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Mortal Kombat is a worldwide phenomenon, making a revolution
in the fighting game industry until mid 90's, then it stepped down from the throne,
during its transition into 3D.
only to return with a blast in 2011. Join MKSecrets, and let's make a review of the history of the title
that changed our childhood, our future, and the world of fighting games forever.
In 1996 two teams were formed at Midway to work on two parallel Mortal Kombat titles.
Ed Boon and his team focused on the development of the next major installment of the fighting game series
At the same time John Tobias and his team wanted to explore the background stories
of the characters and focused on the very first action adventure game of the franchise.
A decision was made to connect the characters and the story of the two games
so that people who have played them both could immerse in the world of Mortal Kombat as never before.
Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero was released for PlayStation in October 1997.
A Nintendo 64 version appeared in December 1997.
The game was the first of several planned Mortal Kombat titles to explore the origins
of the key characters of the franchise.
The story takes place before the events of the first game and follows the Lin Kuei warrior Sub-Zero
on a quest to return the amulet of the fallen Elder God, Shinnok
which he was hired to steal at the beginning of the game.
While on his journey Sub-Zero meets Scorpion and the player is introduced
to the beginning of the rivalry between the two fighters.
The story is told with the help of full motion videos
created with live actors playing the characters against a green screen
and 3D special effects.
Unfortunately the cinematic videos were replaced with static images in the Nintendo version
due to the limited storage space on the cartridge.
The official website of the game included a detailed story section which explained the background of the characters
starting with the creation of the reality, the elder gods and the battle between
Shinnok and the god of thunder, Raiden.
To create a more realistic and dark atmosphere for the game,
the developers created the levels and some of the bigger enemies entirely in real time 3D,
while using digitized live actors for the human characters.
Familiar faces from the past games return to bring old and new characters to life.
This makes Mortal Kombat Mythologies the last Mortal Kombat game to use digitized graphics.
With a heavy focus on the story, the game introduced a lot of new characters.
Some of them quickly become fan favorites and play
important roles in the Mortal Kombat franchise ever since:
Shinnok: A fallen Elder God and ruler of the Netherrealm.
Quan Chi: A free roaming sorcerer powerful in the black arts.
He is on a quest to restore Shinnok’s powers which are locked inside the amulet.
Fujin: The God of Wind and one of the protectors of the amulet.
He and the other three elemental gods must ensure that the amulet never falls into the wrong hands.
Sareena: A demon from the Netherrealm.
She is one of the three assassins, who serve Shinnok.
Unlike the other two she has an agenda on her own.
And the Grand Master of the Lin Kuei.
A concept of a Hell Hound, a demonic dog-like creature,
made its way online during the production of the game.
Its fate remains however a mystery, as it does not appear in the final version.
Several other changes were made during the development of the game
including an alternate ending in which Sub-Zero returns to his clan after failing his mission.
Just like in any other game of the franchise, secrets are important part of Mythologies.
Depending on the decisions made by the player, several details
of the story and the outcome of the game can be altered.
Although good, many of the players considered the 2D gameplay and graphics
outdated, when compared to the very popular and new at the time 3D games.
The game was also criticized for its difficulty
and controls unfit for an action adventure title with platform elements.
Most problematic was the use of a separate button to turn the character around.
In spite of these things, the game sold over one million copies worldwide
and was a commercial success
This led to the creation of a portable version in 1998.
Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero ends with the introduction
of yet a familiar character, leading directly to the first Mortal Kombat.
It seems your exploits have caught the eye of another sorcerer.
I would like you to meet the retainer of your services.
His name is Shang Tsung. And he would like you to compete in a small tournament..
It's called Mortal Kombat.
In the late nineties, the arcades were overtaken by 3D fighting games,
which overshadowed their 2D counterparts.
With a lot of fighting game franchises stepping or already present into this new
dimension it was time for Mortal Kombat to take full advantage of the new technology.
Mortal Kombat 4 was released in the same year as Mythologies
and introduced the fighting game series to the new and very popular at the time third dimension.
The development faced significant problems and short dead lines,
which resulted in three significantly different from each other public revisions.
The team at Midway and especially Ed Boon was concerned
about the effect the introduction of 3D elements and graphics could have on the game play.
A decision was made to keep this aspect as true to the original concept as possible.
As a result, the game play is very similar to the previous installments.
A few enhancements were introduced to keep the experience new and fresh.
Mortal Kombat 4 runs on its own hardware, called Zeus.
This technology is reported to be ten times faster than Nintendo 64,
which was an incredible achievement.
Some of the Zeus features were created based on requests
from the development team of the game.
As a result, Mortal Kombat 4 is one of the best looking fighting games of its time,
with highly detailed characters and backgrounds.
In addition, the game offers fast game play while smoothly running at 60 frames per second.
The game offers a smaller cast than the previous two installments.
Several of the most iconic fighters of the franchise return and they
all retain their signature Special and Finishing Moves.
The Story is a direct continuation of the story that starts
in Mythologies and three of the new characters from the action adventure game
also appeared in Mortal Kombat 4.
Shinnok: The fallen Elder God overtakes the realm of Edenia and uses it to
launch an attack on the Heavens and the other Elder Gods.
