Appreciation for Lin Kuei's mortal Kombat improvements

[OverDrone]

Amazing work. I need to get a flash cart.

[NeoVamp]

To be fair to Probe, they absolutely could have done some things better but I doubt they had the option of using a cart over 16Mb.

I know, but I'm mostly talking palette use here. Probe had a very strange idea about what kinda colors would look good.



I mean.. who thought that this color sky would look good? and they did the same with other stages. (and lets not forget MKII which also had overly dark backgrounds)
Or.. remember how the Snes version of MK1 showed biographies? instead of an image they used the fighter's sprite with some text. they saved on rom space this way.
I would have preferred the Genesis like that with some extra sound samples. (and with MKII on the Genesis they didn't even bother to add a simple intro like the snes had)

and lets not forget how the Genesis sprites were not even properly cleaned up, Kano for example had red pixels all around him.

The Genesis version of MK1 and MK2 suffered for 3 reasons.

1. Tight as fuck deadline.
2. Probe was not a very good choice, they made strange decisions regarding palette and they gave their music guy too much freedom to do his own thing.
3. The Amiga port looks very much the same aside from less colors, meaning that the Genesis port might have just been gimped from the start to make it easier to port to the Amiga later on.

If the Genesis version would not have had the gore (or if the Snes version had been uncensored) gamers would have absolutely laughed the Sega port out of the park for being so goddamn ugly.
But they learned, MKII looked much nicer. (though again, missing important features like a simple text intro/floating monk/cage&baraka win sprite/goros lair. but still having a gigantic MK Dragon logo in the options screen!)

ugh.

[Allard]

An absolutely stellar work on the part of everyone involved. It's like getting a whole new version of MK all over again, an absolute blast.

There's only one small issue I've noticed: one of Sub-Zero's arms is kind of messed up during the walk cycle (the one that he extends towards the opponent), like it flickers back and forth weirdly.

and they gave their music guy too much freedom to do his own thing.

And God bless them for it. He took a pretty unremarkable score and remade it into an absolute smash - I don't think the results would be nearly as good if he attempted straight conversions of the arcade score. Probe's MK1 and 2 ports may have more issues than the newsstand, but music definitely isn't one of them.

[NeoVamp]

He took a pretty unremarkable score and remade it into an absolute smash

Don't care, I paid for Mortal Kombat. not whatshisface's mixtape.
Imagine working hard to afford Street Fighter II on Snes, you've played it in the arcade so many times and now you will finally be able to play it at home.
you work hard, mow so many lawns. and finally the day has come.. you ride your bicycle over to the local toystore. you grab the last SF2 off the shelf and pay for it.
you drive home, eager to throw some fireballs and kick ass. you come home and take it out of the box, the excitement is too much to bear. soon you'll hear Ken's amazing theme from the comfort of your own home.
but wait.. someone disagreed with how it sounded so he did his own thing. yeah its a good thing but its. not. ken's. theme.

Also then it turned out they felt like a giant SF2 logo was better to have in the menu so Guile's stage was scrapped lol.

PROBE.

[Allard]

Don't care, I paid for Mortal Kombat. not whatshisface's mixtape.

Considering the stuff Furniss did in other games, Forden's the whathisname here.

Imagine working hard to afford Street Fighter II on Snes, you've played it in the arcade so many times and now you will finally be able to play it at home.
you work hard, mow so many lawns. and finally the day has come.. you ride your bicycle over to the local toystore. you grab the last SF2 off the shelf and pay for it.
you drive home, eager to throw some fireballs and kick ass. you come home and take it out of the box, the excitement is too much to bear. soon you'll hear Ken's amazing theme from the comfort of your own home.
but wait.. someone disagreed with how it sounded so he did his own thing. yeah its a good thing but its. not. ken's. theme.

I don't think I'd care all that much at all as long as the core game was there. It's like getting a bicycle for Christmas, only it's green and not red like I wanted and it doesn't have the light reflectors, but hey, it's still a bicycle.

And let's not ignore the fact that the fighters in the Genesis version of MK2 are both of higher resolution than on the SNES and have more animation frames. Yeah, those bios and endings are really nice to have, and a certain someone did an outstanding job of adapting them for Smoke's hack, but if you can only have one, which one do you prefer?

