Mortal Kombat 4 (PS1) - Review

Introduction

In the end of  the 90’s a lot of well-know game tittles made their transition from 2D to 3D, and Mortal Kombat, the popular and violent fighting game, was no different. After the success in the arcades and on consoles of the 3 previous games, Midway comes with Mortal Kombat 4, for the Acade, PS1 and N64, with some new gameplay aspects, but still having the MK style. And boy, at the time, everybody was excited abou this game coming.

Story & Characters

As most fighting games the story is simple, after Shao Kanh’s defeat an evil Elder God called Shinnock is back to Earth to cause chaos. Now the Earth’s protectors have to stop him to bring peace to the world. Not counting the secret ones, the game has 15 characters, some are good new ones, others are the classic ones, like Liu Kang, Sub-Zero, Raiden, etc, that everybody knows. I only miss Kung Lao in the game, but overall is a good cast of characters.

Gameplay

The graphics are 3D, but the fighting style is basically  2D, you can do a little side step to dodge, but it doesn’t interfere too much with the game’s 2D fighting style. The cool thing about the fight is it’s a fast-pacing fight, is faster than any previous MK. But as any MK game every character feels very similar, except for his special moves and fatalities.

Visuals

The graphics were very good for the time, and being one of the firsts 3D games I played, I must say it really impressed me. The backgrounds are cool, but it’s easy to see some defects like the floor disappearing , but it has a great and dark environment for Mortal Kombat. The fatalitites looks just awesome. The CG’s were superb for the time, and even today is enjoyable to watch these endings.

Sound

The musics fits very well the MK environments. And to be honest this MK has the best soundtrack in the whole serie, not because this one is that great, but because in the other MK games the music isn’t the strong point of the game at all, compare Street Fighter for example, always has great soundtrack. But like I said it always fits the MK environment. The voice acting is very funny, you’ll listen to the characters screaming like crazy, and that was so cool. The sound effects are very good.

Replay

The game has a good variety of modes: Arcade, that you can play 1 on 1 or 2 on 2, Team, Endurance ( is like survival), Tournament and Pratice (finally!). All this modes’ll keep you  a little busy, especially if you have friends to play with, as in any fighting games multiplayer is the high point. The Team and Tournament modes were very fun to play with other people, and when you discover how to do the fatalities the game becomes even more rewarding.

Good & Bad

-The Good: Fast-pacing fights, cool fatalities, funny voice acting during the game, the endings are very enjoyable

-The Bad: characters feels very similar, too easy final boss

Conclusion

MK4 is a very enjoyable game, it has all the violence and it maintains the good and the bad aspects of the gameplay from the previous ones and brings some new good modes, making the replay value increase. If you have friends that enjoys fighting games, you’ll be playing untold hours with this game. My cousins and I keep playing, back on the day,  for hours and it doesn’t get boring thanks to it’s fast pacing fights.