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Mortal Kombat II console versions were released twenty years ago today

vatstep said:
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Yet another reason that 9/9 is a great day in video game history
Who else has great memories of that day?
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The week leading to Fatal Friday was insane. The hype was incredible.

I remember some guy at school who bragged about having received the game early, nobody believed him.

Then.. Fatal Friday. People making plans to leave asap from school to rush home. Kids being jealous of other kids who had parents to take them at school and drive them to the store.

It was the first game i had preordered, months before release.

I got home, we went to the store, the store was packed with teenagers of all ages holding their slips; for some reasons the store hasnt received their copies yet. People started to get pissed off.

Suddenly a delivery guy arrives with a huge box contained hundreds of copies for the snes and genesis versions. People started cheering. Employees started telling people to form a line; the pressure was insane, i was sweating my ass off in my coat.

I ended up being number 2 or 3, i remember being next to a tough guy i knew from my area who was picking up the genesis version, we were hyped as fuck while talking.

I got my copy, paid cash, i remember reading the text on the art of the back of the snes box; trembling at how awesome it was to finally have the game in my hand.

I ran out, got in my dad's car who was waiting, and we got home. My best friend was waiting for me, we played the game non-stop, barely stopping to eat real fast and take showers. We ending up having mad heachaches from the lack of sleep. My mom got pissed off at us because we wouldnt go to sleep.

I think i slept maybe 8 hours total for the entire weekend. The monday after was glorious, all the guys were talking about it, we were all severely sleep deprived. I remember how people talked about Kintaro being hard to beat; it was the main complain about the snes version - the game was much easier than the arcade, but Kintaro's AI was super hard.

Being able to play mk2 at home was such a big deal at the time. I think mk2 snes is my most played game ever, next to doom
 
The SNES version was SOOOOOOOOOOOO good.

I played the Mega Drive one first and still thought it was awesome just because it was frickin MK2!! But yea, once I was playing my SNES one I was blown away by how 'perfect' it was lol.

I always thought the MD MK1 was terrible but got a free pass because of the blood thing. Now without the blood issue the SNES finally took the rightful top spot. :P
 
One thing that bothered me about the SNES port, why were the character names outside of the lifebars? Then they went and did it again on MK3. The life bars were fine in MK1 though.
 
How many of you actually saw the "III" game over screen? I saw it one time, freaked out, but never heard of or saw it again until looking it up when YouTube came around.
 
Best MK for sure. SNES version looked better but the voices from the punching and kicking were obnoxious. Genesis was better in that regard. Arcade version was far superior to both obviously.
 
Played the shit out of Mortal Kombat II on the SNES. As much as I loved the Genesis , the SNES was my console of choice for this version of the game... before better 32bit ports came along, that is.
 
First game I ever preordered. Got to skip school and pick it up, 2 days after my birthday. Got the Genesis version and felt really disappointed, it was a poor port. Then my neighbor got the SNES version and I felt really disappointed. But then, sometime not long after, I got the DOS CD version and played using my Gravis Gamepad and felt like I had the damn arcade machine in my house. I spent sooooo many hours playing the DOS version. Fantastic port at the time, really blew away both console versions.

EDIT: That said, I did the same thing the following year with MK3 and, while it was a much, much better port for the Genesis (really what the Genesis version of MK2 should have been) it was a much worse game, too.
 
Krejlooc said:
First game I ever preordered. Got to skip school and pick it up, 2 days after my birthday. Got the Genesis version and felt really disappointed, it was a poor port. Then my neighbor got the SNES version and I felt really disappointed. But then, sometime not long after, I got the DOS CD version and played using my Gravis Gamepad and felt like I had the damn arcade machine in my house. I spent sooooo many hours playing the DOS version. Fantastic port at the time, really blew away both console versions.

EDIT: That said, I did the same thing the following year with MK3 and, while it was a much, much better port for the Genesis (really what the Genesis version of MK2 should have been) it was a much worse game, too.
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I ended up getting the PC version at some point too, it looked great but I think my soundcard was terrible or something because it sounded bad.