[NeoVamp]

which one do you prefer?

Honestly? ignoring romhacks I'd say I prefer the Snes version of MKII. it has 95% of what made MKII special for me. (bio/ending/goros lair/voices/original music)
Yeah the Genesis version plays tighter, but MK was never Street Fighter and the eyecandy was about 75% of the game to me.

I still don't understand how they both used the same rom size but Snes managed to squeeze in so. much. more.

[aMaru]

What an amazing christmas gift, indeed. This is absolutely stunning!!!

[Hairlesswookiee]

Great job!! I plan on getting this loaded up on my cart so I can test drive it this weekend.

[NeoVamp]

Some bugs I've found while playing the game on real hardware with a Mega Everdrive.

1. The Pit stage seems to make the game a bit laggy, with occasional white artifacts appearing briefly onscreen.

2. Sometimes the controls switch back to the 3 button one, only to go back to 6 buttons the next round. (random, doesn't seem linked to a certain stage) (could be related to my wireless gamepad, need to hear from others on real hardware)

3. How do you do Johnny Cage's crotch punch? block+lp does not work.

4. During the fight with Shang Tsung he morphed into Goro, but I kicked him during morph and Goro ended up lower on the screen.

[Allard]

Some bugs I've found while playing the game on real hardware with a Mega Everdrive.

1. The Pit stage seems to make the game a bit laggy, with occasional white artifacts appearing briefly onscreen.

2. Sometimes the controls switch back to the 3 button one, only to go back to 6 buttons the next round. (random, doesn't seem linked to a certain stage) (could be related to my wireless gamepad, need to hear from others on real hardware)

3. How do you do Johnny Cage's crotch punch? block+lp does not work.

4. During the fight with Shang Tsung he morphed into Goro, but I kicked him during morph and Goro ended up lower on the screen.

Does Sub-Zero's walk cycle look normal on your machine?

[NeoVamp]

Does Sub-Zero's walk cycle look normal on your machine?

Sub-Zero seems fine on my machine. what am I looking for?
Did manage to trigger another bug, while testing Sub-Zero for you I was getting pummeled by Sonya on the right side of the screen in the Palace Gates stage when suddenly I heard "LIUKANG!"
it must have tried to play too many samples or something.

[Allard]

Sub-Zero seems fine on my machine. what am I looking for?

The arm that he extends towards his opponent seems to flicker in and out of existence briefly during the walk cycle. I saw it happen on both hardware and emulators as well as seen it in videos of other people.

[Pyron]

Some bugs I've found while playing the game on real hardware with a Mega Everdrive.

1. The Pit stage seems to make the game a bit laggy, with occasional white artifacts appearing briefly onscreen.

2. Sometimes the controls switch back to the 3 button one, only to go back to 6 buttons the next round. (random, doesn't seem linked to a certain stage) (could be related to my wireless gamepad, need to hear from others on real hardware)

3. How do you do Johnny Cage's crotch punch? block+lp does not work.

4. During the fight with Shang Tsung he morphed into Goro, but I kicked him during morph and Goro ended up lower on the screen.

Happens the same here, also the performance is not constant during all the game, the pit stage is the worst one, also has a problem with the cloud scrolling effect show artifacts on the screen updates
seems that's the latency has some variation depending on what happens on the screen, the controls become laggy and sometimes is difficult to perform some moves.
I think that's just a impression but after play MD and SCD version is very noticeable

[Da_Shocker]

This is some incredible work. A video popped up on my youtube and I was like with a little bit of work and 8 extra megs you can have a remarkable port. I need to fire the ole ED up.

[Allard]

Happens the same here, also the performance is not constant during all the game, the pit stage is the worst one, also has a problem with the cloud scrolling effect show artifacts on the screen updates
seems that's the latency has some variation depending on what happens on the screen, the controls become laggy and sometimes is difficult to perform some moves.
I think that's just a impression but after play MD and SCD version is very noticeable

Interesting, I don't remember encountering any of that. I'll play some more, but I think it would be helpful if we also mentioned our console models and revisions (mine is Asia/PAL Mega Drive II VA 1.0)