Mortal Kombat II is a 1993 fighting game developed and published by Midway for arcades. It was later ported to multiple home systems, including MS-DOS, Amiga, Game Boy, Game Gear, Sega Genesis, 32X, Sega Saturn, Super NES, and PlayStation, by Probe Software (later renamed to Probe Entertainment for some ports of the game) and Sculptured Software, and published by Acclaim Entertainment.
Mortal Kombat II is the second main installment in the Mortal Kombat franchise, and a sequel to 1992's Mortal Kombat. It improves the gameplay and expands the mythos of its predecessor while introducing more varied finishing moves (including several Fatalities per character and new finishers, such as Babality and Friendship) and several new characters such as Kitana, Mileena, Kung Lao, the hidden character Noob Saibot, and the series' recurring villain, Shao Kahn. The game's plot continues from the first game, featuring the next Mortal Kombat tournament set in the otherdimensional realm of Outworld, with the Outworld and Earthrealm representatives fighting each other on their way to challenge Shao Kahn.
Mortal Kombat II was released to enormous commercial success and critical acclaim, winning several awards and inspiring numerous clones. However, it was also involved in controversy due to the series' continuous depiction of graphic violence. In the years since its release, Mortal Kombat II has been cited as one of the best games in the series, as well as one of the greatest video games ever made. It was succeeded in 1995 by the direct sequel Mortal Kombat 3, and in 2005 by the spin-off Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks, which takes place during the events of Mortal Kombat II.
Gameplay
thumb|left|A screenshot of Pit II's [[Stage Fatality being performed against Mileena. A figure in flames later retconned as Blaze can be seen in the stage's background (see also the rumors section).]]
The gameplay system of Mortal Kombat II is an improved version of that from the original Mortal Kombat. There are several changes in standard moves: a crouching punch was added, low and high kicks have greater differentiation (be they crouching or standing up), roundhouse kicks are made more powerful (knocking an opponent across the screen, like the game's uppercut), and it is easier to perform combos due to reduced recovery times for attacks. Returning characters also gained new special moves, including some to be used in mid-air, and the game plays almost twice as fast as the original.
As with its predecessor, matches are divided into rounds, and the first player to win two rounds by fully depleting their opponent's life bar is the winner. At this point, the losing character will become dazed and the winner is given the opportunity of using a finishing move. Mortal Kombat II lacks the "Test Your Might" bonus games and point system from the first game, in favor of a consecutive win tally where wins are represented by icons.
According to the Mortal Kombat series' canon, Liu Kang won this tournament as well, defeating Shao Kahn and his bodyguard Kintaro. The game's story mode can be also finished using any other playable character, resulting in a variety of non-canonical endings for each of them. This game also establishes that the original Sub-Zero Bi-Han was killed by Scorpion in the first game, and Bi-Han's younger brother Kuai Liang took the identity of the new Sub-Zero.
Characters
thumb|The character selection screen in Mortal Kombat II, showing the game's playable character roster. From the upper left: [[Liu Kang, Kung Lao, Johnny Cage, Reptile, Sub-Zero, Shang Tsung, Kitana, Jax, Mileena, Baraka, Scorpion, Raiden]]
The game includes 12 playable characters.
;New characters:
- Baraka (played by Richard Divizio),
- Jax (played by John Parrish): U.S. Special Forces officer who enters the tournament to rescue his partner Sonya Blade from Outworld.
- Kitana (played by Katalin Zamiar), a female ninja who works as a personal assassin in the service of Shao Kahn. She has been suspected of secretly aiding the Earthrealm warriors. An evil sorcerer who convinced Kahn to spare his life after losing the last tournament, with a new plan to appease his master, who in turn restores Tsung's youth.
