Your memories/rants/thoughts on Mortal Kombat II's 20th anniversary today (MORTAL FRIDAY!)

[Steve]

Today, 9.9.14 marks the 20th (wow, time flies!) anniversary of Mortal Kombat II hitting game consoles (SNES, Genesis, Game Boy, Game Gear).

Post your memories, nostalgic stories and/or rants here.

My bro and I bought it immediately on MORTAL FRIDAY right after school. It's the only game I can recall vividly us buying on the day it came out. It was such a good port at the time, and even today I feel it holds up extremely well. The AI is cheap, but it's a blast going up against a human player. Crazy to think it was 20 years ago today. The forest stage with the growling trees is still one of my most favorite stages in a fighting game even to this day. I can still hear the growls in my mind; it's a sound effect that's been embedded in my gaming heart due to the endless hours my brother and I devoted to MK II in the fall of 1994. Good times.

 

[DZ]

Today, 9.9.14 marks the 20th (wow, time flies!) anniversary of Mortal Kombat II hitting game consoles (SNES, Genesis, Game Boy, Game Gear).

Post your memories, nostalgic stories and/or rants here.

My bro and I bought it immediately on MORTAL FRIDAY right after school. It's the only game I can recall vividly us buying on the day it came out. It was such a good port at the time, and even today I feel it holds up extremely well. The AI is cheap, but it's a blast going up against a human player. Crazy to think it was 20 years ago today. The forest stage with the growling trees is still one of my most favorite stages in a fighting game even to this day. I can still hear the growls in my mind; it's a sound effect that's been embedded in my gaming heart due to the endless hours my brother and I devoted to MK II in the fall of 1994. Good times.

First game I ever preordered. Still have the MKII prepaid phone card they gave as a preorder bonus. I don't think I've played one single game for a longer period of time ever. The arcade release got me into fighters and will always be one of my favorite games of all time.

 

[Danthor]

I've lost count long ago of how many hours this game still consumes of my time. Any and ALL versions. I remember when I was so much younger, squeezing any time I could on the cab in the local Arcade (while we still had one) and then coming home after running out of change to keep playing on my Game Gear (I didn't get a SNES or Genny until after the N64 dropped, after which I got the game for both platforms, then any other I could find after that) It's actually still my all time favorite fighting game, and the only fighter I can pick and effectively use any character, while still remembering the finishers.

It is my no.1 DREAM cab to one day own, and I promised myself that I'd get it ...some day. To get my fix now, I got the MK Arcade Collection for my PS3, and when MK9 dropped, I got the version with that HUGE stick, since it had the exact same layout as the original cabinet.

Guess I know what I'm breaking out tonight!

 

[goombakid]

Sitting in front of my TV after my first day in college, EGM opened showing moves for all the characters, playing 2 player mode and practicing all the fatalities.

 

[Opethian]

my earlier memory of this game when it came out was EGM had a whole issue(still have it to this day) with most of the moves for every character but some of them are flat out wrong or maybe they were changed after the final release. spend much money on this in arcades as a kid it was a superior sequel to the original.

 

[cannonball]

My memories of MK II are of the 8 page EGM article I must have read a thousand times, and rushing to the arcade to play it every day with my friends as soon as the cab arrived. I'm sure I bought it for a console as well, but I don't know if it was near the excitement level as when it hit the arcade.

 

[NeoGeoNinja]

I bought MKII and Super SF2 for the SNES in May of '94. Two great fighters. Not sure when they came out (UK/PAL release), but my B'day is in May, thus why I coughed up for them in that month.

MKII was amazing. Really well polished and played superbly. However, I found the difficulty of Kintaro & Shao Khan later to be nearly unbeatable most of the time. I think, in ALL the time I owned the game, I only actually completed it a handful of times, mostly with SubZero

 

[deezruptor]

First game I ever preordered. Still have the MKII prepaid phone card they gave as a preorder bonus. I don't think I've played one single game for a longer period of time ever. The arcade release got me into fighters and will always be one of my favorite games of all time.

MK 2 was also the first game I ever pre-ordered. Believe I did it at Lechmeres and got 3 posters (one of which had all the finishing moves listed on it). Probably still have them somewhere.

 

[DZ]

I remember as a kid going to the drug store and photo copying the move sets and fatalities for MK2 and it only costing a nickel instead of the cover price of the mag. Shortly after that I got access to prodigy and remember printing out page after page of moves for MK3 and KI.

 

[DZ]

MK 2 was also the first game I ever pre-ordered. Believe I did it at Lechmeres and got 3 posters (one of which had all the finishing moves listed on it). Probably still have them somewhere.

Lechmeres...the only place in the Ma. area with a Neo Geo setup that was playable in stores.

 

[ki_atsushi]

Loved MKII, but the original is still my favorite. Just the dark music and atmosphere... also it's the only fighting game I know that actually looks like you're in a tournament on some compound. I love the spectators and guards in the background, reminds me of Enter the Dragon.

 

[Moon Jump]

Damn, all these threads making me feel old. Yep, I was there on Mortal Friday. I remember saving up my cash for the port since they hyped the hell out of it. Preordered it at the local EB games and got it that Friday after school at played it till three AM. Still didn't help my game since Long Island was HEAVY into Mortal Kombat. You couldn't escape it. The deli around the corner from me had it but I never played it there since it was populated by a bunch of dirtbag teenagers.

