Mortal Kombat Trilogy

About Mortal Kombat Trilogy

Mortal Kombat Trilogy (1996) is Midway's final update to Mortal Kombat 3, gathering characters and arenas from the first three games and adding the Aggressor bar and Brutalities.

Mortal Kombat Trilogy in Depth

It shares the basic play and story of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 but adds characters and stages restored from Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat II. The Ultimate MK3 roster is joined by Raiden and Baraka exactly as they appeared in MKII, given new running animations. A new Aggressor bar fills during a fight, twice as fast when the opponent is blocking, and when full grants faster movement and stronger attacks for a short time. Many fighters gain extra special moves, some simple variations and some unused animations from earlier games, such as Kano's knife spin, Kung Lao's air torpedo, Goro's spinning punch and Baraka's blade spin, while Shao Kahn and Motaro gain throws.

It introduced the Brutality, a finisher in which the winner pummels the opponent until they explode. Every arena from MKII, MK3 and UMK3 is included, along with four backgrounds from the original game, though each version drops a couple of stages, and the Stage Fatalities return except in the Pit II. Sub-Zero's famous Spine Rip is completely censored, the screen going black with only the word "Fatality", to avoid re-animating it. Electronic Gaming Monthly's reviewers all recommended the N64 version for its amount of content and lack of loading times, though two found its graphics disappointing for the hardware.

Making Mortal Kombat Trilogy

Midway released it in 1996 as the second and last update to Mortal Kombat 3, after Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Because Ho Sung Pak, Philip Ahn, Elizabeth Malecki, Katalin Zamiar and Daniel Pesina had left over royalty disputes, their characters were played by new actors, while Carlos Pesina's sprites were kept for Raiden. Most of the background music from MKII and MK3 remained, especially on the CD versions. Reception varied widely by platform and publication: GamePro praised its content, faithful recreation of the arcade graphics and the Aggressor meter, and EGM's Crispin Boyer and Shawn Smith said it had converted them to Mortal Kombat fans.