Welcome to the R/R/R Files, where we look at whether or not an older title should be re-released, remade, or rejected. This edition is largely inspired by our Community’s Best Fighting Game of 2011 – Mortal Kombat. When we see the concept of 2D fighters with 3D visuals, they now dominate the genre with the likes of Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Super Street Fighter IV and the critically acclaimed reboot of Mortal Kombat. But flash back to the latter end of the 1990s and the picture is a very different story, with Tekken and Soul Calibur being the must have games for a seemingly dying genre with 2D fast becoming old hat. Enter the fourth sequential instalment of the Mortal Kombat series which featured an Earth Realm without Shao Kahn and a new adversary for the champions to kombat.

Case #006 Mortal Kombat 4

Game Information

Original platform- Arcade (’97)

Previous ports – PlayStation (’98), Nintendo 64 (’98), PC (’98), Gameboy Color (’99), Dreamcast (Mortal Kombat Gold) (’99),

Trivia

• This was the first arcade Mortal Kombat not to use real actors for character models.
• A later version entitled Mortal Kombat Gold was released exclusively for the Sega Dreamcast in 1999.
• Mortal Kombat Gold had an updated release that fixed glaring bug errors and allowed VMU support to allow saving.
• Entering a cheat code in Mortal Kombat Gold would unlock various secret characters, including the sub-boss Goro.
• One secret kombatant was a skeleton with blood dripping down him. He is later named by fans as “Meat”, the hanging corpse in Goro’s Stage in the original Mortal Kombat.

What is Mortal Kombat 4 Like?

Some would say that this is where the series went off the wagon, but that is probably due to a lack of exposure for the fourth instalment of the series. The gameplay still felt authentic to the franchise, with the fatalities making up some of the best and worst in the series. One character can rip someone’s leg off, and then proceed to beat them with the soggy end! What worked was essentially these familiar aspects, with new characters largely replicating and occasionally out-doing some of the ridiculousness of the franchises’ stalwart kombatants. The new Maximum Damage feature cut players combos short when they’ve dealt enough damage to their opponent’s life bar, meaning juggling players to death wasn’t possible and making fights more balanced.

The decision to turn the franchise into a 3D experience during the dawn of 3D processing however was a bit of a mistake. Even for its time, the game was nowhere near state of the art in terms of visual quality. Tekken hit the arcades a full four years before Mortal Kombat 4, and that looked better. Part of the charm for me came from the stylised kombat that gushed out litres of blood every second. Gaining the ability to use weapons was a bit of a double-edged sword. Mortal Kombat was never about weapons, it was about the ridiculous moves you could pull off, culminating in one epic move that stunned the amassing audience in the arcades. In some respects at the very least, the series lost its way.

Legacy

While the game had a strong pedigree, Mortal Kombat 4 marked the end of the series as we knew it. 2D Fighters were falling further out of vogue, a trend not even the mighty Street Fighter franchise could stop. For years we would see fighters reinvent themselves into full 3D, and this was exactly the fate of Mortal Kombat a few years later.

Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance would prove to be the revival of a series long thought to be dead, but it wasn’t the same game at all. New blood replaced many of the classic characters from the arcades, but the spirit would return with even more gruesome fatalities than ever before. Thanks to a full redesign, it looked appealing too, a far cry from the garish visuals from Mortal Kombat 4. Souls were even sold to the lord of the NetherRealm in order to make the Teen Rated mash-up Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. It was a tough period for the visionary designer who put video game controversy on the map, but one that kept a genre alive until the true king of the fighters – Street Fighter, returned properly to resuscitate the 2D fighter. It is only last year that we see the series was merely biding its time, outperforming every game of the genre last year to become the MediaKick Community’s Fighting Game of the Year 2011.

How easy would it be to port?

The tech behind the arcade version is so complex that the preferential port actually comes from the “special edition” Mortal Kombat Gold for the Dreamcast. As we’ve seen a few Dreamcast ports pop up on Xbox Live Arcade, this shouldn’t be a difficult process and we’d get a little more out of it than the original arcade product. While the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 versions would be easier to port, the quality is nowhere near the original arcade version.

Re-release/Remake/Reject

There are some who would say that releasing this game again is necessary due to the fact that we’ve seen previous Mortal Kombat games have multiple re-releases on Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network. With the series gaining a new found popularity thanks to last year’s stunning reboot, some would believe that NetherRealm Studios and WB Games would snap at the chance to make money.

However, the problem comes with the overall quality of Mortal Kombat 4. Fundamental flaws kept the game from carrying on the trend of its predecessors include the irrefutable fact that the game was pig ugly compared to the likes of Tekken and Soul Calibur and that there were some odd gameplay choices made during production. What was slightly more successful though was the continuation of the lore of Mortal Kombat, setting things up for the full 3D reboot that would follow a few years later. Despite all these issues, the reason why Mortal Kombat 4 really shouldn’t see any further play is simply because of the series direction. We’re going through an alternative universe perspective where Shao Kahn is now dead. The last thing we see in the story mode is Quan Chi talking with Shinnok, the primary boss for Mortal Kombat 4. If there is a launch pad for the inevitable follow-up, it is here. We don’t need the original any more.

Verdict

Reject

What do you think though, should Mortal Kombat 4 be re-released, remade or rejected?