Mortal Kombat 4

Mortal Kombat 4 (1997) was the last game in the Mortal Kombat series to have an arcade version. It was updated into Mortal Kombat Gold. MK Gold ' s story overrides MK4's. It is one of the few 3D fighting games to have been described as having "2D gameplay."

Gameplay
Early on, the development team at Midway decided to make a 3D Mortal Kombat to capitalize on the rising popularity of 3D games at the time. Midway decided to develop its own hardware, named "Zeus" from scratch however, resulting in development delays (a large amount of the game was tested on two dimensional hardware using pre-rendered characters).

As revealed in later interviews, programmer Ed Boon was particularly concerned with maintaining the gameplay feel of a 2D game but with 3D graphics. He at first was worried that there was some intrinsic property of 3D graphics that would make this impossible. Essentially, the major gameplay difference between 2D and 3D fighting games of the time, was that up to that point all 3D fighting games had attempted to somewhat simulate realistic martial arts. One of the reasons this was done was to take advantage of the fluid keyframed and motion captured animation that was now possible using 3D models. For example, in Virtua Fighter, a real martial artist was filmed performing the moves, and this movement was imposed on the 3D model in the game. Thus, while a punch in a 2D game might be a rapidly responding move with two frames of animation, a punch in a 3D game might have a delay between when the button was pressed and when the opponent was hit, owing to the realistic animation.

This delay however fundamentally changed the gameplay experience. Boon eventually decided to use the non realistic 2D rates of animation and movement, simply imposed onto 3D graphics. Thus the gameplay experience is nearly identical to the 2D versions of Mortal Kombat. While this was attempted before with the Street Fighter EX series, that series used more complex animation which did change the gameplay somewhat. Some critics however, were disappointed that Mortal Kombat 4 did not play like other popular 3D games of the time.

New characters
MK4 introduced:
 * Jarek (the last Black Dragon)
 * Kai (Shaolin monk and friend of Liu Kang)
 * Tanya (a traitor to Edenia)
 * Reiko (Shinnok's general)
 * Fujin (God of Wind, ally of Raiden)
 * Quan Chi (mysterious evil sorcerer)
 * Shinnok (imprisoned Elder God).

MK4 also included the following hidden characters:
 * Noob Saibot
 * Goro
 * Meat (a bloody skeleton)

Returning characters
Jax, Johnny Cage, Liu Kang, Raiden, Reptile (noticeably devolved from Mortal Kombat Trilogy), Scorpion, Sonya Blade, Sub-Zero. Goro, not featured in the arcade version of MK4, added as a sub-boss for the console versions of the game.

Boss

 * Shinnok

Sub-Boss

 * Goro (Home Version only)

New to the series

 * MK4 is the first Mortal Kombat game to have entirely computer-generated characters, although the texture maps of the characters were taken from most of the live-action actors of the previous games and animations were all generated via motion capture. It was revolutionary at the time, although the character models now appear dated.
 * MK4 introduces a limited weapon system to the series.
 * MK4 also introduces 3D combat, although limited to sidestepping as opposed to the 8 way walk movements in Soul Calibur.
 * Finally, MK4 added a 'Maximum Damage' cap to the game's combo system, automatically breaking off combos if they deal over a set amount of damage to a player and, thus, preventing infinite combos (although this cap can be removed with a code).

Storyline
Thousands of years ago, during a war with the corrupt Elder God known as Shinnok, Raiden was responsible for the death of an entire civilization. To avoid a repeat of this event, as well as to protect all realms from Shinnok's threat, Raiden waged a brutal campaign and, at a heavy price, exiled his rival to a dark place known as the Netherealm. A few years before the 1992 Shaolin tournament, the original Sub-Zero assisted the necromancer Quan Chi in obtaining Shinnok's amulet, the source of Shinnok's power (as recounted in Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero). Now (1997), Quan Chi has allied himself with Shinnok and helped the god escape from his confines. With the help of an Edenian traitor, they enter the Heavens and kill most of the gods, but Fujin and Raiden escape and gather Earthrealm's finest warriors to fight them. The Raiden-Shinnok feud had burst open once again, but this time... the battle could be won by Mortals!

Ports
Mortal Kombat 4 was ported to the Game Boy Color, Playstation, Nintendo 64, and PC.

Impact
Initial reaction to the new 3D look of the series (as is often the case with long running series) was negative, but MK4 managed to be a financial success due to an aggressive advertisement campaign which included a set of live action adverts filmed in Mexico and a US-wide tour of the arcade version by the game's creators which helped spread the word.

Although the game was hugely popular, it failed to pull Mortal Kombat out of a slump that began that same year. In fact, from 1997 to 1999, the series waned due to several Mortal Kombat projects that were either short lived, mediocre in quality, or shoddy all together. It was also the time in which John Tobias, the main storyteller, and much of Midway's staff resigned since the industry had recently made one flop after another.

MK4 was also to be the last Mortal Kombat game released in the arcades due to a dramatic drop in arcade popularity around 2000.

Trivia

 * MK4 was actually not the first game that was created by Midway with the new Zeus software. A fighting game titled War Gods was released several months before MK4's debut. Unfortunately, it bombed in arcades.


 * Reptile makes his first playable appearance in the series without his mask.


 * In the home versions of MK4 where Goro is given a story screen, it says that he won the title of Grand Champion "...only to have it won from him by Lao's ancestor, Liu Kang." This further adds to the confusion over whether Kang is a descendant of the Great Kung Lao- not only does it misuse the word "ancestor" instead of "descendant", but Mortal Kombat II states that Kung Lao is the last descendant. This screen is identical in Mortal Kombat Gold.


 * Kitana was originally planned to be in Mortal Kombat 4. However, due to there not being enough new characters in the game, her color palette was changed to brown to make Tanya. Her coding is still in the N64 version of the game, and she can be accessed with a GameShark. Her coding is also in the PC version, but it can be only accessed via a trainer. While Kitana's model and textures were deleted from the Playstation version, her moves were left in, and can be assigned to any character with a GameShark.


 * None of the game actors from the previous MK titles were used in MK4. Ed Boon, John Vogel and several other Midway employees provided motion-capture footage for the characters.


 * Though the character Reiko is male, Reiko is actually a feminine Japanese name.


 * First MK game to have animated endings.

Glitches

 * Sometimes, when a character comes to deliver a neck-breaking move to the opponent, the other will say "Don't touch my head". When the move is performed, the player might be treated to a rare occurrence. Despite the opponent's neck being broken, he/she will scream out "AAAAH! My legs!"