Quan Chi: After freeing the evil Elder God from his confines,
he is granted the highest position among his ranks.
Unknown to his master he has his own agenda.
Fujin: The god of wind and one of the last surviving earth gods
after the attack on the Heavens.
In addition to these characters, several new were introduced to expand the roster.
Kai: A former member of the White Lotus society and a friend of Liu Kang.
Jarek: the last member of the Black Dragon.
This character carries such a strong resemblance to Kano,
that fans speculated that the last was indeed planned for the game
but had to be replaced to make room for new characters.
Reiko: A former general of Shinnok.
He resurfaces to lead the forces of darkness into the battle against the Elder Gods.
One of the biggest mysteries of the game revolves around this character
and his connection to the Emperor of Outworld, established in the non-canon endings of the home versions.
Tanya: As the daughter of Edenia's ambassador to new realms,
she betrayed her own world by helping Shinnok and his army invade it.
The arcade version of Mortal Kombat 4 has only one secret fighter, who only appeared in its third revision:
This character started off as the victim of a finishing move
until eventually the developers decided that it would be an interesting idea to make him playable.
Unlike the previous hidden characters, Meat does not have his own moves or story.
He instead borrows the moves of every other character.
Many changes were made, as well as slight alterations,
during the production of the game and even the amount of playable characters shifted from revision to revision.
According to the rumors, Sareena was among the considered characters.
Mortal Kombat 4 is, surprisingly enough, the first game to remove an already playable character during the development.
The mysterious black ninja Noob Saibot appears as a selectable fighter
the early betas and was even shown to the public.
Unfortunately, he never made it to any of the major revisions.
A Kombat Kode, called Noob Saibot Mode exists in the game.
Its effect remains however unknown.
Noob Saibot is a hidden selectable character in the home versions,
where he shares many special Moves with Reiko.
Several, previously unseen gameplay features, are introduced:
Exchangeable Weapons: While limited for today’s standard,
they play a significant role in the gameplay of most of the characters
and bring much needed diversity between them.
Each character has his own weapon but can also pick up and use any other.
Limited sidestepping and interactive arenas, with objects
that can be picked up and thrown at the opponent.
The combo system of the game is similar to the one seen in the previous installments.
In early revisions, most of the characters have really
powerful combos and infinites, which needed to be corrected.
Maximum Damage was introduced to automatically break combos
after a predefined amount of damage is caused.
Mortal Kombat 4 was a financial success and was accompanied
by an aggressive advertising campaign.
A new arcade game is causing quite a sensation.
Mortal Kombat 4! A new Mortal Kombat hits a new level of violence for your kids.
Please take a look at games like this. Or are they just games
Meet Mortal Kombat 4, the latest horror in violent video games.
or could they have a long term effects on violent behaviour in our society.
The Mortal Kombat 4 Road Tour is something that has never been done before in the video game world.
We are taking Mortal Kombat 4 on the rouad to select cities around the country
and we are providing players a sneak preview... an exclusive sneak preview
of the game 4 months before anyone else in the world will see it.
This is a product that will cause the kids to be standing feisty,
waiting to play, because it is so much more exciting than anything thats in the market right now,
anything that has been introduced in the market over the past few years.
I am here to play Mortal Kombat 4.
It's just because it's Mortal Kombat. Everybody's gonna wanna play it.
I wanna be the first to play it.
Mortal Kombat 4 was released for home systems in the summer of 1998.
A gameboy version also appeared in the same year
and was based on the engine used for Mortal Kombat 3.
The developers of the home ports wanted to keep the original frame rate of the arcade version
as lowering it would have hurt the game-play.
To achieve this, the graphics had to be significantly reduced,
due to the immense power of the arcade hardware:
Lower resolution, less detailed characters, missing arena elements.
This came as a shock mostly to the PC owners, who always
enjoyed nearly perfect ports of the arcade games.
Several exclusive features were added to enhance the overall experience:
New game modes,
one additional background,
playable version of Noob Saibot,
alternative outfits for all characters
Full motion videos for the disc versions and more…
Goro returns as a hidden playable boss character.
Ed Boon always wanted to include a big boss fighter in the arcade version,
but this never happened due to time constrains.
Goro was developed at Midway for the home ports,
but using the arcade game.
According to the development team, one of the in house arcade machines has a playable version of the character.
The developers of the home versions wanted to include Kitana
but did not have enough time to finish her.
Her code and model were not removed from the released game
and are still accessible using cheats and trainers.
A second new arena was also left unfinished and it can be activated just like Kitana.
A Mortal Kombat 4 comic book was released with the PC version.
It tells the events that lead up to the game,
including the attack on the Elder Gods and the invasion of Edenia.
A combined soundtrack from the last two games was also released.
It offers 23 tracks, three of which,
were developed but never actually used in Mortal Kombat 4.
Mortal Kombat 4 was the last game of the franchise to be released in the arcades.
While praising the great visuals and the return to the dark atmosphere,
the fans criticized the lack of innovation in the design,
the story and the special moves of some of the new characters.
With the arcade scene dying in the late nineties,
Mortal Kombat 4 was unable to become as popular as the previous games.
5 years shall pass before another major installment of the fighting game
series would try taking the franchise in yet, another new direction.