Mortal Kombat II (SNES and SEGA Genesis) Turning 30 and Christmas!

Ah the middle of December, the time when you anticipate getting out of school for that long winter break. Thirty years ago, I was doing the same thing myself; the fourth grade was a time when those long breaks would equal going over to a friend’s house to spend a night or hang out. Almost always that time would be spent playing video games. There was a lot to choose from in 1994 both in games and in systems, but 1994 was really the year of the fighting game. And that Christmas break in particular, I was introduced to what would become one of my (if not my absolute) favorite.

I was spending a night over at my friend Ben’s house, and during those years, we’d usually make our way to the video store that Friday night to rent a movie or a game. Well that December we decided that we would rent a brand new fighting game, Mortal Kombat II, on SNES. Where I grew up, we didn’t have a Blockbuster Video, so our rentals came from a local place called Finklea’s Movies. The game was relatively new, and it included the instruction manual in with it when you rented it. I remember when we fired the game up and started playing. Little did I know that Ben had rented the game previously, and when we played our versus matches, he destroyed me.

This wasn’t my first fighting game experience, but it was the first time that I really played a Mortal Kombat game. I had played a little bit of the first Mortal Kombat on the Sega Genesis at a friend’s house earlier that year, but never the second game. The second game was something else, especially on the Super Nintendo. The sound and music were amazing, as well as the visuals. I think playing it that first time, my friend knew one fatality, and we kept trying to figure out the other ones with no luck. After renting that game the first time, I was hooked. It was a little too late for me to get that game for Christmas, but I have an early birthday in the year, so it immediately was my first choice for the birthday game.

Now obviously, the Mortal Kombat series of games did come with some controversy, as the game’s violence level along with other titles around the same time (DOOM comes to mind) caused the ESRB to become a thing. When my birthday week came around, my mom got the game from Toys R Us, and she remarked, “They had to check my ID to buy this game, I’ve never had that happen before”…I kind of just acted like I didn’t know why they would do that. Of course, in retrospect the amount of cartoonish violence in Mortal Kombat II pales in comparison to things that are in modern games, but at the time it was something that was unheard of.

Edgy violence aside, the game was a great fighting game, and Mortal Kombat II was everywhere at the time. It was in the arcades and nearly every kid at school had a copy at home. Compared to Street Fighter II and Street Fighter II Turbo, the main difference was the way you entered special moves and the way that you blocked. There is a block button in Mortal Kombat, whereas in Street Fighter you have to hold the back button. The special moves in Mortal Kombat are way more complicated to execute than in Street Fighter games. Most Street Fighter moves are a simple quarter-circle motion and a button, or a charge back and forward and a button. Mortal Kombat uses a myriad of button and direction presses depending on the character, and there is a lot of memorization involved. The amount of memorization is so important that I remember making other kids at school players guides for fatalities and moves from just my memory. I can still see those pencil drawn lists of moves on notebook paper in my head. At least the game manual had all the regular moves in it, aside from the finishing moves.

Along with better graphics and sound, Mortal Kombat II was a big step up from the first game with content in game. The first game only has seven selectable characters, two boss characters and one hidden character. Mortal Kombat II has twelve selectable characters, three hidden characters, and two new boss characters. The game is set in the realm of Outworld this time, and the stages you can play in are much more diverse than the first game. Some of the backgrounds are great in Mortal Kombat II, including stages that have stage specific fatalities. The first game only had the Pit as the only stage fatality area, but Mortal Kombat II has the Dead Pool, the Kombat Tomb and a new pit, the aptly named Pit II. A key difference is that in the first Mortal Kombat, you only had to perform an uppercut to do the stage fatality on the Pit. In Mortal Kombat II, each character has a specific stage fatality button input that works on the Kombat Tomb and the Pit II. The Dead Pool has the same combination for every character, so there are really two stage fatality moves sets per character. In addition to all characters having at least two unique fatalities (as compared to only one in the first game), there are two new finishing moves: Friendships and Babailites. The Friendship finishing move basically spares your opponent with something light-hearted like pulling a rabbit out of a hat or asking them to buy a replica doll. The Babality was basically a way to really embarrass your opponent by turning them into a baby. The two new boss characters are Shao Kahn and Kintaro, the latter who is another four-armed humanoid that replaces Goro from the first game. Shang Tsung who was the final boss in the first game also returns as a mini boss before Kintaro in this game. Although, this time Shang Tsung is a playable character in the game. Three hidden characters are also introduced, including a gray ninja that smokes named…Smoke, a green tanned lady ninja with Kitana’s fans named Jade, and a blacked-out ninja named Noob Saibot (Ed Boon and John Tobias’ names backwards). I did always think that Noob Saibot was the most fun to play, as the sound in the arcade and SNES version didn’t have a sample that actually said “Noob Saibot wins”…It was always some variation of “FEEL THE POWER OF …TOASTY!” or “YOU WILL DIE MORTAL! TOASTY!”

