Description
This is a capture of me playing through the arcade version of Mortal Kombat. This is being played through the Mortal Kombat Legacy Kollection for the Switch 2. I'm using Sub-Zero and playing on medium difficulty.
I received the Mortal Kombat Legacy Kollection for Christmas and I have been playing the original arcade version for two weeks straight trying to record a no-continue playthrough. I finally achieved that yesterday.
When Mortal Kombat hit the arcades back in 1992, it was quite shocking. The realistic graphics and over-the-top action and gore were incredibly different from Street Fighter II. Now uppercuts sent people flying wildly through the air, and you could punch the other fighter in the balls, freeze him in place, or harpoon him in the throat and yank him toward you. I still remember seeing the fatalities for the first time, including Sub-Zero’s infamous head rip. It was gruesome.
While Mortal Kombat’s gameplay wasn’t quite as good as Street Fighter II, its content was excellent. The game clearly took inspiration from martial arts movies such as Enter the Dragon, Bloodsport, and Big Trouble in Little China, and then added a horror theme to everything. And the two bosses, Goro and Shang Tsung, were a huge draw. To me, nothing was more fun that battling Goro over and over again, even if you lost. Simply fighting Goro could draw huge crowds to the machine.
There were other nuances that added to the overall package too. For instance, hearing Goro stomp around and roar during Endurance 3 was reminiscent of the first Zelda game, where you could hear the dungeon bosses roaring through the walls. Goro also didn’t fly as high from an uppercut since he obviously weighed more, and sweeps didn’t really work against Shang Tsung because he appeared to levitate just above the ground. And hilariously, the ball punch didn’t work on Sonya.
I spent a ton of quarters playing the original Mortal Kombat, and I rented and borrowed the SNES version quite a bit after it came out. However, I never bothered to the buy any of the versions until now.
For this playthrough I decided to use perhaps the most iconic character: Sub-Zero. I’d say Sub-Zero and Scorpion are my two favorite characters in this game, but I like all of them except for Kano.
The Legacy Kollection definitely has some input lag, which I eventually got used to, but its difficulty level seems too high, even on medium. The game quickly adapts to your strategies and punishes you brutally compared to other versions I’ve seen. Although I was able to implement some strategies I had seen in other videos, I generally had to use roundhouse kicks (back and high kick) as the opponent came just in range. I found that to be the safest strategy overall (though you typically have to block or duck beforehand).
In this playthrough I beat the game without using any continues, though I did lose some rounds. I would like to post some playthroughs with other characters as well, so I’ll see if I can do that.
Recorded with the Elgato Game Capture HD60 and the Switch 2's HDMI cable at native 1080p resolution and 60 frames per second. I'm using a Real Arcade Pro V Hayabusa joystick.