Mortal Kombat 3

Mortal Kombat 3 (MK3) is a fighting video game developed by Midway Games and first released into arcades in 1995 as the third game in the Mortal Kombat series. As in the previous games, it has a cast of characters that players choose from and guide through a series of battles against other opponents. The game avoids the tournament storyline of its predecessors, as various warriors instead fight against the returning Shao Kahn, who has resurrected his bride Sindel and started an invasion of Earthrealm.

The third installment of Mortal Kombat retains the blood and gory attacks that defined the series. It introduces new types of the Fatality finishing moves, including Animalities. Other features new to the series were combos, predefined sequences used to perform a series of consecutive attacks. A "Run" button was also added, allowing players to briefly dash toward the opponent, as were "Kombat Kodes", an unlockable content system using various symbols that can be entered before two-player matches to achieve certain effects.

Some characters from the previous games returned and new characters were introduced into the series. Mortal Kombat 3 notably omitted popular characters from previous games, some of whom were added in an update, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, released later in 1995. The PC and home console-exclusive Mortal Kombat Trilogy (1996) added even more characters, as well as other new features.

Gameplay

Liu Kang vs. Shang Tsung in MK3

Mortal Kombat 3 builds further on the gameplay of the previous game. A "Run" button, accompanied by a "Run" meter, was introduced. This was primarily to address concern from fans who thought that the previous games gave too much of an advantage to the defending player. The Run meter is drained by running (the character cannot run backwards, only forwards) and by performing combos.

"Chain combos", also known as pre-programmed combos (labeled "dial-a-combos") were also introduced. Chain combos are button sequences that cannot be interrupted once one hit connects; some chain combos end with an uppercut or other move that knocks the opponent into the air, so that more damage can be dealt via a traditional juggle combo. To please players of various skill levels, a "Choose Your Destiny" screen appears in the single player mode to allow player-selectable difficulty.

For the first time, certain levels were interactive by allowing characters to uppercut each other through the ceiling where both characters would continue the battle in a different stage. This could alter the game's level cycle. Both normal uppercuts and uppercuts that are part of a ground combo would result in a level change. Kung Lao's "Whirl Wind Spin" move would also have the same effect. However, if the character is defeated by an uppercut, there is no level change.

All of the different styles of finishing moves featured in Mortal Kombat II (Fatalities, including the non-lethal Babality and Friendship moves) return in MK3. Additionally, the rumored Animality, where the character transforms into an animal in order to kill their opponent, is featured for the first time. Another new addition is the Mercy, where the character can give their opponent a small sliver of life if they have won two rounds and are at the "Finish Him/Her" screen. A Mercy is necessary for an Animality to occur. Finally, three new Stage Fatalities can be performed in the Subway, the Bell Tower and the Pit 3.

Another concept introduced in this game is the "Kombat Kode". A Kombat Kode is a six-symbol code entered at the VS screen in a two-player game to modify gameplay, fight hidden characters or display certain text messages. Also introduced in this game was the "Ultimate Kombat Kode", a 10-character code using symbols, that could be entered on the game over screen after the continue screen disappears in single player mode. It was used to unlock a robotic version of the character Smoke; it can be done by either the player or the arcade operator. The arcade owner could reset this code by accessing the game's diagnostic menu by toggling a DIP switch within the MK3 cabinet. The codes were revealed through gaming magazines, promotional material and other Mortal Kombat media.

Characters

New player characters:

• Cyrax (Sal Divita) - Yellow-colored Lin Kuei cyber assassin, and second of the three cyber assassins.
• Kabal (Richard Divizio) - Former Black Dragon warrior.
• Nightwolf (Sal Divita) - Native American shaman.
• Sektor (Sal Divita) - Red-colored Lin Kuei cyber assassin and also the first of the three cyborgs.
• Sindel (Lia Montelongo) - Resurrected Queen of Edenia who is being controlled by Shao Kahn.
• Sheeva (stop motion) - Female Shokan whose loyalty lies in the hands of Shao Kahn, and is also the protector of Sindel.
• Stryker (Michael O'Brien) - Riot control officer.

Returning player characters:

• Jax (John Parrish) - Special Forces major who works with Sonya to apprehend Kano.
• Kano (Richard Divizio) - Black Dragon thug who escaped arrest by Sonya and Jax.
• Kung Lao (Tony Marquez) - Shaolin monk who seeks to stop what Kahn is planning.
• Liu Kang (Eddie Wong) - Returning Mortal Kombat champion.
• Sonya Blade (Kerri Hoskins) - Special Forces lieutenant setting out again to capture Kano.
• Sub-Zero (John Turk) - Rogue Lin Kuei ninja who fled the clan after refusing to be converted to a cybernetic unit.
• Shang Tsung (John Turk) - Shao Kahn's devious sorcerer.
• Smoke (Sal Divita) - Indigo-colored cyber assassin from the Lin Kuei and last of the three cyborgs, who was once a close friend of Sub-Zero (unlocked by the Ultimate Kombat Kode).

