability that got by on its atmosphere, presentation and gore; MK2 is a better game in all aspects and plays quite well but can still feel limited compared to the likes of Street Fighter; (U)MK3 is hands-down the best-playing game of the trilogy, but drops the ball on some of the more extraneous elements.

As far as which Genesis MK to own, I'd prefer to tell you to skip them all and find a way to play the original arcade games (this is imperative for understanding the hoopla surrounding the first two games). The MK1 and 2 ports are notoriously awful (see the extensive Probe-bashing in every MK thread on this forum) for everything aside from gameplay (or music, if you're one of those people); and while MK3 is the best port in terms of arcade accuracy, UMK3 had to cut voices and backgrounds to fit on the same cart size as its predecessors. If you must play MK on the Genesis, I'd personally recommend UMK3; it's the most complete in terms of character roster and, again, is the best-playing game of the trilogy.

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UMK3 feels on the lazy side for me. Genesis port has too many cutbacks compared to MK3 port and the arcade version has the entire story screens cut. Doesn't affect the gameplay at all, but my slight OCD just won't let me enjoy UMK3 because of these :) I don't really miss multi colored ninjas in MK3, because Sub-Zero is still there anyway and Cyborg Smoke and Cyrax are both fine replacements for Scorpion. Reptile is interesting but only for his force ball combo possibilities. Ermac, Rain and Noob are just lame characters. Girl ninjas are fine, especially Jade. The only thing I REALLY miss in MK3 compared to UMK3 is jump punch combo starters.

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Originally Posted by Rustybolts

Not really played any of the Mortal Kombat games in any great detail. I think i played it on a amiga back in the day and thought it was ok. I always liked streetfighter 2 as my goto fighting game. Are the Mortal kombat games worth playing if so which is the one to get on the genny?

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MK3 and UMK3 are both worthy. MK3 is more faithful to the arcade version, UMK3 has much stuff cut but adds some ninjas and additional combo possibilities. MK1 and MK2 were the HYPE back in early nineties but they aged very poorly, so avoid these. If you are really interested in MK2 though then better try SNES version.

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Originally Posted by Rustybolts

Not really played any of the Mortal Kombat games in any great detail. I think i played it on a amiga back in the day and thought it was ok. I always liked streetfighter 2 as my goto fighting game. Are the Mortal kombat games worth playing if so which is the one to get on the genny?

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I would recommend them all personally but the stand out Mega Drive port is UMK3. In terms of MK1 I would recommend the Mega CD port over the Mega Drive port all day long, although I do love the soundtrack to the Mega Drive port of MK1.

Base MK3 underrated? Personally I don't think so. The new characters didn't resonate with me as well as the old ones, Cage was gone, Kitana and Mileena were gone, Scorpion was gone, and Sub Zero looked nowhere near as cool. Then there's the little matter that gameplay wise UMK3 did everything better (jumping combo starters, gameplay fixes, etc) and put the missing characters back (except for Cage who was reinstated in Trilogy).

The Mega Drive/Genesis port of MK3 was more faithful than UMK3, though that's reasonable considering they're both using the same size cart. The port of UMK3 didn't fix some of MK3's bugs though, and that is more difficult to excuse.

Yeah, I was surprised by the MKII love, honestly. I never looked back with this series. Once I got UMK3, that was it for the rest of them.

I love the first and third mk (I hate with passion Mk II) Loving to play with my friend lots and lots of matches!!!

When MK3 was released it was good and people lined up to play it but Killer Instinct was in Arcades too. I think that it wasn't the sequel that people were expecting.

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Originally Posted by homerhomer

When MK3 was released it was good and people lined up to play it but Killer Instinct was in Arcades too. I think that it wasn't the sequel that people were expecting.

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Yeah, I distinctly remember that while there was a lot of hype for MK3 prior to its release, there was also quite a lot of grumbling after its release that it didn't live up to expectations. Despite the game IMO playing better, I can sort of see why: the stages had largely lost the fantastical elements they had in the previous two games, the fatalities were disappointing, the much hyped Animalities were lame, the dial-a-combo system didn't go down well with everyone, Stryker, etc.

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Originally Posted by Silanda

Yeah, I distinctly remember that while there was a lot of hype for MK3 prior to its release, there was also quite a lot of grumbling after its release that it didn't live up to expectations. Despite the game IMO playing better, I can sort of see why: the stages had largely lost the fantastical elements they had in the previous two games, the fatalities were disappointing, the much hyped Animalities were lame, the dial-a-combo system didn't go down well with everyone, Stryker, etc.

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Also, the run feature didn't quite connect with players, I think. I never got used to it, it's useless against projectiles, and every character has that kind of special moves. I think teleports (unique or a generic one) for every character instead of running would have been better (traditionally MK was always about using projectile special moves more wisely, with the unique paths each follow, not cancelling each other, etc, as opposed to SF, and running just gave projectiles a mostly obvious use and reason to spam, instead of being careful)

MK1 and MK2 are extremely overrated. They are very bad games with a lot of success just because of the blood and else.

MK3 and UMK3 are very underrated. It was the only good fighting game that was not a bad Street Fighter 2 clone.

MK3 was shit from the beginning, had you slapped another title on it before release like "APOCALYPSE KERFUFFLE" then people would have treated it like they did games like Time Killers and Kasumi Ninja.