365//365: Day 266 – Mortal Kombat Trilogy (PSX)

Who doesn’t like a fighting game with variety? You have games such as Street Fighter Alpha 3 in which, depending on what version you’re playing, features upwards of three dozen fighters to choose from. A large portion of King of Fighters titles features tons of characters at your disposal. Then you have Mortal Kombat Trilogy. While most fighting games will leave out a character or two, Midway decided to feature every single character up to that point, including playable bosses, from the metal tailed centaur Motaro, to one of the most iconic bosses ever, Goro. With a wealth of character to choose from, you would think Mortal Kombat Trilogy would be the cream of the crop, right? While it’s not the cream of the crap, it’s still not the watermark to which all fighting titles must reach.

For its time, Mortal Kombat Trilogy had one of the largest playable rosters. Now most diverse, that's something that can be argued.

The biggest draw comes in the size of the roster. With every character from the Mortal Kombat through Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, along with a couple of new characters, as well as a few of the MK1 versions of certain characters, there’s a character for everyone. While the bosses do not have their own fatalities, brutalities, babalities, friendships, etc, it’s still a bonus to finally be able to play as one of these massive behemoths. It also helps that the graphics have finally reached a near arcade perfect status, with character models looking sharp, backgrounds nearly identical to the arcade title they were featured in, and no real compromises to the animation. Sound effects are crisp and clear, are is the music, though the latter isn’t particularly memorable.

Unfortunately, all of the sucker punches from the previous two titles have returned to attack your patience once more. The sudden jump in difficulty after the second or third fight, previously made famous by Mortal Kombat 3, has returned to haunt players everywhere. The control scheme remains unchanged as well, with the obtuse commands and all. Trilogy was more of a cash in than a re-envisioning of the franchise, so it wasn’t expected, however after four previous fighters with the same convoluted commands, it’s hard to find any enthusiasm about jumping back into the core gameplay and dealing with the unnecessary control scheme. Even the Trilogy exclusive “Aggressor” bar adds nothing of true value. Filling this bar to its max will let you get a boost of speed and strength, both of which is nullified by the cheap AI routine.

Finally MK fans everywhere are able to play as the Might Goro. Sadly, he's pretty damn bland.

Even with all the unnecessary additions that Midway has given the series since 3, as well as the much ragged on control scheme, Mortal Kombat Trilogy still has its moments. Once again, as a multiplayer game, the emphasis is more on having a manical time dismembering a friend than strategy. With a myriad of fighters to choose from, with several ways to end the fight with each non boss character, you can have a bit of mindless fun with a human being. Sever those ties and you’re left with a frustrating single player experience that hasn’t evolved in any important way since its conception.

Rating: 6.3