Boss characters:

• Motaro (stop-motion) - A Centaur and the game's sub-boss.
• Shao Kahn (Brian Glynn, voiced by Steve Ritchie) - Emperor of Outworld and the game's final boss.

Although the game's manual states both boss characters are unplayable, both Motaro and Shao Kahn can be enabled via secret cheat menus in the SNES and Genesis versions of the game. Noob Saibot (Richard Divizio) also returns as a hidden opponent.

Plot

Weary of continuous losses in tournament battle, Shao Kahn, who lost to Liu Kang in the Outworld tournament in the previous game, enacts a 10,000-year-old plan. He would have his Shadow Priests, led by Shang Tsung, revive his former Queen Sindel, who unexpectedly died at a young age. However, she would not be revived in the Outworld, but in Earthrealm. This would allow Shao Kahn to cross the boundary lines and reclaim his queen. When Sindel is reincarnated in Earthrealm, Shao Kahn reaches across the dimensions to reclaim her, and as a result, Earthrealm gradually becomes a part of Outworld, instantly stripping billions of their souls. Only a few are spared, as Raiden protects their souls. He tells them that Shao Kahn must be stopped, but he cannot interfere; due to his status, he has no power in Outworld, and Earthrealm is partially merged with Outworld. Shao Kahn has unleashed extermination squads to kill any Earthrealm survivors. Also, Raiden's protection only extends to the soul, not to the body, so his chosen warriors have to fight the extermination squads and repel Shao Kahn. With his final defeat, every human on Earthrealm is restored.

Mortal Kombat 3 follows Mortal Kombat II and shares continuity with both Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 and Mortal Kombat Trilogy which were both updates of this game. The next new chapter in the series was Mortal Kombat 4.

The game also contains several subplots:

• Having defeated Shao Kahn in Outworld, Liu Kang now finds himself as the prime target of Shao Kahn's elimination squads. In response to the upcoming threat, he aligns himself with Kung Lao and leads the rebellion against Shao Kahn and his Outworld minions. However, he also has an ulterior motive: he seeks to free Kitana's home realm of Edenia.
• With the latest advancements in human technologies, the Lin Kuei decide to automate their human assassins into soulless machines. Four ninjas, Cyrax, Sektor, Smoke and Sub-Zero, are selected to serve as the first automation prototypes, but Sub-Zero and Smoke refuse to participate, forcing them to leave the clan. Unfortunately, Smoke is captured and is automated along with Sektor and Cyrax and all three are programmed to hunt down and eliminate Sub-Zero. Meanwhile, learning of the looming Outworld threat, Sub-Zero joins the rebellion against Shao Kahn.
• Jax discovers the location of both Sonya and Kano while in Outworld, and in freeing Sonya, he also frees Kano. Knowing that his near future means arrest, Kano uses this opportunity to escape into the depths of Outworld and ultimately joins Shao Kahn's forces. Sonya and Jax return to Earth and try to warn their government about the looming Outworld threat, but when their pleas are ignored, Sonya and Jax instead prepare themselves for the upcoming war by joining the rebellion.
• Despite both serving Shao Kahn, the Centaurs and Shokan have been at war with each other for years. Suspicions arise when Sheeva, who is appointed Sindel's bodyguard, learns that Motaro is appointed as Kahn's General in his armies. With the apparent, yet unconfirmed, "deaths" of both Kintaro and Goro, Sheeva begins to fear for her own race, and makes plans to turn against Kahn should her suspicions prove to be true.
• Largely dependent on a respirator and an undying thirst for revenge against the Black Dragon clan (who he believes was responsible for his brutal attack), Kabal joins the rebellion upon learning of Kano's survival.
• Though he realizes that he is the lone survivor of New York City following the Outworld Invasion, Stryker remains ignorant as to why he survived the attack. However, upon receiving a vision from Raiden and being informed of what has transpired, Stryker decides to find and join the other Earthrealm warriors.
• For many years, Nightwolf received visions that foretold and warned him of the upcoming invasion. Largely ignoring them, he feels guilty for not preventing it, and so joins the human offensive against Kahn by casting a magical protection over his ancestors' traditional homeland in North America. This region becomes a threat to Kahn's occupation of Earth.
• Johnny Cage was hunted down by one of Shao Kahn's extermination squads and killed, apparently by Motaro.

Development

The game's overall style was envisioned differently from in the previous Mortal Kombat games. Instead of the heavily-Oriental themes of Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat II, the theme of MK3 is more Western-contemporary. The game's stages are set in modern locations (such as urban highways, churches, and bank rooftops), three of the characters are cyborgs, and traditional character designs (such as Sub-Zero's or Kano's) have been dropped or modified in favor of modern replacements. This change is also reflected in the sound track, in which all Oriental motifs have been dropped in favor of modern instrumentation.

