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I was twelve years old when Mortal Kombat was ported to home consoles one fateful Mortal Monday. Twelve was the perfect age to get sucked into the hype that MK had created. In fact I was even a bit of a classroom celebrity -- the kid who owned a Genesis game rated MA-13! Indeed Mortal Kombat was one of those huge games that caused you to suddenly have a lot of friends. Friends who wanted to come over after school and see some of these much talked-about Fatalities. And let me tell you, many afternoons were spent just like that.

However when the sequel was released a year later it all but made the original obsolete. Mortal Kombat II was an improvement in every way. It looked far better graphically, had a much bigger roster and many more moves and Fatalities. Indeed the second game would remain my favorite of the series, probably even to this day.


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Over the past few years I've encountered ports of the original game a couple times. Probably most substantial were the PS2 (via Mortal Kombat Deception's Premium Pack) and
PSN (via the Arcade Kollection) ports. These were both intended to be arcade-perfect versions of Mortal Kombat. And playing them seemed to only reinforce the idea that the original MK was really not a very great game. Perhaps it was all the blood and guts that made it fun at the time? But it seemed to me that it was really a clunky mess.

But recently I happened upon the Sega CD version and felt a compulsion to add it to my collection post-haste. The odd thing; I've sunk hours into this game in the past couple weeks. Maybe it's just the arcade version that I hate? The arcade's AI could certainly be a big part of it. Or maybe it's just that playing Mortal Kombat with a Genesis controller just feels right? Whatever it is, I'm actually having a surprisingly good time re-living the excitement, blood and guts of those elementary school days.


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The Sega CD version is basically just the Genesis port with a few differences. First I'll start by saying that yes, load-times are present due to the optical media. You will have short waits between rounds but this is only really bothersome when you are greeted with loading between enemies in the endurance rounds. Personally, I'm not one to find loading all that big an issue, so let's move on to the improvements. When first load the game up you'll get a nice blast of nostalgia in the form of the original Mortal Kombat TV commercial. Remember flocks of kids running down city streets screaming the title of the game? In fact as a bit of an awesome easter egg, if you throw the game in your CD player Track 17 is actually one of the techno tracks by The Immortals. But perhaps thee reason to own the Sega CD port is that entering a "blood code" is no longer necessary. Yup, this version is rated MA-17 and has all the gore unlocked from the get-go.

It's funny how your opinion of a game can change over time -- and sometimes it even changes back. Mortal Kombat is really good example of this, and I'm glad I stumbled upon it once again and found myself having so much fun with the smaller roster and more limited move-set.

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