Speaking of toasty, the second Mortal Kombat has the best sound of any 2D Mortal Kombat in my opinion. The stage songs are fantastic and usually the arcade machines were turned up loud enough that you could always follow the sound to the MK2 arcade cab. Not only is the sound and music great on the arcade version, it’s also fantastic on the Super Nintendo version, I used to love just hearing the character select music. The game ending outro song is another great banger in a game full of them. Something else that was new was Shao Kahn taunting you as you fought him, which is another great touch in the game.

There are many, many home ports of Mortal Kombat II, but I think for the sake of this post (which is already long-winded for me) we’re only going to compare the two main home versions, the Super Nintendo and the SEGA Genesis version. I am slightly biased, as I had the Super Nintendo version growing up. But I did play the SEGA Genesis version from time to time at my friend’s house. The main key differences between the two are:

-         The Super Nintendo version handily wins in sound and music. The SEGA Genesis lacks a lot of the announcer voices and sound that the Super Nintendo version has.

-         The Super Nintendo also wins in the graphics department. There are a few things that I do like about the Genesis version though, like the names being in the life bars just like the arcade, but overall the SNES one is better, as that version also has full character animations. Certain characters like Baraka and Johnny Cage don’t finish their victory motions in the Genesis version. Hey at least both versions have blood this time without a code.

-         The SEGA Genesis version has tighter controls. It took me a little while of playing to notice it, but the Genesis version plays faster and the controls are great. It’s really the selling point of why you’d want to play the Genesis version over the SNES one, but it’s not THAT noticeable unless you play the game a lot.

So what is the verdict on which one you should play? Well, they are both pretty solid ports of the game. Either one with scratch your itch, but I would say if you like the graphics and sound part, you definitely have to play the SNES version. I find myself playing the Genesis version a lot when I just want to play for 15 minutes and want to make my way up the ladder to Shao Kahn. Both systems have great controllers for the game (make sure you use the 6-button on the Genesis) so it’s hard to pick which one is better there. Some people prefer one over the other, I’d probably side with the SNES controller because that’s what I’m used to, but the Genesis six button is just as great if that’s what you like.

Let’s give the games a score!

Graphics 15% - (SNES – 4.5, Genesis – 4) The 2D sprites in both games have held up with age, the Genesis version is a little worse obviously, especially with some of the animations missing; neither game is arcade perfect, but they’re still both pretty good.

Sound 15% - (SNES – 4.5, Genesis – 3.5) The sound part really hurts the Genesis score, those matches being so quiet really takes away from that arcade experience. Meanwhile the Super Nintendo is blasting away as you play, which really gives it the edge here.

Control 25% - (SNES – 3.8, Genesis – 4.5) The Genesis really shines in the controls. Tight and fast, the Genesis version always feels a little smoother to play. The SNES version can even be a little slow sometimes, but it’s still pretty good.

Fun Factor 45% - (SNES – 4.5, Genesis – 4) Why would the SNES get a higher score on the fun factor? Well the SNES does have some cheats that you can input on the character select screen to quickly go battle the hidden characters or the bosses, whereas the Genesis does not. Getting 25 wins in a row in the Genesis version to get to Noob Saibot is a little better than the 50 on the SNES, but you can just put in the code on the SNES one and get there instantly. Now with that being said, the Genesis does have a test mode to where you can make some weird stuff happen like Fergalities and some weird guy to replace Dan Forden’s Toasty. Both games are great multiplayer too, and they’re both still great to play today.

Final Average – (SNES – 4.325, Genesis – 4.05) As you can see, there isn’t much between these two versions of the game. They’re both great and still heavily in my playing rotation. If you’ve never played them before and want to go back and check them out, please do; this game is really when Mortal Kombat took off.

eBay outlook – cart alone (December 2024) SNES - $18-22; Genesis - $12-15. Complete in box SNES - $90-150; Genesis - $20-30

Retroachievements (emulation) – SNES – 42 achievements worth 340 (1,107) points; Genesis – 35 achievements worth 490 (1,835) points.

Some comparison screens, the SEGA Genesis is the first screen, SNES the second:

Here is the battle tower:

Finally some win screens:

 Thank you for reading my blog posts and I hope you have a Merry Christmas!