Some of the characters from previous Mortal Kombat games who returned in Mortal Kombat 3 were portrayed by new actors, since their original portrayers left Midway Games due to royalty disputes. Ho Sung Pak (Liu Kang in the first two games, as well as Shang Tsung in the first Mortal Kombat), Phillip Ahn (Shang Tsung in Mortal Kombat II), Elizabeth Malecki (Sonya Blade), and Katalin Zamiar (Kitana/Mileena/Jade) were not involved in the production of MK3.^[1] Daniel Pesina (Johnny Cage and Scorpion/Sub-Zero/Reptile /Smoke/Noob Saibot) was also not involved in the production of MK3 as he had parted ways with Midway due to a lawsuit over royalties. He later appeared in an advertisement for BloodStorm, which resulted in a false rumor that it got him fired by Midway. All this led to the use of new actors for Liu Kang (Eddie Wong), Sonya Blade (Kerri Hoskins), Shang Tsung and Sub-Zero (both played by John Turk) in MK3. While Richard Divizio took over the role of Noob Saibot (as the character was a recolored Kano in this version). Carlos Pesina, who played Raiden in the first two games, did not appear in MK3 as a penalty for his involvement in the rival game Tattoo Assassins, but was still employed by Midway and his character would return in Mortal Kombat Trilogy, although through the use of recycled sprites from MKII and new sprites performed by Sal Divita.

The game has a different tone overall than its predecessors, and uses a noticeably more muted and less-vibrant color palette. Characters were heavily digitized, as opposed to the hybrid digitized/hand-drawn style of MKII. Many of the game's backgrounds were, for the first time, created using pre-rendered 3D graphics.

Release

Accompanied by a massive promotional campaign (given the world record for the "largest promotional campaign for a fighting video game" in the 2011 Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition), Mortal Kombat 3 was originally released to the North American arcades on April 15, 1995. The game was soon ported to three home consoles, namely the Genesis, Super NES and Sony PlayStation, but only the PlayStation version was identical to the arcade original,^[3] due to a deal with Midway which gave Sony exclusive worldwide rights for the 32-bit version of the game up through the end of the first quarter of 1996 (hence why the Sega Saturn, 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, and Atari Jaguar versions were all slated for release in the second quarter of 1996).^[4] Continuing a tradition of simultaneous home version releases from the first two games in the series, it was announced that the Genesis, Super NES, Game Boy, and Game Gear versions would all be released on "Mortal Friday", October 13, 1995.^[5] However, not all of the versions made the planned date, and the Game Gear version was never released in North America at all.

On the Game Boy, only nine of the original 15 fighters (Kano, Sonya, Sub-Zero, Cyrax, Sektor, Sheeva, Sindel, Kabal and Smoke) are available, only five stages exist, there are no button-link combos, and no finishers outside of Fatalities and Babalities. Shao Kahn uses his moves from Mortal Kombat II, and Motaro is not included. The sole Game Boy game to be rated Rated M by the ESRB, this version does not include much of the overt gore and violence seen in its parent systems but kept some of the "burning" Fatalities (immolating a defeated opponent down to a burnt skeleton).

A scaled-down Game Gear version of MK3 was released only in Europe. It is almost the same as the Game Boy version, although it includes blood and gore, is in color, and features Noob Saibot as a hidden character. There is also a port for the Master System, which is nearly identical to the Game Gear version, although it was only released in Brazil by Tec Toy, distributor of Sega's products in that country.

There are two different versions of MK3 for the PC. The first was a DOS version, which does not closely resemble any of the other ports. This version contains a hidden redbook audio track (Track 47) with a narration of a story in reverse. The second version was a Windows version, which was a direct port of the PlayStation version of the game, featuring the same menus, sprite sizes and qualities, and gameplay.

MK3 was originally slated to be released for the Atari Jaguar in the second quarter of 1996, according to a joint press release issued by Atari and Williams Entertainment on March 13, 1995,^[6] but was never released. A port for the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer was also announced for an early 1996 release, touted on magazine covers, and reportedly complete, but was also never released.^[7] A port for the Sega Saturn was also announced for early 1996,^[8] but was cancelled in favor of a port of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3.

Mortal Kombat 3 is also included in Midway Arcade Treasures 2 for the Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox; Midway Arcade Treasures Deluxe Edition for the PC (this title includes a 'making of' documentary about the game); and Midway Arcade Treasures: Extended Play for the PlayStation Portable.

