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Mortal Kombat II

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Mortal Kombat II
Logo of Mortal Kombat II. Mortal Kombat II select screen.
Developer(s)Midway
Publisher(s)Midway
Platform(s)
Release1993
Genre(s)Fighting
Mode(s)Up to 2 players
Arcade systemMidway T Unit hardware
CPU: TMS34010 (@ 6.25 Mhz)
Sound CPU : ADSP2105 (@ 10 Mhz)
Sound Chips : DMA-driven (@ 10 Mhz)
Current Game Version : Revision 3.1

Mortal Kombat II is the second game in the Mortal Kombat fighting game series. Storywise, it goes along with Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks.

New characters

Reptile appeared in the original Mortal Kombat, but this is the first game where he is playable and contains his own moveset.

MKII also contains three hidden unplayable characters. They are incredibly fast and very unbalanced.

  • Smoke: Sub-Zero's friend, emits puffs of smoke from his body.
  • Jade: Another Outworld assassin, who cannot be hit by projectiles. Childhood friend and protector of Kitana.
  • Noob Saibot: Evil dark ninja, a lost warrior from a previous Mortal Kombat.

Returning characters

  • Johnny Cage- Hollywood movie star who joins Liu Kang in his journey to Outworld.
  • Liu Kang- The Shaolin monk who is the reigning champion of Mortal Kombat. Travels to Outworld to seek revenge for the death of his fellow monks.
  • Sub-Zero- the younger and merciful brother of the original Sub Zero.
  • Scorpion- The Hell spawned spectre who returns to the tournament to once again assassinate Sub-Zero, the man who murdered him long ago...
  • Shang Tsung- The evil sorceror who has convinced Shao Kahn to spare his life after losing the last tournament, with a new evil plan to appease his master Shao Kahn, who in turn also restores Tsung's youth, making him more mobile and agile. Is also the man Sub-Zero has been sent in to kill.
  • Raiden- The Thunder God who returns to Mortal Kombat to stop Shao Kahn's evil plans of taking the Earthrealm as for his own.

Sonya Blade and Kano also appear in Mortal Kombat II as background characters. They are seen chained to the pedestals that link to Shao Kahn's throne in the "Kahn's Arena" stage.

New to the series

File:Mk2.png
Raiden and Baraka fight on the Dead Pool stage.
  • As Midway's technology and experience improved, they increased the resolution of their characters and stages and improved the character designs. The series' story begins to flesh out in this game as well.
  • MKII's characters have multiple Fatalities and more special moves, and stage Fatalities have been added for the Pit II, the Kombat Tomb and the Dead Pool.
  • In addition to more Fatalities, MKII also introduces the Babality (turns your opponent into a diaper-clad infant) and Friendship (do something nice to your opponent rather than kill them) finishers.
  • Dropped the Test Your Might minigame.
  • Eliminated the scoring system, and instead measured progress only by consecutive matches won.

Storyline

One or two years following his defeat, Shang Tsung begs his master, Shao Kahn, to spare his life. He tells Shao Kahn that the invitation for Mortal Kombat cannot be turned down, and if they hold it in Outworld, the Earth Realm warriors must attend. Kahn agrees to this plan, and restores Tsung's youth. He extends the invitation to Raiden, who gathers his warriors and takes them into Outworld. The tournament is dangerous, as Shao Kahn has the home field advantage, and an Outworld victory will unbalance the furies and allow Outworld to subsume Earth Realm.

Mortal Kombat II follows Mortal Kombat and precedes Mortal Kombat Trilogy.

It seems to have been replaced story-wise by Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks.

