Mortal Kombat 4 Review

Played on PC

Developed by Midway Games (Ported by Eurocom)

Released 11th September 1997

It's the mid-to-late 90s, and the most recent trend that would sweep the video game industry is the come-up of the modern version of 3D that we're all so used to in the likes of polygonal graphics. 'Quake' brought the FPS genre from the pseudo-3D of 'Doom' into the true third dimension, 'Mario 64' had a flair that every game afterwards would try to replicate and 'Virtua Fighter' established the same effect for fighting games. In an attempt not to be left behind, Midway knew they needed to hold their own in this new landscape, and so they brought out their most beloved franchise, 'Mortal Kombat', into that realm. Even though 'War Gods' was Midway's first attempt at a 3D fighter, it bombed so hard that it can be nothing more than a stepping stone for the 4th mainline entry in the 'MK' series.

There was a lot of uncertainty in the development of this game. 'Tekken' and 'Virtua Fighter' dominated arcades at this point, so 'Mortal Kombat 4' had to do something unique to catch the attention of people. But its selling point has always been the violence, which, by 1997, became a norm for other games, and it was difficult to top them all. On top of that, everybody had a hard time adjusting to the sudden expansion of the development team, the greater need for programmers, and the overall 3D landscape overwriting their previous approaches, like with implementing Animalities. Even more so, they wanted to scrap all the comical elements from previous titles, which is a strange decision given how the series is known for gods and ninjas battling it out across dimensions. The game also received 3 revisions while in the arcades before finally receiving a home console port by Eurocom, and is the version of the game I played for this review. Overall impressions at the time discredited the new 3D look and had been considered, at best, mediocre: a complete 180 from its commercial success due to Midway's aggressive marketing. It was criticised for being too much like its 2D counterparts and not taking advantage of the 3D environments, and in retrospect, many call this game an important step in the franchise's history and an underrated experience.

Story

No different from the mainline games, 'Mortal Kombat 4's narrative here won't affect its final score because of how muted it is compared to the rest of the game. The plot this time around has Raiden's selected mortals fight back against a recently freed Shinnok. Out of all the stories that 'MK' has provided thus far, this might be the lamest one, as it lacks the structure needed to make it seem engaging, especially had it been portrayed outside of singular cinematic endings you gain per character. Now, the acting in these cinematics is so hilariously bad that they're worth the trouble of completing the tower with each character, and Shinnok is a decently entertaining antagonist, but all of these still lack the substance needed to make the story anything but a backseat in the 'Mortal Kombat 4' experience.

Gameplay

With the transition to 3D, you'd expect a greater shift in gameplay, but in fact, one of the main things 'Mortal Kombat 4' was judged for was just how similar it was to its 2D-sprite-filled predecessors, not making the most of its 3D tech like its contemporaries in the genre. The standard formula of movement-based light, heavy, special and air attacks persists, this time with a roster decrease from 22 in 'Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3' to 15 here. Fewer playable characters isn't an issue as long as they make up for that absence with personality, and they definitely don't. Besides Fujin, Quan-Chi and Shinnok, the new characters are huge misses. Tanya and Jarek act as carbon copies of the scrapped returning characters, like Kitana and Kano, respectively. Kai is just lame, and Reiko leaves much to be desired besides his mass-shuriken throw. The returning roster is solid with the likes of Johnny Cage, Raiden, Scorpion, Sub-Zero and more, missing only certain characters like the aforementioned Kitana and Kano.

The tameness in fighters isn't just in the newcomers' backgrounds and lore, but in how 'Mortal Kombat 3's rapid combo system is overhauled to accommodate that shift to 3D. The game doesn't feel as rapid and reliant on unique combos you could find and master per character, but instead, a quick spamming of high punches will lead you to victory 80% of the time. Now I do suck at fighting games, but this problem of cheap attacks is an issue others have had too. There was an attempt at something new here with the inclusion of weapons that deal high damage at the cost of getting knocked out of your hand easily, but their presence here is so minimal, I'd only ever pull them out by accident.

For the 3D side of things, there isn't much. A backstep and sidestep that barely shift the characters' position and feel inconsequential amidst combat. However, the cool side of things with the 3D is with the fatalities. Even though the developers knew that outlandish violence was no longer their special forte, given how the rest of video games adapted to include them too, they knew about the monopoly they had on the concept of fatalities. Here, they utilise the 3D environments to do some cool things with the camera. Over-the-shoulder perspective to launch the enemy into their death, repeating shots of the same deathblow, zooming and panning and many more entertaining cinematic techniques that make these otherwise standard executions the best we've seen out of the series so far.

The remaining factors that the gameplay had to offer was the same extra gamemodes that were present in the previous game like the regular AI-filled towers, 1v1s, 2v2s and 8-player tournaments, two of the latter I wasn't able to play around with once again due to the limitations of the version of the game I played, however, variety is always a nice consideration. The only other aspect worth mentioning would be the AI difficulty, and besides Goro having the most BS-inducing attacks that have crazy hit registration and deal too much damage for my liking, the AI does seem to be slightly toned back and more manageable. It's still a headache to deal with, given that this was the last game of the series to be made for arcades, and hence, it was designed to penny-pinch you along the way.

Characters

Once again, since I'm not factoring the story into the final score, I won't do so with the characters either. Besides some entertaining dialogue and those ending cutscenes, there isn't much to go off for the development of the characters. The new inclusions are very plain to the point they barely reprised their role in the series' future, and the returning characters don't feel fresh. The only noticeable moment here is finding out that Quan-Chi was the one who killed Scorpion's family and not Sub-Zero, making the rivalry feel more expanded upon. Shinnok and Quan-Chi are the only other characters that are worth mentioning, given their status as legendary MK villains (even if they technically made a shoddy debut in 'Sub-Zero: Mythologies').

Atmosphere

This game's atmosphere is the best of both worlds that 'MK3' introduced and flipped from the 'MK2' vibes. It retains this traditional martial arts Far East style with the harsh Western aesthetics and blends them into a dark plane. The music is as energetic and aggressive as before, but it's also quite fearful, fitting the whole narrative of fighting to the brutal death. The visual designs slot into this ideology all the same, with arenas having this moody lighting and visceral colouring, but the structures remain as over-the-top as the series needs them to be to not lose its core identity. The same goes for the character redesigns. While the newer characters lack any charm to be memorable, many of the returning combatants have new outfits that look definitive on them. Reptile loses his green ninja colour-palette-swap look for a greater emphasis on that "creature" aspect of his character, while Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Raiden and Quan Chi have what I consider to be the definitive "classic" look for them that I haven't seen the later games emulate as well (yet). With all this praise being said, it's not like these are the best visuals or audio I've ever seen or heard. Yes, the blood and ripping sound effects are finely tuned, and the design is befitting of this game's goal, but it's not a top spot contender in anything, simply serving its purpose to the best it can.

Gameplay - 6/10

Atmosphere - 7/10

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