Mortal Kombat Trilogy

aka: MKT
Moby ID: 2036
PlayStation Specs
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Description official descriptions

All the characters from the first three Mortal Kombat games return for the ultimate battle. You can play as Kano, Reptile, Mileena, Kung Lao, Shang Tsung, Sindel, Sketor, Stryker, Nightwolf, Sheeva, Kitana, Scorpion, Sonya, Smoke (Cyber Ninja), Rain, Jade, Baraka, Johnny Cage, Ermac, Noob Saibot, Sub-Zero (Unmasked), Sub-Zero (Classic), Jax, Rayden, Cyrax, Liu Kang, Smoke (Human), Kabal, Goro, Kintaro, Motaro, or Shao Kahn.

This game is one-on-one martial arts fighting. The player can choose from over thirty different characters, all with their own fighting style and their own special moves. Trilogy differs from the other games in that you can play combinations of people that otherwise isn't possible, such as old Liu Kang vs. new Liu Kang, etc.

Mortal Kombat Trilogy also allows you to challenge a friend to a fight through a Windows IPX network connection.

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Screenshots

Promos

Credits (PlayStation version)

33 People (26 developers, 7 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 72% (based on 28 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.7 out of 5 (based on 127 ratings with 6 reviews)

Very Few Options

The Good
Accurate to the arcade

The Bad
Not adapted well to home consoles

The Bottom Line
I have absolutely no skill when it comes to fighting games. I have a terrible memory for special moves and I never know when to block or attack, so I’m not going to be a good judge for games like this. Mortal Kombat Trilogy is essentially Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 with some characters and stages from Mortal Kombat 2 and 3 added, although the aggression bar that makes you slightly more powerful is new.

I know a game isn’t for me when the character select screen is too difficult. Quite a few characters are just reskins of other characters, and there are no character names whatsoever on the character select screen. I tried to choose Sub Zero, pretty much the only Mortal Kombat character I know, but ended up with someone called Rain. Oh, and there’s a timer in the background so it will select whoever you are on when it tuns out.

I did manage to pull off one special move, and there are lots of fancy effects as punches and kicks are made. According to N64 magazine, though, it just simply isn’t as nice looking as the PlayStation version of the game. The N64 version also lacks a bunch of charaters.

There are a few multiplayer modes where you can select multiple characters, but there’s not a lot to choose from. In singleplayer, you can fight through four difficulties, each having more fights to get through.

Even setting things to “very easy”, I struggled to get the hang of this game. There’s no practice mode or move lists (that I could find in the confusing menu), other than using player 2 to stand there and do nothing.

Based on the comments from N64 magazine, there’s not much reason for anyone to play this version of the game. I did cheat my way though one of the campaigns to see different levels. I got to play a space invader clone at the end, which I enjoyed more than the main game.

Nintendo 64 · by Cube1701 (1) · 2024

Sorry Compilation of a Great Fighting Genre

The Good
Nothing.

The Bad
I liked the original MK, MK2 was awesome, and MK3 was horrible, these three games combined make up the disappointing MK Trilogy. It would have been an awesome game if they gave you the option to play the three games separately in there entirety, instead they bunched them up and left out several aspects from each MK game. There are only a couple of character outfits from the original MK and MK2 games, and some of the backgrounds from the previous two versions were left out as well. The new aggressor mode and brutalities are uncreative and not amusing at all. The brutality finisher is nothing more than one combo repeated over and over, faster and faster until the player explodes after an uppercut. This is stupid.

The Bottom Line
This could have been one of the best games of all-time, but the makers carelessly threw together three good games to make this mess. Almost everything from the three MK versions are in Trilogy, but almost just isn't good enough, like this crummy excuse of a compilation.

PlayStation · by Tyrone Eugene (6) · 2003

This is a N64 game?

The Good
First of all, a great aspect of this game is the many characters. You have the option of playing as a lot of people, from older and newer Mortal Kombats. This is a fun thing, especially if you play with friends. Mortal Kombat Trilogy could last an entire weekend party.

The Bad
The graphics are the classic Snes graphics, which struck me as a silly thing. Why is this game for the N64? The n64 was made to handle better quality, 3der(is that a word?) graphics, so why did Midway put on the n64? They should have just put it on the SNES, cause thats what the 2D graphics fit for.

Sound and Music is as bad as the other Mortal Kombats. Although the game is okay, I never liked the music and sound of the Mortal Kombat series.

The Bottom Line
If this game was for the SNES, it would be a great game, but by putting it in the N64, it deserves a really low rating. <Not Reccomended unless you really like MK>

My Rating < 2 / 5 >

Nintendo 64 · by ThE oNe (180) · 2002

[ View all 6 player reviews ]

Trivia

German Index

On February 28, 1997, Mortal Kombat Trilogy was put on the infamous German index by the BPjS. For more information about what this means and to see a list of games sharing the same fate, take a look here: BPjS/BPjM indexed games.

Graphics

Johnny Cage is the only character that has new sprites. There was a reason. Midway fired Daniel Pesina (who did Johnny Cage & the Ninjas in MK & MK II) because he dressed up as Johnny Cage to advertise an arcade game called BloodStorm, which turned out to be a emphatic flop among fighting game fans. So Chris Alexander did the sprites instead.

Version differences

There were several differences in the amount of secret/selectable characters in the Playstation and Nintendo 64 version.

The Playstation version allowed players to choose the bosses from the series: Goro, Kintaro, Motaro and Shao Kahn. The Playstation version also gave players a male version of Chameleon, as well as older versions of existing characters (MKII Kung Lao, MKII Jax, MKI Kano, MKI Rayden).

The Nintendo 64 version only had Motaro and Shao Kahn available, but also a female version of Chameleon, named Khameleon.

Awards

  • Electronic Gaming Monthly
  • March 1997 (Issue 92) - Fighting Game of the Year runner-up (PlayStation / N64 versions) + N64 Game of the Year runner-up (Readers' Choice) + Fighting Game of the Year runner up (Multiplatform) (Readers' Choice)

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Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 2036
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by ReviewGames.Com.

SEGA Saturn, Nintendo 64, PlayStation added by Kartanym. Game.Com added by Kabushi.

Additional contributors: Guy Chapman, Alaka, Luchsen.

Game added July 24, 2000. Last modified March 6, 2024.