Development
According to lead programmer Ed Boon, Mortal Kombat II was "intended to look different than the original MK" and "had everything we wanted to put into MK but did not have time for." In 2012, Boon named creating the game among his best Mortal Kombat memories, recalling: "When we did Mortal Kombat II, we got new equipment and all that stuff, but it was funny because when we started working on Mortal Kombat II, the mania, the hysteria of the home versions of Mortal Kombat I was literally all around us. We were so busy working on the next one, going from seven characters to 12 and two Fatalities per character and all these other things that that consumed every second." Both the theme and art style of MKII were slightly darker than those of its predecessor, although a more vibrant color palette was employed and the new game had a much richer color depth than the previous game. A new feature was the use of multiple layers of parallax scrolling in the arcade version.
Care was taken during the programming process to give the game a "good feel", with Boon simulating elements such as gravity into the game's design. Lead designer and artist John Tobias noted that the first game's reliance on juggling the opponent in the air with successive hits was an accident, and had been tightened in Mortal Kombat II. Boon said that the reason to not completely remove it in favor of a different system of chaining attacks together was to set the game apart from the competing titles such as Street Fighter, and allow for players to devise their own combinations of attacks. At one point, a bonus stage was planned to feature "a bunch of ninjas jumping all over the place and you would swing at them, just like you're in the middle of a fight in a kung fu movie." All of the music was composed, performed, recorded and mixed by Dan Forden, the series' sound designer and composer, using the Williams DCS sound system.
As with the first game, Acclaim Entertainment published the home conversions. San Francisco Chronicle claimed in 1994 that Acclaim had spent on developing, manufacturing and marketing the game.
Characters
To create the character animations for the game, actors were placed in front of a gray background and performed the motions, which were recorded on videotape using a broadcast-quality, $20,000 Sony camera instead of the standard Hi8 camera used for the original Mortal Kombat. while post-editing was done on the sprites afterward to highlight flesh tones and improve the visibility of muscles, which Tobias felt set the series apart from similar games using digitized graphics. Animations of Shang Tsung morphing into other characters were created by Midway's John Vogel using a computer, while hand-drawn animations were used for other parts of the game, such as the Fatalities. For Goro and Kintaro, clay sculptures were created by Tobias' friend Curt Chiarelli and then turned into 12-inch latex miniatures that were used for stop motion filming. Because of technical restrictions, the actors' costumes had to be simple and no acrobatic moves such as backflips could have been recorded; the most difficult moves to perform were some of the jumping kicks. as it was featured more than one female character, which was uncommon in the fighting genre at the time. Due to memory limitations and the development team's desire to introduce more new characters, Sonya Blade and Kano, two fighters from the original Mortal Kombat whom Boon cited as the least-picked characters in the game, were excluded, substituted by two palette swaps: Mileena and Reptile. In place of Sonya, two new playable female characters, Kitana and Mileena, were introduced so the game might better compete against Capcom's Street Fighter II: The World Warrior featuring Chun-Li. Another planned female fighter, based on the real-life kickboxer Kathy Long whom Tobias admired, was omitted due to time constraints. A male bonus character played by Kyu Hwang was also cut from the game.
Release
thumb|An original Mortal Kombat II arcade cabinet (with artwork of the character Raiden on the side panels) at [[PAX South 2015|alt=]]
The first version of MKII, revision 1.4, "was effectively a public beta test", featuring few Fatalities and many software bugs; it also lacked the endings for the characters. It took three subsequent revisions to have the moves and finishing moves finalized and all the bugs corrected, also adding additional content, as development had still been in progress for all that time. The final version was revision 3.1,
Marketing and merchandise
In conjunction with the release of the arcade game, Mortal Kombat II Collector's Edition, an official comic book written and illustrated by Tobias, was released through mail order, describing the backstory of the game in greater detail. A part of this sum was used to film and air the live-action TV commercial created by David Anderson and Bob Keen. The video featured Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Reptile (with a notably more reptilian appearance), Kitana, Baraka and Shao Kahn, who were played by the same actors as in the game. The game's promotional campaign's tagline was "Nothing... Nothing can prepare you." In 2008, Eurogamer called Mortal Kombat II "a marketing triumph".
