2021/9/1: Game Boy: Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II, Mortal Kombat 3

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VideoGameCritic
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2021/9/1: Game Boy: Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II, Mortal Kombat 3

Postby VideoGameCritic » September 1st, 2021, 6:12 pm

Here's something you may enjoy - reviews of the first three Mortal Kombat games for the Game Boy. I recently discovered MK4 was available as well.

Let's hear your thoughts!

strat
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Re: 2021/9/1: Game Boy: Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II, Mortal Kombat 3

Postby strat » September 1st, 2021, 9:19 pm

I played GB MKII for a bit because it's the cleanest looking of the GB MK's and thought it was OK. It's always interesting to see how GB handles games it really had no right to host.

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BlasteroidAli
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Re: 2021/9/1: Game Boy: Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II, Mortal Kombat 3

Postby BlasteroidAli » September 1st, 2021, 9:35 pm

1 atrocious game and two average ones. Yeah the GB was great at some games but it was of its time. 2 looks okay but the first one is a real dud. I have to say I never played them.

Or I cannot remember playing them but back in the day they would have been really good games to play. Good in a bad way. There was nothing like it on the market, so, worth playing and no mobile phones for games at the time. This is even before Snake was a big hit.

Though I have a reasonably powerful mobile phone but never use it for playing games. The control bad. The f2p games always have a monetisation mechanic that makes them unplayable. I just played a brain training game. Wow Amazing!! Which of these numbers is the biggest, 1, 5, 9, 16 or 32? 32 obviously but no, it was 1. Wow what a pile of drok. Very representative of mobile games. Where as dr Kawashimas brain training does it right. The DS kicks the butt of my Motorola g9 soundly.

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Matchstick
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Re: 2021/9/1: Game Boy: Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II, Mortal Kombat 3

Postby Matchstick » September 1st, 2021, 11:42 pm

I’m actually quite surprised that MK3 didn’t get the F! Good call on crowning MK2 the champion of the three (it absolutely is) but I do have fond memories of attempting to like the first Game Boy MK game. Not saying it was good, by any means, but I remember thinking MK3 was straight garbage when I first played it, while the first MK was just OK. Maybe I should revisit them.

I wouldn’t hold your breath on MK4 for the Game Boy Color, Critic. I fished the cartridge out of a dollar bin about ten years ago, and thought it was worth that price, but not much more. It’s basically MK3 in color, with some super-grainy cutscenes whenever you pull off a finishing move.

I remember it being pretty bad, but your mileage may vary. It may be worth playing just so you can complete the set.

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MSR1701
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Re: 2021/9/1: Game Boy: Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II, Mortal Kombat 3

Postby MSR1701 » September 2nd, 2021, 7:49 am

MKII Game Boy is by far the best of the four MK games on the GB 8-bit line, and one of the better all-around fighters on the system (Killer Instinct, Primal Rage, Street Fighter II and Street Fighter Alpha are all decent, and the Takara-made SNK properties (and that Tohshinden game) are FAR superior to all that I listed, though when you compare to the NGPC, they are quite...special.

MKI was a mess of a game that I could not get into, and until your review I didn't realize blocking was by pressing A and B; that would have helped. Of note is that once you beat the game, you unlock the boss Goro to play as, the first time he was legitimately playable in any MK game (or any boss for that matter).

MK3 is a steaming pile of... ahem. There are times I would rather play MKI GB, as I found the "detailed" sprites of MK3 to be harder to follow, with collision that seemed to never be where I thought it should.

On a side note, I would rate all FOUR of the GB MK games superior to the absolute dreck that is Mortal Kombat Advance, where SNES UMK3 was taken and beaten to within an inch of its life and left to dry in the Sahara Desert.

Going with the Thumper rule, though, MK3 GB did have a few "decent" tracks, namely the Tower and Win themes.

ThePixelatedGenocide
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Re: 2021/9/1: Game Boy: Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II, Mortal Kombat 3

Postby ThePixelatedGenocide » September 2nd, 2021, 1:21 pm

VideoGameCritic wrote:Here's something you may enjoy - reviews of the first three Mortal Kombat games for the Game Boy. I recently discovered MK4 was available as well.

Let's hear your thoughts!


Well, I've always wanted to know whether MK4 was worse than 3? It certainly looks worse. Comparing any of them to Advance feels like cheating, because Advance is nowhere near finished.

All of these games were shown up by Killer Instinct. Or the Takara ports. Years after MK2 was released on SNES and Genesis, my class was still willing to play two player Samurai Shodown on Super Gameboy; it held up as a decent alternative to console games by the low standards of late 94/early 1995. (Compared to Ballz. And Brutal. And SlaughterSport. And the original Eternal Champions.)

With that said, I remember being jealous as Hell of anyone who could afford a Gameboy or Game Gear plus Mortal Kombat back when it launched. They were immediate attention grabbers in our small town. Good didn't even enter into the equation, because everything was good relative to the Tiger handheld ports.

And yet...

Nobody cared about portable MK 3. It was a surprise to even see them for sale. It felt like the Gameboy was slowly dying out...little did we know...
Last edited by ThePixelatedGenocide on September 3rd, 2021, 2:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Verm3
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Re: 2021/9/1: Game Boy: Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II, Mortal Kombat 3

Postby Verm3 » September 3rd, 2021, 11:19 am

The days when the handheld version of a game was different enough to the console/pc version that it could be considered a different game.

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Re: 2021/9/1: Game Boy: Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II, Mortal Kombat 3

Postby MSR1701 » September 7th, 2021, 4:06 pm

For those that have never played the GB MK games, below are World of Longplay vids for reference:

Mortal Kombat (GB) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0DE14j2o-Y
Mortal Kombat II (GB) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8owtZyb69Ek
Mortal Kombat 3 (GB) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QdinToTYtY
Mortal Kombat 4 (GBC) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWOEBio6cA0

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MSR1701
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Re: 2021/9/1: Game Boy: Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II, Mortal Kombat 3

Postby MSR1701 » September 7th, 2021, 4:08 pm

Verm3 wrote:The days when the handheld version of a game was different enough to the console/pc version that it could be considered a different game.


And sometimes superior to the console/arcade original, even. For two examples, Donkey Kong (94) on GB took the original Arcade game and added a massive twist, while Street Fighter Alpha 3 had two versions (on GBA and PSP) that added additional content that, to my knowledge, never made it to console, arcade or rerelease versions).

strat
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Re: 2021/9/1: Game Boy: Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II, Mortal Kombat 3

Postby strat » September 7th, 2021, 9:17 pm

DK94 is great but no substitute for the arcade original.


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