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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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 128 ratings with 6 reviews)

One of the first and best N64 fighting games!

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!

Nintendo 64 · by Stsung (30) · 2009

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

Not much better than the n64 version

The Good
Okay, I just tried the dos version of this game, and I found out it was no better. There were no positive sides to the game at all!

The Bad
The dos port was a the worst thing I have ever seen. The animations are buggy and incomplete, even worse than the n64 version. The characters look stupid, and quess what? It slows down a whole damn lot with a fatality.

The graphics look as bad as the n64 version, carrying that similar MK3 look that is terribly outdated(back then).

The characters all suck. There all just characters from the first 3 games(stages too). Nothing new, except for jhonny cage, who in a sense is the only "new" character( meaning they didn't just use sprites from earlier games), and he looks stupid, a sign that Midway didn't spend much time making him.

Now, heres a question. If you're going to put all the old characters and stages in the same game, doesnt it make sense to remake them so that they actually LOOK THE SAME!? No, says midway. What ends up happening is the old, choppier graphics of MK2, 1, mix with MK3, and look stupid!

One more thing, this game does not contain 34, 35, whatever, characters. Midway has a problem. Taking one ninja, then swapping the pallette 5 or 6 times DOESNT MAKE A NEW CHARACTER! This goes for the ninja's, cyborgs, and the Kitana Mileena Jade Khameleon group. In this sense, the game only has about 14 characters.

You'd think they would have at lest done this when porting to the DOS, but no.

The Bottom Line
If you are going to make a game containing everything from the first 3, take the stages, remake them. Put proper digitizing and colouring so they look like MK3's characters and stages. Do this to the old characters too, and you have Mortal Kombat Trilogy. What MK released was not MK trilogy. It was a worthless piece of junk on the DOS.

This game deserves my only 0 / 5 given so far. (not worth rating)

DOS · 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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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by ReviewGames.Com.

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

Additional contributors: Guy Chapman, Alaka, Luchsen.

Game added July 24, 2000. Last modified March 19, 2024.