Mortal Kombat Trilogy

The Good
What I find incredible is that so many people bash this game...They site poor graphics and inferior sound, now while the latter may be applicable the former certainly is not...providing that you have an S-video cable attached to your N64. The characters are full sized and control well. There are a ton a moves to memorize and if you can master juggling it unlocks more depth as well. It is fun to pummel your friends into submission w/ a brutality or the occasional arcade machine to the head has never hurt anyone.

The Bad
My only gripe is that the audio is unbalanced and you have to do a reasonable amount of tweaking for it to sound decent. I am almost positive it is mastered in mono so sometimes a few of the sounds will bleed together. You can change this by lowering your bass a bit and in the options menu increasing the sound effects and lowing the music a tad. Once you correct these minor problems the game plays and sounds like the arcade games it was based on.

The Bottom Line
If you can find this game for 10 bucks somewhere...buy it. It is an excellent game w/ loads of characters. If you memorize the master code you're all set...everything is unlocked! Set the game to 'Bloody Kombat' and start bashing in skulls. This is one of the best 2D fighters of yester-year because it is shamelessly gratuitous and it does not try hide this one bit!

The Good
The graphics are as smooth and crisp as the UMK3 arcade. Just about every frame of animation is included here. Every character from Mortal Kombat I, II and 3 (hence the term "Trilogy") is included, even those who did not appear in MK3 or UMK3 such as Baraka or Rayden, which keeps you entertained for an extended period of time. Also, there a a lot of backgrounds to choose from, from the Courtyard to Goro's Lair to the three Pits. The bosses are also playable through a code and in certain backgrounds, and they even perform fatalities!

The aggressor bar is a great new feature, which enables you to perform more damage for a brief moment.

Bottom line, it's the controls that makes this game shine. Of all the MK games, this one has probably the most responsive controls. It's fast, smooth and is not overtly sensitive nor sluggish.

The Bad
The sounds: The renditions of the tracks are OK and are recognisable to the ear for those who are familiar with the arcade tunes, but I expected better due to the capabilities of the hardware. Also, the voice-over tend to be a little subtle and slightly slurred, sounding like it's played on a scratched LP.

Also, I would've liked to see the unmasked Sub-Zero included here with all the special moves of both old and new Subbies, as he had slightly better finishing moves than the masked one. Whatever the case, masked Sub-Zero has all the special moves of both, making him extremely formidable.

The Bottom Line
If you're an MK fan, a fighting-game fan, or even a casual gamer, I'd recommend this game to you! Sure the PS version has a few more characters, this one has better graphics and it doesn't have any annoying load times! The sounds should've been better, but it's the near-flawless controls and diversity of characters and backgrounds that keeps you hooked!

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.