Mortal Kombat 3 came out right as I was first discovering Mortal Kombat. It would be a year or two before I finally played it, so for much of my childhood, it was no more than an exciting myth. The world wasn’t so small back then.
I can still remember my first real exposure to MK3. Family friends of mine had it, but we saw them maybe once a year, if that. Their dad got the codes faxed to him from the Nintendo Hotline, I remember thinking that was so cool.
Yeah I know, I was a stupid kid. There seems to be a running theme here…
(If you’d like to check out the previous two entries; click here for Mortal Kombat and here for MKII.)
As a child, I thought Mortal Kombat could do no wrong. In the months before I ever played MK3 I can remember my cousin telling me that you can uppercut people through the roof and into another stage; and a family friend telling me you could turn into an animal and maul your opponent; and another family friend telling me that there were robots, fucking robots, as playable characters.
Not pictured: robots.
I’m starting to see why this game appealed to me so much.
At some point before playing the game, my family were holidaying at a resort somewhere by the beach. This place had a small library of VHS tapes that you could borrow. The only ones I can remember getting were Dumb And Dumber and Revenge Of The Nerds. Anyway, they all had ads at the start of each tape, which is where I saw this:
Come to think of it, the ad was probably on the Mortal Kombat VHS. I watched that non-stop as a kid. I remember the ad being more gruesome than it is.
At some point in high school, I got back into this game in a big way. And in all honesty it was probably the first time I had really got a feel for the game. What struck me most was just how bad it actually was.
Mortal Kombat 3 added some new mechanics to the previous games; combos and the run button. Annoyingly, the run button was set to the button I mostly used to block, so I got the shit kicked out of me unnecessarily a fair few times. The game was faster in general, too.
Honestly I like the ideas in theory, but they made the game almost completely unplayable. Instead of making your own combos, all you could do was rush in and perform a pre-determined combo, because nothing else worked.
And if you’re playing against the computer, forget about it. Even on Very Easy, I can barely make it past the second fight. The computer just rush in and perform a 6-7 hit combo, knocking off 40% of your health every time, and you can’t do anything to block it. Now, I’m fucking great at Mortal Kombat, so don’t counter with “oh you just haven’t grasped the controls” or something. Fuck you. Play me in MK3 and I’ll wipe the floor with you, brutality and everything, but I still can’t beat the game on Very Easy without save states.
The first and only fight I’ll win in MK3.
The fatalities sucked too. First off; there was never enough time to pull them off. Second, they used pretty bad button combinations in comparison to MKII. Third; they were just less imaginative in general.
Animalities were where the money’s at. Seriously, as a kid, the idea that I could turn into a shark for a fatality blew my stupid fucking mind. Like most things in this game, they’re not nearly as cool as I remember them, but I’ll always have a soft spot for them. Babalities and friendships returned too, which was nice.
I’ll level with you – I didn’t get any pictures of Animalities.
We also got brutalities. I don’t understand the point of these finishing moves. Brutalities were the hardest to execute, with 10-13 button combos performed fast and flawlessly, only to see your opponent explode. Every person had a different button combination, but they all had the same payoff. It was pointless.
I quickly snapped this screenshot as Scorpion punched me so many times I exploded.
I don’t want to rip on MK3 too much. Although it’s the weakest of the first 3, it had some good points, too. Starting with the characters.
I seem to be in the minority here, but I think the characters introduced in MK3 are some of the best in the series. Nightwolf; the Native American holy man, and Kabal; Black Dragon turned good guy, are two of my favorite characters ever. Nightwolf’s ethereal arsenal and Kabal’s hookswords are still fucking awesome.
Seen here, fighting to the death.
Then there’s Stryker. Stryker cops a lot (get it?) and I see why: guns and grenades shouldn’t be an adequate replacement for fighting ability. I still liked Stryker, more for his story than anything. He’s just an average joe — a lazy piece of shit with a beer gut.
Sindel was a character I often overlooked. A running theme around MK3 is people telling me stuff about the game before I’ve played it, and me thinking “yeah, right”. Sindel is one of those moments. A character who fights by whipping her long hair and screaming at you reeked of bullshit.
