A timeline of Mortal Kombat ripoffs from the 1990s

The preventing video games craze might have been absolutely underway by 1992, but it surely’s protected to say no title spawned as many clones, knock-offs, rip-offs, low-cost imitators and costly failures as Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat 2 did.

In a five-year span, video avid gamers in arcades and their properties had been overrun by preventing video games that adopted the identical format: battles to the dying, usually organized by some supernatural being; a sinister asserting voice commanding gamers to execute a helpless opponent; gratuitously brutal finishers that appeared designed to impress outrage and controversy, and secret strikes with inside-joke meanings.

Here’s a timeline of 9 unapologetic Mortal Kombat ripoffs. It’s noteworthy what number of of them had launches that had been scrubbed, and what number of are linked to a platform’s demise within the late Nineteen Nineties.

Time Killers (1992)

Time Killers is noteworthy for 2 causes: One, it’s a preventing sport delivered to you by Unbelievable Applied sciences, the identical individuals who make Golden Tee. Two, it was a “weapons-based” preventing sport, and the combatants might combat on even after having each arms severed, which makes me surprise if this seed of an thought might have discovered higher buy with a Monty Python license.

Time Killers’ roster of heroes ranged from Thugg (20,000 B.C.), who battled alien invaders in his time, to Mantazz (4002 A.D.), a magenta praying mantis with two blade-like appendages. The closest fighter to our time is Rancid, principally Duke Nukem with a jail tattoo carved into his brow. He’s from 2024 A.D., so search for him within the subsequent presidential election.

Time Killers’ time as a Tremendous Nintendo/Sega Genesis port didn’t go so properly. It was truly reviewed by Digital Gaming Month-to-month six months earlier than it launched, and the poor marks brought on THQ to shitcan the truly completed mission. Nintendo bailed on a port across the identical time. Black Pearl Software program ultimately revealed the sport in 1996, however by then it seemed critically dated, on prime of being a gratuitously violent, un-fun trash heap.

Survival Arts (1993)

Survival Arts was the primary of 4 preventing video games constructed by Scarab, three of which had been vital flops. The fourth, Combating Vipers 2, was a middling port that launched on the Dreamcast two months earlier than the console was discontinued.

In Survival Arts, just about all the things ended with an over-the-top fatality, which in fact waters down the attraction of a staple function in preventing video games. All you needed to do was drain your opponent’s well being bar to see them electrocuted, beheaded, set on fireplace, or in any other case mutilated.

Scarab was ultimately purchased up by a holding firm and renamed Feelplus, the place it was accountable for the Wii port No Extra Heroes: Heroes’ Paradise that launched in 2010, shortly earlier than Feelplus was closed.

Tattoo Assassins (unreleased)

Information East introduced in Bob Gale — who co-wrote Again to the Future with Robert Zemeckis — to move up this direct match of all the things that had made Halfway tens of millions in 1992 and 1993.

Like Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat 2, Tattoo Assassins had (or was alleged to have) unapologetically outlandish fatalities and snide humor. However in an effort to make good on a declare of “2,196 fatalities,” defeated opponents would flip into barely recognizable, digitized photographs of Elvis Presley, a sea lion, a automobile, a knight in shining armor, and different random objects. That’s along with the “nudalities” (stripped-down rivals nonetheless lined up their privates) and flamethrowing fart-alities that burnt foes to a crisp.

Tattoo Assassins’ coherent options had been unoriginal, and its unique options had been incoherent. Little of worth was misplaced when Information East pulled the plug on Tattoo Assassins, following the suggestions of its personal builders and testers, and the (right) feeling that it couldn’t stand out in a crowd that now included the much-better Killer Instinct and Primal Rage.

Primal Rage (1994)

Primal Rage is likely one of the most profitable video games, each commercially and critically, amongst Mortal Kombat’s imitators. Successfully a form of fighting-games Rampage, the sport noticed a large launch on practically each Nineteen Nineties platform, so-so evaluate scores (which is best than most of those), and a roster filled with dinosaurs helped save Primal Rage from being remembered as simply one other MK rip-off.

Primal Rage offered an early take a look at of the brand new ESRB scores, which launched a month after the sport hit cabinets. Among the many sport’s fatalities, the Kong-like Chaos simply straight-up pees on his downed opponent (making a cloud of steam if it occurs on the volcano stage). In 1996, a mother in Arizona noticed the ape’s golden bathe when her 11-year-old son performed the sport on the Genesis, and went straight to the media along with her grievance.

