Mortal Kombat II

Review

by Cal Nguyen

As they say, nothing can prepare you for the ultimate tournament of Mortal Kombat. The defeated Shang Tsung returned to the Outworld a failure, ready for execution by the hands of Shao Kahn. But Shang Tsung had another plan for revenge that even persuaded his master into helping him lure his enemies to the Outworld where Shao Kahn's rules of the tournament took place.

When the first version came out in the arcades it was innovative and new as well as violent. After lots of debate over whether it had an influence on children, many MK fans protested the government and other groups who were crazy enough to believe that ripping off someone's head and pulling out their spine with their bare hands was real. The whole V.R.C. ratings system really came into play at this time. Then came Mortal Kombat II, which Midway took the concept even further with more torturous and bloody mayhem. It was all in fun as well as to play down the hype when they included Babalities and Friendships in addition to the usual Fatalities. Rumors then popped up about the possibility of Animalities. Well, what does this mean for a portable version? You guessed it. 1994's Mortal Kombat II for the Sega Game Gear handheld system left out just about everything. Don't get me wrong, it's a decent game on its own.

Due to the limitation of the Game Gear's onscreen colors, the developers did their best to make it look good and retain its similarity to the arcade's, yet gameplay and effects were sacrificed. They limited the amount of fighters to eight. The ones you cannot control are Smoke and Jade (hidden characters), Kintaro, and Shao Kahn. Although the players are big and tall on the little screen, the number of frames dropped significantly, as did some of the moves. One Fatality per character can be performed instead of the usual two, and they look okay but nothing to write home about. The animation is pretty choppy and the pace is a bit slow. Even the blood looks chunky and fake, though there isn't much in the first place. Still, perhaps the characters' graphics make up for some of these faults.

There are only two different backgrounds that alternate between fights, the Temple and the Bridge over the Pit. A third background is Goro's Lair but you can only reach there if you use only kicks during the battle before the question mark ("?"). Unfortunately, that background is way off from the actual lair of Goro. It appears to have a yellow wall of tiles with skulls in them. One redeeming quality is that the text of the character names actually fit in their boxes, except for Shao Kahn and Shang Tsung, ironically.

With respect to the Game Gear's less-than-impressive sound quality, only the music and the voice-over "Fight!" at the beginning of each round, stood out. The sound effects were rather snappy and crunchy as opposed to clean and heart pounding. No groans, grunts or yelling here, which lessens the impact that even the other console versions had. Granted it's a portable, but as with most portable systems maybe companies should just stay away from them altogether until they can come up with something that matches at least the 32-bit systems.

Gameplay may be simple but on the hard level it can get quite frustrating. The player's health bar is short and the major percentage of blows can really bring you closer to death in a matter of seconds, and vice versa to your opponent. The computer AI is not exactly smart, more like patterned. You really have to time your moves because there is a slight delay in the buffer. In other words, you have to sort of prepare your moves first by setting it up slowly with the button sequence for combos, before actually implementing them against your enemy. This takes the fun out of instantaneous attacking and real-time battle.

The controls are slightly different since there are only two buttons excluding the start button on the Game Gear, but it doesn't take away much from gameplay. Another problem is the fact that a background Fatality can only be performed during the Temple stage but not on any other, making this a somewhat useless feature. Also, Babalities and Friendships were left out for cartridge memory reasons. Other than that, basic moves on the easier levels are so easy to perform that you can beat the game in no time. Two players can join head-to-head via a link cable, which probably is a lot more fun than playing against the computer.

Mortal Kombat II is only a minor improvement over the first Mortal Kombat for the Sega Game Gear. If you're a diehard MK fan then this game is a keeper. If you're a fighting fan who isn't into the Mortal Kombat series, it's decent but nothing to scream and shout about. If you're none of the above, it may be alright to give it a try. It's graphically impressive to say the least, but not much else is going for it except for its brand quality and mediocre gameplay. Definitely not a Flawless Victory, but neither a Fatality.