I remember getting really good at shang tsung just because I'd figured out a reliable way to do the Kintaro fatality and make my friends shit bricks.
 
Awesome memories of this game. Trying to get all the secrets, learning all the fatalities and such. Lots of vs mode fun. Doing the Kintaro fatality with Shang and freaking people the fuck out. Still have my SNES cart in a box somewhere lol.
 
I was so hyped except my parents refused to buy us a new game so soon after school started. I begged a friend just to let me look at the instruction manual just to get a fix lol. Somehow my brother was able to borrow a copy of the SNES version from his friend though just a couple of days after it came out.


You know what makes me feel really fucking old though? The Dreamcast came out only 5 years later? What the fuck?!? As a kid it felt like it was light years later.
 
Absolutely awesome times playing with friends on the Genesis.

And absolutely awful times playing single player with the rage-inducing cheating AI.
 
Conrad Link said:
I always thought the MD MK1 was terrible but got a free pass because of the blood thing. Now without the blood issue the SNES finally took the rightful top spot. :P
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Except the SNES version of MK1 was absolutely awful for reasons beyond blood. The Genesis version at least played correctly, despite not looking nice. The SNES version was a nice looking, censored piece of garbage. It played nothing like the arcade version and was, in many ways, outright broken. The most basic counter in the entire series - being able to uppercut a jumping attack - is entirely missing from the SNES version. A jump kick has priority over every single move in the game. Ridiculous.
 
I remember the days before the internet when me and my friend went to make xerox copies of the special moves and fatalities for MKII from a gaming magazine. That mag didnt even have the uppercut fatality for the acid pool level or the ceiling spikes! Those were the days. My summer camp also had the MKII arcade cabinet, alien vs predator, ms pac man, xmen (i think, i remeber it had wolverine ) and street fighter. was awesome! ah memories.....
 
Yeah my dad bought this for me and the shit was like 80 bucks. I think it was the most expensive gift I ever got not on birthday or christmas.

The type and logo look, somehow, WAY better with the roman numeral 2 in there too. It's like the stars aligned and everything about this game just came together perfectly.
 
One thing that always bugged me, does anyone know why the character names were outside of thelife bars on the SNES version instead of inside like in the arcades? I always wondered if it was some technical reason.
 
Ninja Scooter said:
I was so hyped except my parents refused to buy us a new game so soon after school started. I begged a friend just to let me look at the instruction manual just to get a fix lol. Somehow my brother was able to borrow a copy of the SNES version from his friend though just a couple of days after it came out.
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Oh god, yeah I remember lusting after kids instruction manuals at school. I freaked out when a kid brought the LTTP SNES manual before I had an SNES. If I knew what jacking off was I would have stroked underneath my desk.

Ninja Scooter said:
You know what makes me feel really fucking old though? The Dreamcast came out only 5 years later? What the fuck?!? As a kid it felt like it was light years later.
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HOLY SHIT
 
Ninja Scooter said:
One thing that always bugged me, does anyone know why the character names were outside of thelife bars on the SNES version instead of inside like in the arcades? I always wondered if it was some technical reason.
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Just the way they were. The early 3DO port screenshots also done by SS show the same style.
 
Ninja Scooter said:
One thing that always bugged me, does anyone know why the character names were outside of thelife bars on the SNES version instead of inside like in the arcades? I always wondered if it was some technical reason.
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Let's track down ex Sculptured Software employees and ask them. Always wondered that myself, my naive young self thought it was done purposely to differentiate itself from the Genesis version.

I was buying all the GameFans, EGMs, GamePros, Nintendo Powers, European/French videogames magazines to stare at the screenshots months leading to its release. The hype was legit, it was the first game I ever pre-ordered also.
 
