***My apologies, I actually thought I posted this final part already. I typed it up, saved it and for whatever reason didn't post it but here it is now.***
So now we hit the best of the best with the Mortal Kombat series. With no time to waste, we jump into the next game on our list:
Mortal Kombat II (1993). I know what you're thinking, "MK 2 is only the third best game?!" "Sacrilege!" Perhaps you'd be correct on both counts but here's the thing, this was a great game but I don't at all believe it to be the best MK game. I've honestly grown over time to find it to be rather overrated. Don't get me wrong, it improved on MK 1 in every way possible and like MK 1, many of the new characters introduced have become pop culture icons. In fact, when most people think of Mortal Kombat, this is usually the game they're thinking of. The beef I have with the game is its difficulty which has long been acknowledged as being tougher than most every other MK game. Even when played with the difficulty setting on easy, the AI in the game is capable of doing things that no human could do without using cheats in the game itself. I've seen people beat the game before without ever losing but the only way this occurs is when people exploit glitches in the AI or just flat cheat. I don't consider it to be a good thing to have a game be hard to a level that it practically can't be beat without cheating or resorting to what I consider to be extremely cheap methods to win.
On the plus side, the graphics are stellar for the time, the music is extremely memorable, the storyline is good, and it features the best, most original fatalities of probably any game of the series. I still remember its home release date, Friday September 9, 1994, and the trip to Rose's Store with my dad to pick up the game. The game had a sticker on the cover which said that it couldn't be sold to anyone under 17. For the record, this was just before the ESRB was established and began using the rating system familiar to most people today. My dad had to be with me when I purchased it to give the illusion that he was buying it for himself but he made it blatantly obvious that the game was for me because he had no idea the name of the game, let alone which console it was for.
Most people consider MK II to be the peak of the series. I think if the difficulty levels had been a bit more manageable and reasonable, I would probably agree with them but because the game is so hard, especially if you're lucky enough to get to Kintaro, I simply can't consider it any better than the 3rd best game of the series.
Which game earns a spot as the second best game of the Mortal Kombat series? 1995 would give us the answer with:
Mortal Kombat 3/Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (1995). Two games? Not really. MK 3 was released in April 1995 with UMK 3 following in September 1995. I consider these both to be a single game because UMK 3 was what MK 3 was intended to be. In essence, MK 3 was an incomplete game but was released as a finished product while UMK 3 was considered a mere upgrade in the same way that Super Street Fighter 2 was simply considered an upgrade to Street Fighter 2. The major differences between them were that UMK 3 included 4 new stages and many characters that weren't in MK 3. I've never found anything as to why this upgrade occurred and why UMK 3 wasn't the final version of MK so I have no answer for that. I think it had something to do with Dan Pesina's troubles with Midway which necessitated characters that he played being removed/redesigned for the game but that's not confirmed.
The gameplay, graphics, music, and storyline are all stellar with many new, memorable characters. Among these new characters was, other than Sub-Zero, my all-time favorite MK character, Kabal. The difficulty of this game was also far more reasonable and unlike its predecessor, this game could be beaten without resorting to cheap methods or flat out cheating. I have so many great memories of playing this in arcades and if I ever purchased a real arcade standup to have at home, I'd probably purchase UMK 3. If any criticism could be levied at this game, it would be that some of the fatalities were a bit too comical for my tastes. It also didn't help that some fatalities which caused the opponent to explode would manage to produce multiple skulls, 5 or 6 arms or legs, multiple rib cages all from a single body. Granted the game isn't really bound by realism, but seeing something like that can really make it difficult to suspend disbelief.
As far as I know, most fans consider this a disappointing follow-up to MK II and most of the hard-heads who are stuck in the 90's consider this game to be the beginning of the end for the series. To me, this game was the best of the original 2D games and is one that I can still play over and over again nearly 20 years after its original release.
Which game comes in at the top spot? Well, there's only one left so do the math and figure out which one's missing. If you don't want to do that, I'll tell you anyway. The best Mortal Kombat game yet released is:
Mortal Kombat: Deception (2004). The pinnacle of the Mortal Kombat franchise. This game is as close to perfection as just about any game can get. It's not only my favorite of the MK series, it might just be my favorite video game of all time. Nearly everything about it was spectacular. The graphics were an improvement from Deadly Alliance. We had new characters galore along with some awesome redesigns of some old favorites. Although in all fairness, anyone who thinks Sub Zero's look in this game wasn't a near complete rip-off of The Shredder from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is crazy. The fatalities were all improved in every way imaginable and for the first time, we had introduced stage fatalities that could be done on certain stages at any time during the fight. All of them were wonderfully creative and original. The stages themselves were fantastic even if they didn't include a stage fatality. My personal favorite was the Sky Temple stage. MK: Deception also introduced a concept that has only existed in this game which was the "Hara-Kiri" fatality. Basically, if you lost the fight and didn't want your opponent to perform a fatality on you, you could off yourself with a rather gruesome suicide move. Other than the fact it looked good, it really didn't serve much of a purpose.
The major selling point of this game was the expansion of the Konquest Mode which was introduced in Deadly Alliance. Konquest Mode in this game was more or less a separate video game to itself which featured RPG elements combined with traditional Mortal Kombat fights. It allowed for open world exploration of all the main realms in the Mortal Kombat universe for the first time. This mode also did more to reveal the complete backstory of many characters and events in the MK universe. Even if the arcade mode of the game weren't awesome, this alone would be worth purchasing the game for. Mentioning the arcade mode, this is another portion where the game truly shines. The difficulty isn't ridiculous with this game. There are certainly challenging portions, but there are no instances such as MK 2 where the AI can do things that human players simply can't do, nor are there instances where you'll spend hours on end trying to beat one character such as the final Shao Khan battle in MK9. All in all, it's a fair and reasonable challenge.
The game isn't above criticism however but the points in question are very minor. For one, Konquest Mode's voice acting is horrible for the most part. Especially the voice of the main character, Shujinko. Also, most of the game's stages had lackluster background music but this is made up for by the slightly remixed versions of past MK themes that were used in updated stages. By "updated stages" I mean stages that were in the previous 2D games that had now been upgraded to 3D. The music for these stages was basically the same except that it had been upgraded using much more modern recordings than what was possible in the mid-90's.
As a bonus, there were a good many video packages included with the game which ran through new character backgrounds and histories as well as behind the scenes features on our old favorites. The Kollector's Edition of the game also came with an arcade perfect emulation of the original Mortal Kombat game which was the first time it was released in this format.
Mortal Kombat: Deception has been the peak of the series so far and it's a crying shame that more people don't appreciate this game because of the previous closed-mindedness that I mentioned earlier with being stuck in the 90's. Deception is a testament to how far the series can go when NRS is willing to think outside the box and expand the mythologies while MK9 is a testament to how far the series can ultimately fall when NRS panders to this niche audience and throws originality and freshness out the window.
