Mortal Kombat

Forget about Mortal Kombat XL, X or even the 2011 reboot. Let's go back to the past and go all the way back to the very first title in this long running franchise, which became infamous for being so bloody and brutal.

Created by Ed Boon and John Tobias, Mortal Kombat stormed the arcade audience because of the trademark Fatalities and the realistic digitized graphics, portraying the characters as frightfully authentic, but the real joy comes from the gameplay.

The story is about Liu Kang entering a Mortal Kombat tournament in order to stop an evil sorcerer named Shang Tsung from getting ahold of too many souls in order to feed himself further, and by subsequently saving Earth.

The fighting is 2D based with punch, kick and throw options to input, but all of the fighters have special abilities as well, such as Liu Kang performing a flying bicycle kick and Scorpion throwing a hook to keep the combat interesting.

The Fatalities ended opponents in gruesome ways, whereby players would had to input a secret combination of buttons in order to trigger them. In fact, the whole franchise basically reeks not only of Fatalities, but secrets, unlockables and hidden fighters as well.

Having been ported to a vast number of different platforms, I fondly remember the SNES and arcade versions most of all, despite the former infamously having no blood available as animation, but sweat animations instead whenever opponents would get hit or die.

Mortal Kombat is a fan favorite as a brand and easily recognized even today and still going strong, but the very first title simply isn't as good as later ones, as it's direct sequel would already improve on it's formula dramatically. And yet, we shouldn't forget about the inceptions, as without them, one could never improve.