Reception

Although Mortal Kombat 3 was commercially successful, many disliked the inclusion of arguably less-appealing new characters (especially Stryker) in place of established stalwarts such as Scorpion and Kitana.^[2][9][10] The new combo system was also often criticized, as were, to a lesser degree, the run mechanics and some finishing moves.^[11][12][13] According to PC Gamer in 1998, "While Mortal Kombat 2 managed to improve upon the fast-paced, gore-galore formula of the original, the third incarnation didn’t fare nearly as well. MK3 suffered from monkeywrenched gameplay, needlessly stupid finishing moves like 'Animalities,' and unbearably campy character designs."^[14] A Retro Gamer article on the history of the series stated in 2007: "Althrough many hardcore fans will decree Midway's third Mortal Kombat game to be the best in the series, just as many felt it was beginning of the end for the still massively popular franchise...While Midway had been constantly adding subtle gameplay tweaks to its franchise since the release of Mortal Kombat, its once exciting series was suddenly looking rather tired."^[15]

Nevertheless, the game received largely positive reviews at the time. As of 2014, the review aggregator website GameRankings is giving it the averaged scores of 80.23% for the Super NES,^[16] 76.67% for the Genesis,^[17] and 70.33% for the Sony PlayStation.^[18] Electronic Gaming Monthly gave the PlayStation version an 8.675 out of 10 and their "Game of the Month" award.^[19] Electronic Gaming Monthly and IGN both criticized the heavy lag during Shang Tsung's morphing, while assessing the conversion overall as a near-perfect replication of the graphics, content, and controls of the arcade original. However, IGN gave the PlayStation version a score of only 5/10 based on the shortcomings of Mortal Kombat 3 itself, recommending Street Fighter 2D fighting games over it unless one is a "die-hard MK fan".^[20] A reviewer for Next Generation gave the Genesis version four out of five stars, remarking that the game actually looks better on a last-generation console, where it finds company with other 2D games and is better-looking than most of them, than it did in the arcade, where it seemed outdated against the increasingly prevalent polygon-based games. He complimented the game for delivering on the elements most important to the Mortal Kombat fan base, but added as a final note that "as a whole, the MK series is getting stale and in dire need of some major reworking."^[13] In their review of the Genesis version, GamePro similarly said that Mortal Kombat 3 is "just not original enough (like Tekken) or deep enough (like SF [Street Fighter]) to warrant space on the casual Genesis gamer's shelf." They also criticized the Genesis version as being a weak approximation of the arcade version, particularly the character sprites and sound effects.^[21] They assessed the PlayStation version as a much more accurate conversion aside from the lag during Shang Tsung's morphing, but concluded it to be "An awesome home version of a game that wasn't so great to begin with."^[22] Next Generation similarly felt the arcade-perfect quality of the PlayStation version was overshadowed by game's lack of innovation: "There is little, outside of a few new, conspicuously uninspired characters, a run feature, and a new combo system, which simply mirrors its competition, to differentiate MK3 from its predecessors."^[23] Maximum praised the PlayStation version's wealth of customization options and "eerie combat music tracks", but remarked that the game was outdated with Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 already out in arcades and slated for release on the Saturn. They also took strong issue with the lack of PAL optimization, saying that as a result "The characters move very slowly as if wading through treacle, and this detracts from the overall feel of the game as well as changing the timing for the special moves and combos." They gave it 3 out of 5 stars.^[24]

Reviewing the SNES version, the four reviewers of Electronic Gaming Monthly concurred it to be by far the best "16-bit version" of the game. They especially praised the challenging enemy AI, accurate graphics, and high number of special options, and scored the game 8.375/10.^[25] While they listed some problems with the AI and sound, GamePro had a similar reaction, concluding that "Converting a mammoth arcade game like MK 3 to the 16-bit Super NES is no easy task, and Williams has done a respectable job of keeping all the key elements intact."^[26] PC Gamer itself, despite the later negative opinion, gave the PC version of MK3 a review score of 89% upon the release, calling it "yet another excellent arcade experience from the king of fighting games."^[27] Next Generation at the time called it "one of the best fighting games ever released for the PC" and "a title you must own" for the fans of the genre, awarding it four out of five stars.^[9]

Legacy

Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (UMK3) was released to arcades in 1995. It is an update of Mortal Kombat 3, featuring altered gameplay, additional characters, and new arenas. Various home versions of the game were released soon afterwards, although none of these were completely identical to the arcade version. Several more home versions followed between 2002-2010, including Mortal Kombat Advance for the Game Boy Advance and Ultimate Mortal Kombat for the Nintendo DS (the DS version features the "Puzzle Kombat" minigame originally from Mortal Kombat: Deception).

UMK3 itself was updated to include content from previous games in the series to serve as the basis of the console-exclusive title Mortal Kombat Trilogy in 1996. It was also later remastered to be released as part of the Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection in 2011.

References

External links

• Mortal Kombat 3 at MobyGames
• Mortal Kombat 3 at Arcade-History