Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II, and Mortal Kombat 3 (Sega Master System Reviews)

Mortal Kombat
Developed by Probe Entertainment
Published by Arena Entertainment (Acclaim)
First Released September 13, 1993

If you want that beautiful blood, you have to enter a code. There’s a text card after the first Mortal Kombat logo that talks about “codes” (yes, really) and during that screen you have to press BUTTON 2, BUTTON 1, BUTTON 2, DOWN, UP. If you do it right, it’ll say “NOW ENTERING KOMBAT” before reaching the PRESS START screen. It’s super easy to do. I got it on my first attempt. Enjoy your gore, you sickos!

Wait.. Mortal Kombat on the Master System? You betcha. It’s really stripped down, as you can imagine. Part of that is the limitations of the Master System’s two button controller. So, there’s high or low aspect to the punches and the kicks. There’s only two stages, one of which is The Pit. Hey, at least the Pit fatality is there! Actually, no. You can’t execute the uppercut off the bridge and into the spikes. There’s also no Kano. But, hey, there’s blood and fatalities, and most of the moves found in the arcade and 16 bit console versions. Allegedly. I couldn’t pull off half of them, even with a guide. I know they’re in the game, because the AI could do them against me. Mortal Kombat looks the part, but it plays really sluggishly. I couldn’t consistently do the most simple of special moves, like Scorpion’s spear. Actually, “sluggishly” might be the wrong term. “Unresponsive” is more like it.

I eventually gave up. I could get to that second endurance match with ease, but once Raiden showed up, I was lucky to hit a single move. He would counter everything with his Superman tackle. It was like fighting a supernatural Bill Goldberg.

If the AI was better, I might have enjoyed this a lot more. I found the game to be unplayable on the medium setting. On EASY, I was able to make it to the endurance match-ups. But, once I got against Raiden, the game was over as he doesn’t play fair at all. Like every other game I review, I went into Mortal Kombat with an open mind, even if there was a voice in my head bracing me for what would no doubt be extreme suckage. I’m only human, and open-minded or not, I had very low expectations. There’s also no way I can ever put myself in the shoes of someone who lived through the Mortal Kombat hysteria of the 90s and wanted the first mainstream gory game, no matter how much they had to suffer to play it. Imagine my surprise that it wasn’t a complete dumpster fire. It’s bad, don’t get me wrong. The unresponsive controls assured my immediate NO! But, it’s not as bad as I figured it would be. If you couldn’t play the better versions of it, you could still be one of the cool kids and decapitate people. Well, you probably weren’t cool if you only had a Master System by 1993. I suppose 8-Bit Mortal Kombat made you cool-adjacent.
Verdict: NO!

Mortal Kombat II
Developed by Probe Entertainment
Published by Arena Entertainment (Acclaim)
First Released November, 1994

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Wait, the Master System got Mortal Kombat II as well? Yep, and it uses the exact same engine as Mortal Kombat I on the SMS did. This one is missing FOUR fighters: Raiden, Baraka, Johnny Cage, and Kung Lao. There’s also no Kintaro fight, no Friendships, no Babalities, only two levels (one of them, the Pit II, has no stage fatality), and each character only gets a single fatality. You have to wonder if, after a certain point, the developers are asking how much you can surgically remove from a game and still call it a port of the same game? It’s more of the same, and all the problems from Mortal Kombat 1 are along for the ride. Sluggish, unresponsive controls and cheap AI. Also, the fatalities are largely modified from their Arcade/SNES/Genesis counterparts. Again, it’s not as bad as you would think, but since it’s the sequel and even more content and functionality is missing, it makes you wonder what’s the point?
Verdict: NO!

Mortal Kombat 3
Developed by Software Creations
Published by Tec Toy
First Released December, 1996

This is the famous “scare to death” Kabal fatality. It’s pretty lame. The ghost doesn’t even run off. All the other fatalities are of the “burn” or “explode” variety.

Okay, now you’re messing with me. Mortal Kombat 3 is on the Master System as well? Yep. This is the last one. Promise. This doesn’t use the same engine from MK 1 and 2, and in fact, it’ll make you LONG for it. This is a terrible port. Once again, there’s only eight playable fighters, which really hurts since there’s fourteen in the arcade (fifteen with Smoke, who is hidden in this). As unresponsive and frustrating as the first two games were, this is so much worse. More sluggish. More unresponsive. And also, highly cheesable. I was unstoppable with Sheeva’s teleport-stomp move.

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Do you know what the problem with Mortal Kombat on the Sega Master System.. the whole franchise.. really was? They attempted a one-to-one translation. That wasn’t very wise. With the limitations they had, there was zero chance of pulling it off. They would have been better served to pay tribute to the spirit of the game while tailoring the graphics, controls, and gameplay to the strengths of the console. I use Bionic Commando on the NES as my default example. They couldn’t make a game that looked as good or sounded as good as the arcade version, so they took the core grappling arm/no-jumping gameplay of the coin-op and built a new game tailored to the NES around that. The end result? Bionic Commando on the NES, with its weaker graphics, is universally recognized as a better game than its older arcade brother. While it’s kind of amusing that MK as a franchise exists on the Master System, it shouldn’t. At least like this.
Verdict: NO!