Easter Eggs

File:MKII ARC Toasty.png
Dan "Toasty" Forden in Mortal Kombat II (arcade version).
  • In the arcade version, the 250th two-player game would unlock a session of the arcade classic Pong.
  • After landing a strong uppercut against the opponent, the face of Dan Forden, a lead programmer, would appear in the lower-right corner of the screen and shout, "Toasty!" In the Portal stage, if the player very quickly held down and hit the start button before Dan's head left the screen, they would then instantly begin a new stage against a secret character named Smoke, a grey recolor of Scorpion. However, the Genesis version includes an alternate Toasty image: By activating the cheat menu in the options screen, Dan Forden's face is replaced by a inserted by one of Probe Entertainment's (the team responsible for the Sega Genesis version) programmers. The "Toasty!" sound remains unchanged. Toasty has become one of the best-known video game easter eggs, among the likes of dopefish. Many games have included their own versions of Toasty, such as StepMania, in which a character pops out and sings "Toasty!" after a long combo of perfects.
  • Another secret character was named Jade, a more dangerous green recolor of Kitana. To fight Jade, a player would have to defeat their opponent before the mystery "?" stage using nothing but low kicks. In the Living Forest stage, both Smoke and Jade could sometimes be seen peeking from behind the trees as a clue to their existence as hidden characters.
  • If the player won 50 consecutive fights he/she would come face to face with the black ninja Noob Saibot, which originates from the last names of the lead designer John Tobias and lead programmer Ed Boon spelled backwards.
  • Another secret character was named Skarlet, a more dangerous red recolor of Kitana or Mileena. To fight Skarlet, at The Living Forest get double flawless, fatality, Cannot use BLOCK
  • After knocking the victim into the acid pool, hold down on the joystick. Dan Forden will say "Ow-a" or something similar.
  • Press down on any joystick during the attract mode to bring up the top 15 players.
  • On the Kombat Tomb stage, hold down on both joysticks immediately after knocking the victim into the spikes. The victim will gradually slide down the spikes.
  • Two non-existent hidden characters were "Torch", and "Hornbuckle." In Mortal Kombat II there is a location called The Pit II. Far in the background of this stage there is another bridge across the chasm. Standing stationary on this bridge are two fighters: one of them is a Liu Kang sprite with green pants who was named Hornbuckle by fans. One of Jade's hints was "Hornbuckle who?", which people thought was the name of a hidden fighter, and was apparently given to the guy opposite "Torch" on the Pit II. If you watch the ending credits, one of the programmers' last names is Hornbuckle. The other fighter is a humanoid character that seems to be made of fire. As these two characters never move, it has been suggested that the "other fighter" is actually a funeral pyre. Finally, there is a cloaked figure who floats in front of the window during fights in The Tower and Portal stages in MK2. This character was dubbed Cloak by fans, and was assumed to be a hidden character. The character of Torch, who had been very popular with fans, eventually showed up as a playable character in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance. Unfortunately, due to trademark issues, he had to be called Blaze instead of Torch. The true identity of Cloak was revealed in Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks to be one of Shang Tsung's servants, a shadow priest.

Tricks to try

File:Mk2-DeadPool-dark.png
The Dead Pool fatality.
File:Mk2-lockup.png
The game frozen after defeating Shao Kahn.
  • On the Dead Pool stage, with Sub-Zero or Shang Tsung morphed into Sub-Zero, deep freeze the opponent (F-F-D-HK) and then proceed to shatter the victim (F-D-F-F-HP) but press LP + LK immediately. If done correctly, the screen will turn dark and the victim will fly into the acid (see first pic on right) This trick also works with Johnny Cage's Head uppercut (F-F-D-U).
  • On the Armory stage, with Reptile or Shang Tsung morphed into Reptile, do the tongue fatality and watch the floor move.
  • With Shang Tsung, morph into Sub-Zero and keep deep freezing the victim till you morph back. Then quickly morph into Jax and do the head smash fatality. The colour map of the victim will get screwed up.
  • On the final battle with Shao Kahn, catch him with Kitana's fan lift when the timer runs out in the winning round. The machine will play the exploding sound of Shao Kahn and then it will lock up. A good way to earn a free credit (see second pic on right).

Trivia

  • Mortal Kombat II is usually considered the best game in the series.
  • After the low sales of the SNES version of the first game against the Genesis version, Nintendo didn't censor the blood and fatalities as they did before in the US and UK SNES version of Mortal Kombat II, although they slapped a warning label in the front of the game box. The Japanese version is censored to a degree, with green blood for all fighters, as well as the screen colors turning black and white for fatalities. As a result, the SNES version sold much better than any other version and was considered at that time the best port of the arcade version.
  • Mortal Kombat II's levels and overall place within the Mortal Kombat timeline serve as the basis for the action/adventure game Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks.

Mortal Kombat II Cast

Ports

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