A new character for Killer Instinct (2013) was revealed and detailed the other day on a stream by the developers, and at the end of said stream they played this brief clip depicting a match between Jago and the new character, Kilgore. The match ended with something that fans have been requesting ever since the game launched back in 2013:
Clip of Jago's Ultimate
Operating under the assumption that this tease was meant to suggest that the entire cast will be receiving Ultimate finishers at some point this year, I am super excited for this addition. I always loved the various No Mercies, Ultimates, and Humiliations from the original games, and their impending inclusion in KI3 really makes this labor-of-love reboot of the series feel complete. Double Helix, Iron Galaxy, and Microsoft had already absolutely nailed everything about KI3, remaining true to the spirit of the originals while also improving upon the template enormously. Anybody who has played KI3 will agree that not only is it the best Killer Instinct game by a large margin, but it has also grown into one of the very best fighting games on offer in the current gen.
So how about we go around and share our favorite finishing moves from past Killer Instinct games to commemorate the occasion. While KI never had any supremely gory or disturbing fatalities, its colorful cast has never been short on flashy (or just plain silly) ways of dispatching one another.
For the uninitiated, here is how finishing moves played out in previous games.
Killer Instinct 1
Killer Instinct 2
Killer Instinct (2013)
____________________
Without further ado, my favorite finisher from any KI game is the one that caught my eye in a local arcade and made me a lifelong fan of the series all those years ago...
Fulgore's Head Turret Finisher
Honorable Mention
Orchid's Flasher Finisher (Killer Instinct 1)
I always liked how this No Mercy represented KI's humor with a dash of 90's shock value.
Clip of Jago's Ultimate
Operating under the assumption that this tease was meant to suggest that the entire cast will be receiving Ultimate finishers at some point this year, I am super excited for this addition. I always loved the various No Mercies, Ultimates, and Humiliations from the original games, and their impending inclusion in KI3 really makes this labor-of-love reboot of the series feel complete. Double Helix, Iron Galaxy, and Microsoft had already absolutely nailed everything about KI3, remaining true to the spirit of the originals while also improving upon the template enormously. Anybody who has played KI3 will agree that not only is it the best Killer Instinct game by a large margin, but it has also grown into one of the very best fighting games on offer in the current gen.
So how about we go around and share our favorite finishing moves from past Killer Instinct games to commemorate the occasion. While KI never had any supremely gory or disturbing fatalities, its colorful cast has never been short on flashy (or just plain silly) ways of dispatching one another.
For the uninitiated, here is how finishing moves played out in previous games.
Killer Instinct 1
- No Mercies - The series' equivalent to fatalities. Opponents would enter a stunned state once their second lifebar had depleted, and the player could input a finishing move command to kill their opponent with style.
- Ultimates - Finishing moves that you could combo into. These would typically be one of the character's two No Mercy moves, only occuring as the end of a combo without the opponent entering a stunned state first.
- Humiliations - If you met certain conditions (finishing the match with your first lifebar intact), you could input a command that would force your opponent to dance to disco music in a goofy manner.
- Ultra Combos - The over-the-top, lengthy combo strings that could be triggered by a simple command mid-combo once the opponent's health had dropped low enough at the end of a match. Most people probably think of Ultra combos first when the Killer Instinct series comes to mind, and that's probably why the developers prioritized bringing back Ultras over all other finishers to KI3.
- Stage Finishers - Much like in the Mortal Kombat series, certain stages in KI have death traps that can be triggered by hitting the opponent with a strong attack near the end of the stage to finish them off. A popular combination of finishing moves in KI's arcade heyday was to do an Ultra combo that finished near the edge on an applicable stage, thus sending the opponent plummeting to their death at the end of the Ultra.
Killer Instinct 2
- Humiliations and No Mercies were done away with, and each character was left with two Ultimates and an Ultra combo.
- Stage Finishers made a return as well.
Killer Instinct (2013)
- Season 1 launched with Ultra combos for all characters but no other finishers.
- Season 2 introduced stage finishers for certain stages.
- Up tp this point, only Shadow Jago has an Ultimate finisher. The implication is that the entire cast will be receiving Ultimates by popular demand sometime this year.
____________________
Without further ado, my favorite finisher from any KI game is the one that caught my eye in a local arcade and made me a lifelong fan of the series all those years ago...
Fulgore's Head Turret Finisher
Honorable Mention
Orchid's Flasher Finisher (Killer Instinct 1)
I always liked how this No Mercy represented KI's humor with a dash of 90's shock value.
