What a dogshit fucking video game. Every single viable "kombo" consists of just jump kicking into whatever special move can somehow followup the falling down animation, except for Scorpion and Sub-Zero's kombos that consist of the brilliant "stun the player and then uppercut" game plan. Oh, and I should mention projectiles don't trade in this game, so some projectiles are just objectively better in zoning fights which results in Scorpion being considered a clear worst character by a lot of players. Amazing.
The AI gets to do a good amount of exclusive stuff like throwing players in the middle of their recovery animations and sometimes the player must just pray to RNGesus Goro decides to not break the game's rules. The arcade mode really set up the most insufferable AI of any mainstream fighting game to come in MK2 and that's just obnoxious to look back at in hindsight.
Also good lord, the player must block to perform some fatalities, which means some characters simply cannot fight Reptile.
Despite the rage over its content, each character only has a single fatality and some are hardly even violent, especially in the SNES port where Kano rips out one's sweat glands instead of their heart. Hell, I'm pretty sure Liu Kang's fatality doesn't even kill the other player. Only one stage contains a stage fatality and it consists of uppercutting somebody down a pit.
This game is so fucking trashy the player can just mash jab for an unsightly animation to take off half the other player's health bar in a matter of 2 seconds, but also it can be blocked 1 hit in so it's not even reliable to jab without getting punished. There also isn't a proper low punch since attempting to perform one just uppercuts instead.
In fact all the animations in the game are janky as fuck. Why does Johnny Cage's knocked down animation look like he was shoved a bit? Why does Shang Tsung's flight look so stiff? Why is Scorpion just Sub-Zero but yellow? Why does every character have the exact same attacks minus a special move or 2 when they're martial artists from different backgrounds with different stances? And why is Raiden's name pronounced RAY-den while I'm at it?
The fact of the matter is, this game came out the same year as actually good fighting games I can still go back to today like
Nekketsu Fighting Legend and that's just embarrassing given the difference in popularity.
The AI gets to do a good amount of exclusive stuff like throwing players in the middle of their recovery animations and sometimes the player must just pray to RNGesus Goro decides to not break the game's rules. The arcade mode really set up the most insufferable AI of any mainstream fighting game to come in MK2 and that's just obnoxious to look back at in hindsight.
Also good lord, the player must block to perform some fatalities, which means some characters simply cannot fight Reptile.
Despite the rage over its content, each character only has a single fatality and some are hardly even violent, especially in the SNES port where Kano rips out one's sweat glands instead of their heart. Hell, I'm pretty sure Liu Kang's fatality doesn't even kill the other player. Only one stage contains a stage fatality and it consists of uppercutting somebody down a pit.
This game is so fucking trashy the player can just mash jab for an unsightly animation to take off half the other player's health bar in a matter of 2 seconds, but also it can be blocked 1 hit in so it's not even reliable to jab without getting punished. There also isn't a proper low punch since attempting to perform one just uppercuts instead.
In fact all the animations in the game are janky as fuck. Why does Johnny Cage's knocked down animation look like he was shoved a bit? Why does Shang Tsung's flight look so stiff? Why is Scorpion just Sub-Zero but yellow? Why does every character have the exact same attacks minus a special move or 2 when they're martial artists from different backgrounds with different stances? And why is Raiden's name pronounced RAY-den while I'm at it?
The fact of the matter is, this game came out the same year as actually good fighting games I can still go back to today like
Nekketsu Fighting Legend and that's just embarrassing given the difference in popularity.