Growing up as a child of the late 80's/early 90's, I was enamored with finishing moves. Ever since the day an older friend of mine introduced me to the original Mortal Kombat on SNES (censored and all), I was hooked to not only fighting games but also the idea of finishing off your opponent in a stylized, violent fashion. After the success of Mortal Kombat, everyone and their mother was throwing their hat into the ring with one MK knock-off after the next. Suddenly every western-developed fighting game had to offer violent finishing moves, and some of them tried to up the ante with more violence or absurdity than even MK offered.
At one point in the mid-90's it became a given that finishing moves in some incarnation were just part of the fighting game paradigm. People loved them, and discovering them all in communal fashion via the magic of 90's pre-internet arcade culture was great fun. But as time passed many of these MK wannabes faded away, and only fighting games with rock-solid gameplay mechanics and some semblance of balance would go on to stand the test of time competitively. Once fighting games shifted into more niche territory as a purely competitive genre (and less of a more general draw at arcades), the focus drifted away from finishing moves completely.
Sure, you had some SNK games still dabbling in them even going into the late 90's/early 2000's (e.g. Samurai Shodown IV and V Special, Last Blade 1 and 2... etc.), but at this time they were starting to become a remnant of the past. Only the MK series continued to implement them, but by this time MK had moved to consoles exclusively and fell even further out of favor with the competitive fighting game community due to their more casual nature.
Now let's fast-forward to today. Ever since 2009 with the release of Street Fighter IV, fighting games have had sort of a second renaissance with the advent of online play opening up the genre to millions of new players with a thirst for competition in grassroots tournaments all over the country. During this period of growth we've seen most of the enduring fighting game series from the 90's find new footing in the market with a refreshed sense of purpose. Now they were being developed with the competitive hardcore directly in mind, so gameplay tightness and balance were key. Finishing moves, at least for everyone other than MK, had been cast aside in the interest of keeping matches flowing quickly from one to the next in tournament play.
And I get it. After you've seen a finishing move a few dozen times, it grows old. There's no doubting that. And the process of discovery has been accelerated so drastically by the Internet that it no longer holds the same appeal that it did in the era of arcade dominance. While MK has stuck to its guns with fatalities despite attempting to be more competitive on a tournament level, its finishing moves have become increasingly macabre and lengthy in recent entries. While Fatalities got to a point of ridiculousness with earlier entries like MK3 and MK4, now some find them to be almost too disturbing and serious.
So is there even a place for finishing moves in a modern context? Well... I think there could be. Allow me to point to a few modern examples that I think work perfectly well without wasting the players' time:
______________
To round us off, I'll reference a post I made in a thread way back in 2011 containing a bunch of links to finishing move compilations from older games. Hopefully these will serve as a nice trip down memory lane to a time when every fighting game was putting its own spin on Fatalities.
At one point in the mid-90's it became a given that finishing moves in some incarnation were just part of the fighting game paradigm. People loved them, and discovering them all in communal fashion via the magic of 90's pre-internet arcade culture was great fun. But as time passed many of these MK wannabes faded away, and only fighting games with rock-solid gameplay mechanics and some semblance of balance would go on to stand the test of time competitively. Once fighting games shifted into more niche territory as a purely competitive genre (and less of a more general draw at arcades), the focus drifted away from finishing moves completely.
Sure, you had some SNK games still dabbling in them even going into the late 90's/early 2000's (e.g. Samurai Shodown IV and V Special, Last Blade 1 and 2... etc.), but at this time they were starting to become a remnant of the past. Only the MK series continued to implement them, but by this time MK had moved to consoles exclusively and fell even further out of favor with the competitive fighting game community due to their more casual nature.
Now let's fast-forward to today. Ever since 2009 with the release of Street Fighter IV, fighting games have had sort of a second renaissance with the advent of online play opening up the genre to millions of new players with a thirst for competition in grassroots tournaments all over the country. During this period of growth we've seen most of the enduring fighting game series from the 90's find new footing in the market with a refreshed sense of purpose. Now they were being developed with the competitive hardcore directly in mind, so gameplay tightness and balance were key. Finishing moves, at least for everyone other than MK, had been cast aside in the interest of keeping matches flowing quickly from one to the next in tournament play.
And I get it. After you've seen a finishing move a few dozen times, it grows old. There's no doubting that. And the process of discovery has been accelerated so drastically by the Internet that it no longer holds the same appeal that it did in the era of arcade dominance. While MK has stuck to its guns with fatalities despite attempting to be more competitive on a tournament level, its finishing moves have become increasingly macabre and lengthy in recent entries. While Fatalities got to a point of ridiculousness with earlier entries like MK3 and MK4, now some find them to be almost too disturbing and serious.
So is there even a place for finishing moves in a modern context? Well... I think there could be. Allow me to point to a few modern examples that I think work perfectly well without wasting the players' time:
- Mortal Kombat X Brutalities - With MKX's re-imagining of Brutalities from MK Trilogy players are able to essentially modify existing moves as they're being executed at the end of a match to make them lethal. This all happens unexpectedly and without breaking up the flow of the fight to cut to a cinematic sequence with a darkened background. In a way, this is reminiscent of the classic MK fatalities that occurred rather quickly and without a dramatic, canned shift in perspective. I think it works wonderfully and allows players to add some flair to the end of a match, especially since they all require some sort of conditions to be met before they can be performed.
- Killer Instinct (2013) Stage Finishers and Ultimates - Now I've always been a fan of stage finishers. They happen automatically when finishing an opponent with a certain move or in a particular spot on a stage, look cool, don't take up much time, and add a sense of interaction and character to the stage. All of the Season 2 stages in Killer Instinct feature them, and I thought that was an excellent addition to the game. They can be avoided completely by canceling your ultra early, of course, so it is up to the player if they want to trigger them.
As for Ultimates, there is only one in the game so far (Shadow Jago). The hope is that they will eventually implement Ultimates for every character, as I think they are a nice medium between the modern cinematic style of MK's fatalities and the more brisk result of MKX's Brutalities. And as of right now they seem to be more stylish than violent, which is cool because finishing moves don't always need to go for shock value to be a satisfying end to a match. I especially like how you have to still be on your first stock of health in order to do them, which makes performing one in competitive play all the more stylish and rare.
______________
To round us off, I'll reference a post I made in a thread way back in 2011 containing a bunch of links to finishing move compilations from older games. Hopefully these will serve as a nice trip down memory lane to a time when every fighting game was putting its own spin on Fatalities.