I loved the idea of Sheeva though. If there was one thing Mortal Kombat needed more of, it was four-armed Shokan warriors. I remember a kid in school telling me he used to play as Sheeva to scare his sister.
That brings us to the robots. Sektor and Cyrax; Lin Kuei ninjas turned cyborg assassins. This ruined the game for a lot of people I know, but I thought it was so cool. I still do. Smoke makes an appearance as a secret character in this one, too. Making him a cyborg was an awesome direction to take.
Sonya and Kano were back, which was pretty cool for fans of the original. And while Sub-Zero was technically in the roster, I really didn’t like the decision to omit all the ninjas. It was an interesting development in Sub-Zero’s story though.
Instead of the sub-boss being a Shokan warrior, we got Motaro instead. When my friends first told me about Motaro I said “get the fuck out” or some variation of, because centaurs do not belong in Mortal Kombat. He’s not actually that bad, but it still feels off.
As cool as the characters were, there was something off about them. Everyone looked thin and sickly. It looked more like something out of a comic book.
Jax now had metal arms, too.
As for the stages, while I think Mortal Kombat II had better, MK3 still did pretty fucking good. To sum up the story, after losing to Liu Kang in MKII, Shao Kahn said “fuck it” and straight up attacked Earth. Everyone died except for Raiden’s chosen warriors, who have to stop Kahn from merging the realms.
Pre- and Post-Uppercut.
That pretty much sums up the theme for the stages. It all takes place in a post-apocalyptic Earth, with most of it being in what looks like New York City. I am a huge fan of this. The fights take place on roads, bridges, docks, inside buildings and on rooftops, with harsh winds blowing as elements of Outworld bleed into the scenery, and not a survivor to be seen.
We do see parts of other realms, like Netherrealm and areas in Shao Kahn’s fortress. Arenas like the Soul Chamber, and Jade’s Desert from UMK3, contrast very well with the “Earth” arenas.
One more thing that was cool about MK3 was the Kombat Kodes. If both players entered the same code on the VS screen, you could make cool stuff happen. Speaking of cool stuff, there were also codes you could enter at the title screen to open secret menus. They were called Kool Stuff, Kooler Stuff, and Scott’s Stuff. They were only really useful for extra lives and more time for fatalities, but the idea was very cool. Again, as a kid, it blew my mind.
I actually played Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 before the original. One day after basketball, I went to a teammate’s house, who had just rented the game. We spent the day trying to figure out everyone’s special moves. UMK3 blew me away as a kid.
I had a much more positive view on UMK3 than I did on the original, probably because it had all the ninjas. Rain and Ermac were myths to me at that point. I remember some kid telling me he hired the new MK from the video store, and how there was this purple ninja called “Rain” and this red one named “Ermac”, and I remember thinking “bullshit”. It seemed like he wasn’t putting much effort into the lie.
Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 isn’t much better, though. The single player is still a fucking nightmare, the only difference is the bigger character roster and I think they toned down Stryker’s grenade move, but don’t quote me on that last one. Still, if you’re going to play any MK3 title, make it this one.
The same family friends that showed me Mortal Kombat 3 also exposed me to Mortal Kombat Trilogy. My memory of that time is pretty hazy though. We played some 2-on-2 rounds, but I didn’t have enough time to get a feel for it.
My view on MK:T has been ruined somewhat by playing the Nintendo 64 version only. I hated it. I thought it was a half-baked cash grab where the developers wanted to have their cake and eat it too, so it had everything, but nothing was done right.
Only recently I’ve been informed of how wrong I am. A friend of mine obsessed over this game for a while. Why? He was playing the Playstation release. For those (like me) who aren’t aware; the PSX release had everything.
Everything.
Not just every move, character and stage; but every single iteration of each character. Want to play as MKII-era Liu Kang against MK-era Sub-Zero? No problem. It had literally everything from MK, MKII, MK3 and UMK3 — and then some.
I look at Mortal Kombat Trilogy as the end of an era. A perfect anthology of the first three, and best chapters of the Mortal Kombat story. With the rich characters and universe built on these three games, only good things could come in the future.
…right?
-A
A Link To The Adam. 