The ESRB famous that the sport was rated T for Teen, so her child shouldn’t have it within the first place, after which later affirmed that an ape peeing on a dinosaur doesn’t rise to the extent of Adults-Solely content material. Good to know!

BloodStorm (1994)

Unbelievable Applied sciences bought a second chunk on the apple with 1994’s BloodStorm, one other self-proclaimed, self-hyped “Mortal Kombat killer.” It wasn’t. As if revisiting what made Time Killers so absurd, BloodStorm additionally had a transfer that might tear off a foe’s decrease physique, leaving them writhing on the ground however nonetheless, technically, within the combat.

Like predecessor Time Killers, BloodStorm’s proposed ports (for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn) had been likewise canceled.

Kasumi Ninja (1994)

Visually, it was in all probability essentially the most blatant rip-off of the Mortal Kombat impostors that really launched, however Kasumi Ninja principally escaped detection by being an Atari Jaguar unique — the sport was introduced earlier than the Jaguar even launched. It bore all of the hallmarks of Nineteen Nineties MK: digitized sprites and backgrounds, parallax-scrolling results, a combat narrator, and well being bars dripping blood.

Drawback is, the motion is so gradual, and the visuals so darkish and muddy, nobody can actually inform what’s going on with these super-grody fatalities. That type of obviates the in-game parental management system, making it one of many first console titles with an choice to restrict blood-and-gore results.

Kasumi Ninja was the primary Mortal Kombat ripoff revealed for a console after the infamous Senate hearings on video game violence that closed out 1993. (Mortal Kombat 2 launched for SNES and Genesis in September 1994.)

Manner of the Warrior (1994)

Naughty Canine, the studio behind status titles like The Final of Us and Uncharted sequence, developed Manner of the Warrior for 3DO, and it not directly led to Naughty Canine’s long-running affiliation with Sony. Manner of the Warrior was revealed by Common Interactive Studios, the place Mark Cerny was a vp accountable for growth in 1994. Sony purchased up Naughty Canine in 2001, and Cerny went on to develop the system structure for PlayStations 4 and 5.

Crucial response to Manner of the Warrior was undoubtedly not what one would count on for a Naughty Canine sport 20 years later. Gameplay, character design, and visible attraction all bought thumbs-down, with most folk seeing it as yet one more Mortal Kombat clone.

Manner of the Warrior bought Naughty Canine a contract with Common to make three video games for PlayStation, and people titles turned out to be the primary three Crash Bandicoot video games. That set in movement Sony’s eventual acquisition of Naughty Canine in 2001.

Extremely Vortek (1995)

Missing any Mortal Kombat port for its console, Atari had no alternative however to inflict one other clone on the Jaguar in 1995, lower than a 12 months earlier than the console was discontinued fully. Extremely Vortek earned a greater vital reception than Kasumi Ninja, however reviewers had been nonetheless unenthusiastic.

Extremely Vortek is noteworthy as the one formally revealed and launched Atari Jaguar title to assist the Atari Jaguar Voice Modem, a wierd peripheral that might dial up a buddy with the sport and provoke a multiplayer match. The JVM was scrapped after about 100 models had been produced, although, making it quite a collector’s item.

A fast scan of that fatalities video above reveals it, once more, appears like a straight raise of Mortal Kombat, simply slower, much less aggressive, and fewer thrilling. Fatalities are referred to as “annihilations,” and there’s even a “poopality.” Maybe it’s a nod to Primal Rage’s well-known urine fatality; maybe it’s a commentary on itself.

Thea Realm Fighters (unreleased)

Atari had one other Mortal Kombat doppelganger within the works for Jaguar as that console entered its dying throes in early 1996. Thea Realm Fighters, by Excessive Voltage Software program, was revealed at CES 1995, and scrubbed one 12 months later, a transfer just about everybody took because the obituary for the ill-fated console.

Thea Realm Fighters story wasn’t the one factor taken straight from Mortal Kombat 2; two actors — Philip Ahn (Shang Tsung in MK 2) and Katalin Zamiar (Jade, Kitana, and Mileena) —who had portrayed characters in that sport additionally took roles amongst a roster of 25 fighters.

Builders would later say Thea Realm Fighters was virtually completed proper when it was canceled; a number of ROMs made their means into the wild within the many years since, launched by collectors and preservationists who bought their palms on the code.

Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These don’t affect editorial content material, although Vox Media might earn commissions for merchandise bought through affiliate hyperlinks. For extra data, see our ethics policy.