Portable Mortal Kombats, Part Two

 

More forgotten ports: Mortal Kombat 3 for Game Boy (!), Mortal Kombat 4 for Game Boy Color (!!), Deadly Alliance + Tournament Edition for GBA, and the only game I remember EGM ever giving a zero to: Mortal Kombat Advance. Why am I doing this to myself?

Portable Mortal Kombats, Part One

 

That's right, today I'm going to take a look at some of the lesser-known games in the franchise, specifically portable versions of Mortal Kombat 1+2. Are any of these actually gonna be good?

Mortal Kombat Trilogy (N64/PS1, 1996)

For a long time I was under the impression that Mortal Kombat 4 was the first one where you could actually play as Goro. While that IS the one where Goro returns in story canon, there's another game before that where he's playable (this one). More importantly, this is 2D Goro, the one we know, and not a different 3D version like in MK4. MOST importantly, it also gives us playable Shao Kahn, Kintaro, and Motaro. How did I miss this game all this time?

MKT here had the potential to be the pinnacle of the 2D chapter of the series. At least, I'm sure it was intended to be. It's got pretty much everything from the first 3 (areas, characters, etc). Problem is, the PS1 version has terrible loading times that really slow down the experience, while the N64 version is missing a bunch of key characters, so you're boned by some preventable issue either way. It may be the most "definitive" early MK on paper, but it's hard to give it too many props with the issues it has.

All of that said, I'm mostly just playing this to finally play as the bosses, something Street Fighter II Turbo did ages ago. Unfortunately the bosses are kind of half-assed. They aren't balanced, their specials don't work a lot of the time, and they don't have any fatalities. So yeah. Anyway enough essay, let's get going.

Mortal Kombat III + Ultimate Mortal Kombat III (Super NES, 1995/1996)

Was never a fan of this logo. It's a step down from MK2 much like the game itself is. The dragon symbol is fine but it looks like the 3 is pregnant with it.

In any case, MK3 is where I start to think this series might be kind of overrated. Ultimate MK3 is a superior version and kinda what MK3 should have been from the get-go...well, in some ways. So I'mma combine the two here.

Mortal Kombat II (Super NES, 1994)

The biggest sequel since Terminator 2. And this time the Nintendo version has blood and guts. YOU HAPPY NOW, KIDS??

Mortal Kombat (Arcade/SNES/Genesis, 1993)

It's MORTAL MONDAY, and you know what that means.

It's been 30 years since Mortal Kombat landed on home consoles in the memorable day known as Mortal Monday. When I was a kid, this was a huge day, and all anyone could talk about for the entire school week was MORTAL KOMBAT. We'd go out on the playground at recess and act out MK fights, yelling "Get over here!" while pantomiming spears and freezes.

This really was a moment in time, and if you weren't there...well, I'll tell you all about it. While further posts will focus on whatever version of the game I played, this one's gonna run down all the home releases of Mortal Monday and hopefully give a sense of the lightning in a bottle that this game captured in 1993.

Dragon Ball Z Kakarot Part 16 - The 23rd World Martial Arts Tournament (B-Side)

 

It seems like a lot of DBZ games count these last few episodes of DB (with older Gokou) as part of DBZ. The Super Famicom fighting games generally start with this fight, for example. I'd say this DLC is actually a really good place to start Kakarot, rather than the beginning of the main story, so it's kinda like the game got a new and much more exciting intro chapter.

In any case, here we go, last Kakarot episode...until they put out the final DLC.

Dragon Ball Z Kakarot Part 15 - The 23rd World Martial Arts Tournament

I'm still doing these? I'm still doing these. The latest (and 2nd to last) DLC for The Best DBZ Game is the only one to actually go outside the realm of DBZ. The first couple DLCs were based on movies that could be "Dragonball Super movies" or "Dragonball Z movies" depending on how you want to measure them. This, though, is a retelling of the last few episodes of the original Dragonball series. Since Gokou is older in those episodes and there was a time jump, lumping them in with DBZ works for me.

Dragon Quest VI SFC, Part III - Glockenspiel

Not quite as breathtaking as the remake, but not too shabby either...

Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation, Chapter 6 - Spike Gets Fired

 

Man, this game is GORGEOUS when it wants to be. The original Super Famicom version is too, as it came along in that late-era, Chrono Trigger timeframe.

Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation, Chapter 5 - Alltrades Abbey Class Rundown

 

The game gives you basically no clue where to go next, and some players would be forgiven for thinking the game was over at that point with us on the victory lap. However, warp to the Dream World at this point and it drops you in front of Alltrades Abbey, which is NOT destroyed there like it is in the Real World.

This was originally the second half of the previous post. I wrote the whole thing on an airplane with no connection, so I couldn't open a second post and had to keep writing in the first, then kept it like that. It was way too long, though, so I'm splitting this off like it was supposed to be.