The Good
To understand what the Gameboy port of Killer Instinct does right one needs to understand just what the original Killer Instinct did wrong and what it was all about.

By the early nineties, If one should believe the stories, Nintendo of America's golden boy Rare had gotten so cozy with the big N that they finally got them to sign up into the development of an arcade-oriented 2D fighting game, (something Rare apparently had a fetish for and definetivly uncharted waters for Nintendo). Thus one day the world's arcades received Killer Instinct, a pretty repulsive fighting game to any seasoned gamer, but nonetheless a really smart vehicle for Nintendo/Rare who pretty much proved that they might not know how to make a good fighting game, but still knew how to carve themselves a niche in any market and sell you their version of that product by introducing their own gameplay innovations, or if that failed by simply resorting to cheap gimmicks.

And that's Killer Instinct in a nutshell, a game that replaces good-ol fashioned gameplay with gimmicks. Pure and simple. What we have here is your typical lame Street Fighter clone except with production values up the wazoo, which translate into: An incredible techno soundtrack with equally pumping sfx and digitized samples; atractive pre-rendered graphics to replace the good 'ol 2D bitmaps and looping FMVs for the backgrounds and other nifty details like dynamic scaling, particle effects, etc.

So what about the fighting? Know about those combo systems every fighting game nowadays has? Well Rare figured they could build a game solely around that and that's what they did, and for a while everyone took notice, for a while anyway. This is a slow and dull (but beautiful-looking) game were characters drag around the screen doing nothing until a combo is triggered (by connecting an "opening" move which nullifies the animation delay between hits and then following it up with some of the possible pre-stablished button sequences) and suddenly 5-12 hits are landed in a second and then the process repeats itself... If you are thinking Rise of the Robots with combos then you are pretty much right on the money and that's all I'm going to say about it. As with most things that are extreme in their orientations they always find a niche of fans that consider it a godsend in the face of the general public's lack of interest... Killer Instinct's legs carried it as far as most novelties go and that's that, but no hardcore gamer was impressed by KI for too long and barely anyone remembers it by now.

Now, as for "the good" one needs to thank the hardware limitations of the home ports which had to cut down on the flair and bring back gameplay into the spotlight (at least to an extent) when they got released. The snes version is understandably much more faithful to the original, but the Gameboy one having to contend with a smaller play area, less sprite memory and a much more constrained control scheme (2 buttons vs the original 6) made the fights much more simpler and faster than in the original game.

Following that train of tought the character rooster was reduced, tightening the package by loosing the pathetic Jurassic Park-ripped Riptor and the shitty Glacius clone Cinder, and the shitty fatalities were also filtered out leaving only the best ones around. Graphics while inmensely downgraded still managed to milk out the very best graphics the original Gameboy was capable of and the inclusion of a Vs and practice mode add substantial value to the usual lackluster fighting ports for the Gameboy.

The Bad
Tis' still Killer Instinct!!! Far from the world's best fighting game... with shitty gameplay, un-original characters, limited and stolen moves, etc, etc...

Finally as with most fighting games ported to the Gameboy, the lack of features limit it's appeal to a simple time-killer rather a full-fledged entertainment product.

The Bottom Line
A port that due to it's limitations makes the original actually more fun to play than it was. For as odd as it might seem the Gameboy makes Killer Instinct worth playing. Unfortunately it only makes it worth for about the half hour you have to wait at the airport to catch your connection.

The Good
For a handheld game, KI isn't all that bad at all. I'm actually surprised at how much rare were able to include in this. Sure, it's far from the originals looks, but it really is impressive to watch when compared to other Game Boy fighters.

Getting into the game isn't all that hard. Choose your player and mash the buttons. Thankfully there are plenty of moves each character can perform, and they are easy enough to pull off (most of them anyway).

What stands KI out from the crowd is the graphics. On a system which has very little power, Rare have found some extra power to not only present the characters in a form similar to the Arcade versions, but also keep them moving around the screen fairly smoothly. All that and a fairly decent MIDI soundtrack that never got annoying to me like past Game Boy music scores.

The Bad
Here's where the achivements come to a halt. Thankfully, the Game Boy Pocket, Color and Advance made it easier to see the characters on screen, as the original Game Boy had a hard time keeping up. Graphics were at times blurry, unless you had an uptodate system.

So much work has been put into the graphics that Rare forgot to add some decent play modes to back up the single player game. You can complete the game fairly quickly once you get used to a characters style, and other then pushing up the difficulty level, nothing else will keep you occupied here.

The Bottom Line
Rare had something going with this. It's the best presentation on an original Game Boy screen, yet still the complete package is below par. Hopefully a full conversion of KI will find its way to the Game Boy Advance, as it made plenty of fans while out and about during the 90's. It deserves to be brought back into the world, I just hope that Nintendo realise that.

The Good
Killer Instinct (KI) is the king of SNES one-on-one fighters, as well as one of the prettiest games available for the console – despite the inherent graphical limitations that keep this conversion from completely matching the arcade original. The soundtrack is an appropriately driving techno/industrial mix.

There is an outstanding mix of characters fitting a variety of different styles and archetypes (martial artist, boxer, amazon, ice-man, fire-man, wolf-man, cyborg, etc.). In short, the cast is both well-balanced and full of personality – for a fighting game, at any rate. The number of characters, along with the seemingly endless number of combinations (some of them hidden), gives this title considerable replay value. Tournament play is available for one or two players, and there is also a practice mode that is very useful in learning how to execute the complicated combo moves and combo breakers.

The Bad
The combo moves were influential on the rest of the tournament fighting genre, but they are also KI’s biggest flaw. Fighting without using combos is a sure way to lose, and they are often quite difficult to master. The gamepad makes things both better and worse; the buttons are nice and close together for fast pressing, but the directional pad isn’t as good for smooth rotating motions as an arcade joystick is.