Most MK got played at Space Plex. At the height of the game's popularity they had 5 games and they'd be packed with lines of people playing it. Even after Mortal Friday people didn't stop playing it. Even when MK3 came out, people hated the missing characters and people who would spam the hell out of Kabal's spin. So people kept to MK2, some moved to KI and NOBODY touched Virtua Fighter since the place wanted a dollar a game to play it, then it dropped to 75 and even at 50 nobody touched it.

What I loved about Mortal Kombat was the game's where just dropped in the arcade and everybody had to figure out everything on their own. You'd have people there spending their whole day figuring out how everything worked and how to do it. So all the new people would walk up and get taken off REAL quick, so you had to learn or die. Now games have the friggen guidebooks released before the game comes out with frame data and somebody's got an FAQ of it online. I really miss that when you had to discover everything and there wasn't tons of CGI trailers to show everything off before it came out.

 

[cannonball]

What I loved about Mortal Kombat was the game's where just dropped in the arcade and everybody had to figure out everything on their own. You'd have people there spending their whole day figuring out how everything worked and how to do it. So all the new people would walk up and get taken off REAL quick, so you had to learn or die.

haha yeah man I remember the day MK 2 hit the arcade someone figured out one of baraka's fatalities and we felt like bosses because we were like the first dudes in our scene to know fatalities. Nobody used the fucking internet so it was all word of mouth.

 

[WoodyXP]

I picked it up for the PC a couple years after it came out. Played the hell out of that game. That was the closest you could get to the arcade at that time.

 

[Atro]

Loved MKII, but the original is still my favorite. Just the dark music and atmosphere... also it's the only fighting game I know that actually looks like you're in a tournament on some compound. I love the spectators and guards in the background, reminds me of Enter the Dragon.

Exactly my thoughts. Best Mortal Kombat game ever. 3 is OK too.
All the follow ups are not on par with MKII.
I have to get that one on PCB. Really do!

 

[StaticX]

Incredible game to this day. Ice Grenade is still one of my fave finishers. I got it in December of 94. It was the first game that I recall the "Asian guy who knew all the moves and finishers" during that time of my arcade life. You know the guy who knew all that shit and you were left wondering "How'd you know that?!!" Intro theme still kicks ass!

 

[yzrider926]

Played the hell out of it on both SNES and Genesis. Still play today but now when I do I play on the real deal. Still my favorite of all the arcade releases. Got a MK3 cab with UMK3 in it right next to MKII but the monitor needs some work. Got a MK PCB, but the game did not age very well for me. MKII and UMK3 are much better IMHO.

 

[GutsDozer]

So much time spent in the arcade and at home with MK2. It's actually my favorite in the series. Older people who thought they were awesome were pretty pissed in the cade' when I was pulling off the air juggles and Babalitys on their ass. The first fatality I saw for this one was Liu Kang's Dragon and was like holy crap that's a Fatality!? I could not believe how much more advanced than MK1 this game was! The secrets which of course became a standard in MK games were amazing. Finding and fighting all the secret characters was so much fun. And the Secret Fatalites were so rad. I would pull off the Johnny Cage triple Head and Shang Sung's Kintaro Fatalities in the arcade and freak people out. And who doesn't remember the Fergality on the Genesis version! Such a good game and still gets played around here.

 

[smokehouse]

MKII really was a case where the second was better than the first...and the same went with the home releases.

I was disappointed in the whole MKI clusterfuck. The Genesis version looked and sounded like shit (but played well) and the SNES version, while great to look at, had its balls chopped off.

MKII on the SNES damn near nailed it...near perfect in every way. The genesis version was a shadow of that. I'm not sure if that was a hardware limitation issue or bad design...but either way, SNES MKII was freaking awesome for the time (and still pretty damn good now).

Either way...I played the shit out of it back then...

 

[andsuchisdeath]

Lechmeres...the only place in the Ma. area with a Neo Geo setup that was playable in stores.

I loved Lechmere's as a kid. MKII also.

 

[100proof]

Jesus, we're getting old.

I remember cutting classes in high school to go play the cab at the local arcade.

Devoured every magazine article and alt.games.mk post to figure out fatalities, friendships, etc.

Got good enough at the game to 1cc the cheating AI with every character.

Bought the Genesis version on Mortal Friday. Played it for a couple of months and then bought the PC version whenever that came out.

My junior year of high school pretty much WAS MK2 and Super SF2. How any girl put up with that shit is beyond me.

 

[WoodyXP]

MKII on the SNES damn near nailed it...near perfect in every way. The genesis version was a shadow of that. I'm not sure if that was a hardware limitation issue or bad design....

It was a case of Sculptured Software > Probe.

 

[GutsDozer]

The Saturn version of MKII was horrible. Sounds and animations were removed left and right. Still confused to this day how the SNES Version came out better than the Saturn version.

 

[deezruptor]

Lechmeres...the only place in the Ma. area with a Neo Geo setup that was playable in stores.

I loved Lechmere's as a kid. MKII also.

I have a lot of fond memories of that place. That's the store where I also got my Atari Lynx and 3DO.

*shudder*...actually I should hate that place

 

[Hello]

One of the best ports ever(snes version) Played the hell out of it from release on. I Still have the poster and gamebox that came with it. It was nice to get a good port after MK on snes(a hot sweaty mess-control was alright i think) Ive enjoyed mk 1-4 and then the reboot. Im just glad i was able to convince my mom to buy it for me(i was in a cult at the time-old testement)