Malibu Comics published a series of Mortal Kombat comic books featuring the characters from both MKII and the original game. could originally only be purchased by ordering it through a limited CD offer, which was posted on the arcade version of the game's attract mode. Other merchandise for the game included the periodical official fanzine Mortal Kombat II Kollector's Magazine published by Midway and Sendai, a series of collectible stickers for an album by Panini Group, two different series of action figures (released in Argentina in 1995 and in the US in 1999, respectively),
Home releases
Since 1994, multiple official ports and emulated versions of Mortal Kombat II have been released for a wide variety of home systems, including the 8-bit (Game Boy, Game Gear, and Master System), 16-bit (Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) and Sega Genesis/Mega Drive) and 32-bit (32X, PlayStation, and Sega Saturn) consoles, Amiga and MS-DOS computers, and the PlayStation Network (PSN). The Game Boy, Game Gear, SNES, and Genesis versions were released simultaneously on September 9, 1994, a date dubbed "Mortal Friday". The PlayStation version was released only in Japan, retitled ; this subtitle was also used for the Japanese release of the 32X port.
- The Genesis/Mega Drive port, developed by Probe Software, retains all of the blood and Fatalities without a special code having to be entered, unlike the original Mortal Kombat for the system. It contains several exclusive Easter eggs and features some different character animations for victory poses and a support for the motion controller device Sega Activator.
- The SNES version was developed by Sculptured Software. Due to poor sales of the censored SNES version of the first game, Nintendo decided to allow depictions of blood and Fatalities this time around. Because the industry-wide rating system was not expected to be in effect until November 1994 at the earliest, this version had no formal rating; instead, a warning label was put on the game's box in order to inform prospective buyers about the game's mature content. The Japanese version, however, is censored to a degree, with green blood for all fighters, and the screen colors turning black-and-white for all character-specific lethal Fatalities. John Tobias favored the SNES version over the Genesis version, stating: "I would go so far as to say that the Super NES version is one of the best arcade-to-home conversions I've seen."
- The Game Boy port, also developed by Probe Software, plays similarly to the Game Boy version of the original game, but with characters moving much smoother and faster. It only contains eight of the 12 playable fighters from the arcade game (lacking Baraka, Johnny Cage, Kung Lao and Raiden); Kintaro and Noob Saibot were also removed from the game, although Jade is included as a hidden fighter. Only three of ten arenas are retained from the arcade version: the Kombat Tomb, the Pit II and Goro's Lair. The Kombat Tomb contains the port's only Stage Fatality and Goro's Lair is much simpler in this version (consisting of a brick wall with no openings or glowing eyes). Blood is completely removed and each playable character retains only one of their Fatalities plus the Babality.
- The Game Gear and Master System ports, also developed by Probe Software, are similar to the Game Boy port, but are in color instead of in monochrome. Both versions are almost identical except for the reduced size of the Game Gear screen, featuring the same fighters and arenas as the Game Boy port, but with the addition of Kintaro. The arena where players fight Jade and Smoke is exclusive to each version. Unlike the Game Boy version, blood is present, but was drastically reduced in quantity when compared to other ports. Because of the systems' limited graphical resources, some of the Fatalities in the game were altered to completely destroy the opponent's body, leaving generic gibs of bones and limbs, while others were also simplified to use common animations.
- The 32X version, also developed by Probe Software, is practically equal to the SNES version, maintaining the complete voice-over and all the little graphics details that were toned down in the Genesis version.
The game was also featured in several compilation releases, including Midway Arcade Treasures 2 for the GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox, Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox as a hidden and unlockable Easter egg, Midway Arcade Treasures: Extended Play for the PlayStation Portable, and Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection for the Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Another compilation release for the Nintendo DS was canceled. Arcade1Up released a home arcade cabinet compilation that included the game, as well as the original Mortal Kombat and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3.