KI can be rather frustrating, especially since its AI seems to cheat. Believe me, it’s a lot better at pulling off those “impossible” 80-hit combos than any human player would be. Also, you can be fairly successful (but not dominant) just by mashing buttons in random combinations. This makes the game easy to get into, but then you’ll hit a wall when you attempt to go from smashing buttons to smashing your opponents with any kind of consistency. Frankly, I don’t know how many gamers out there will have both the skill and the patience to really master KI. I’m sure they exist, but I’m certainly not one of them.


The Bottom Line
The game that stole some of the 16-bit thunder from Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, Killer Instinct will be a hit with fighting game fans who like colorful characters and combo systems. If you don’t like combo moves, though, you should avoid KI at all costs.

The Good
#1 Graphics The Graphics are excellent (for the snes). Characters look 3D, and can be distuingished from other fighting games with their cartoony animation. The graphics in this game from the characters to the stages will keep you off your seat.

2 Sound

Although the sound effects are kind of dumb sometimes, the music is nothing to laugh at. Backround music is incredibly cool, as each character has their own, unlike Mortal Kombat. Plus, since the SNES can't really pump out excellent quality , jump off the chair music, a soundtrack CD is included with some of the best tunes Ive ever heard!

3 Everything Else!

All the characters are perfectly balanced out, and they all look great. There are no same characters over and over with few changes like in the MK series (Rain, SubZero, Scorpion, Ermac, Noob Saibot). While there may not be as much as MK3 & UMK3, the characters it does have are excellent, from their appearance to their type.

The Bad
There was absoulutely NOTHING wrong with this game, other than the fact that if you played single player on very easy, you can't fight the boss or see a character ending.

The Bottom Line
This game truly amazes me, and I still play it all the time.

My Rating ( 5 / 5 ) = solid gold

The Good
This was the first game for Gameboy I ever had. I'm sure glad I have it. This is a wonderful fighting game on any standards. I've always been a fan of Mortal Combat but this game is better. Wonderful sound and tons of levels and enemies. This game is an excellent gem game. It has many attacks and maneuvers with challenging gameplay. An excellent storyline and a crazy hard boss.

The Bad
This is a wonderful game and there's really not much I didn't like. Really, all I didn't like is that you couldn't save your progress.

The Bottom Line
Killer Instinct is an amazing fighting game that every fighting/martial arts fan should have. If you liked Mortal Combat, you'll love Killer Instinct. This game has amazing sound and levels with tons of enemies. An advanced gameplay and AI, this is a game that you'll cherish forever.

The Good
Released in 1995, Killer Instinct was a fighting game from Rare and Nintendo. It is nothing more than a lame rip-off of Mortal Kombat, and just about every other 2D fighter from that era. Thankfully it is mostly forgotten today. The few that remember it seem to like it. Yet I suspect that many of them only like the game because it is forgotten, because this game is lousy.

There is nothing good about this game. It is not fun. The characters are lame. It sucks. Oh wait, I thought of a good thing this game offers, it shows how much better other fighting games are. And also shows that Rare is an overrated developer. Now on to the bad aspects of the game.

The Bad
The claptrap plot of Killer Instinct involves a fighting tournament called originally enough Killer Instinct. And the tournament plot is none to original either. This dubious contest is put on by an evil corporation, more originality from Rare. Some of the fighters want to win, others are out to stop the corporation. By helping it and fighting in it…..right.

Speaking of the fighters you have got to get a load of these lame asses. There is the Raptor, ripped from Jurassic Park and named properly enough Riptor. Glacius, the ice using fighter, that is a knock of Subzero, hell some of his attacks are identical. There is the Indian fighter, a lame knock off T. Hawk from Street Fighter. The even ripped off Eternal Champions, a little known fighter from the Genesis, with the female ninja that knocked of Shadow from EC.

Where Street Fighter, had some characters with normal names like Ryu and Ken. Every single combatant in this tripe has a comic book name, and no that is not a good thing. With names like, Fulgore, Jago, and Spinal.(What no tap?) It’s just lame. Even over the top Mortal Kombat has some normal named fighters Liu Kang, etc. Furthermore the fighters make no sense. It seems like the game makers just sat down and came up with fighters that they think would be cool in a game. But anyone with half a brain,(I.e. not those who enjoy this game.) will think a werewolf vs. a cyborg vs. a ninja vs. a dinosaur? WTF?

The entire game is based around combos. Which is simply moronic. As many are impossible to pull off with the shitty SNES pad. Yet the A.I. has no trouble doing 50 hit combos, right, that’s called Bullshit. The A.I. also likes to stand in a corner and constantly execute the same moves. Fun. The fatalities, yes, they ripped off the name from MK, don’t even look cool they are quite lame to be honest. The one thing they did not rip off MK is one of the few things that would have made the game better that being an “M” rating. Yes this game is only “T”.

Even the sound and graphics were ripped off. The “realistic” fighters are Mortal Kombat. As are the cheesy voice overs. Danger! Killer Instinct! Shit Sandwich! Okay, I made up that last one. The “techno” sound track is not really techno at all. And if it were it would be the worst the genre had to offer.

The Bottom Line
It really is a shame that this game is remembered at all. As it deserves to be forgotten. Nowadays people are so quick to say that some thing is a rip off or clone of something else. For example I have seen morons say that Hulk: Ultimate Destruction is a rip off GTA. Yet those same morons do not realise the Killer Instinct is a clone of Mortal Kombat, and just about every other better fighter out there. Unless you want to punish yourself stay away from this game.