Krejlooc said:
Except the SNES version of MK1 was absolutely awful for reasons beyond blood. The Genesis version at least played correctly, despite not looking nice. The SNES version was a nice looking, censored piece of garbage. It played nothing like the arcade version and was, in many ways, outright broken. The most basic counter in the entire series - being able to uppercut a jumping attack - is entirely missing from the SNES version. A jump kick has priority over every single move in the game. Ridiculous.
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Indeed. The first thing I noticed about the SNES version was the floaty full screen jumps and the fact that nothing felt right. The censorship issue faded into the background once it became clear that this was a shoddy approximation of a port.
The SNES version of MKII however, was much better. I bunked off school to pick it up from HMV on release day and recall it costing £55. And people say games got more expensive.
 
Nice. The hype around that game was huge among me and my friends, but none of us could afford to buy it, haha. I was eventually able to play it and it was such a huge step up from MK1.

Ecotic said:
Whoever made the black dragon with lightning look for Mortal Kombat II is a pure marketing genius. I can't even describe how godly it looked to a 9 year old.
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Seriously. I was thinking the same thing when I saw that poster just now. I miss gaming magazines. :-(
 
I just turned 15 when this game released. My step-dad went to the store to pick it up for me as a present. On the way back, he got into a car accident by rear-ending someone. For some stupid reason, he left the scene of the accident, got arrested, and had his vehicle impounded with the game still in the car. Ended up being one of the worst birthdays ever. Not being able to play MK2 for a few weeks after release sucked enough, but having all of that crap happen with my step-dad was even worse. I remember going to school and hearing other kids talk about MK2 nonstop and feeling jealous. Good times!
 
Pyramid head said:
Indeed. The first thing I noticed about the SNES version was the floaty full screen jumps and the fact that nothing felt right. The censorship issue faded into the background once it became clear that this was a shoddy approximation of a port.
The SNES version of MKII however, was much better. I bunked off school to pick it up from HMV on release day and recall it costing £55. And people say games got more expensive.
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Yeah, both the Genesis and SNES versions of MK2 play correctly. That's at least something that can be said for the Genesis port - it plays right. All my real problems with it stems from presentation and how much was stripped out. Contrast to SNES MK1 where I had a lot to dislike even beyond the cut stuff. The 32X version of MK2 pretty much fixed all my problems with the Genesis version of MK2, and even restored stuff that had been cut out of the SNES version, too. Outside of the DOS port, I'd say the 32X version is the best version.
 
MK2 was pretty much the last time I remember arcades around me really having a scene. People would go to our local mall just to play MK2, myself included. While other games had similar hype, I don't remember people planning Saturdays to go out and play Mortal Kombat 3, for example, like me and my friends did for MK2.

MK2 was also that time when it took a long time for all the secrets of a game to get discovered. I remember early on printing out a FAQ and bringing it with me to the arcades and I was like Lucas from The Wizard with that shit.

Great game. I still like playing MK2 to this day. Even if it's not a super serious deep fighting game, it's still a lot of fun. And finding and fighting the hidden bosses legitimately is still a lot of fun and a good challenge.
 
One thing missing from SNES that sucks is the "Fatality" sound cue with the evil moaning when the Fatality logo pops up. So badass.
 
My cousin got a pirated SNES cart a few days before the actual release. It was super duper buggy. The game would randomly freeze and you were able to do fatalities at any point during the match. It was craziness. To this day we mock his naïve glee as he phoned me to tell me he had MK2 before any of the other kids.

I got my legit cart a few days later. Heck of a port. Never played the Genesis version but the SNES version was very solid. It had all the blood and the fatalities and even better, it was smooth as butter and truly responsive, unlike MK1 on SNES which was clunky as hell, lack of blood and fatalities notwithstanding.

I also had Super Street Fighter 2 on SNES but I didn't play it that much even though I've always been a SF guy. Such was the might of MK2.
 
I remember getting the SNES version a couple of days early because a family friend owned the game store in one of our local shopping markets.

There was a lot of envy I tell you. 12 year old me was very happy.
 
A popular myth about the SNES/Genesis versions are that they have the secret Pong mini game from the arcade. Most places list it as a cheat copy and pasted from the arcade even though it's not there. I've seen people swear up and down that they reached Pong as a kid. It's crazy.
 
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