After arriving in sticky floored arcades during June 1993, Mortal Kombat II quickly emerged to be a fan favourite. The epitome of a perfect sequel, it refined the original’s mechanics while adding five new characters to the roster and doubling the number of fatalities. The lore was also expanded, the tone slightly darker – and that’s despite the brighter colour palette – and the addition of three secret characters help spread rumours, filling magazine pages in the process.
Even when Mortal Kombat 3 launched in 1995, the second instalment remained the pinnacle of the series to date. MK3’s real world locations had far less mystique, the absence of Scorpion from the roster left fans confused, new characters such as Stryker lacked edge, while the new ‘run’ button felt gimmicky. The console versions, especially for the Mega Drive and Game Gear, felt scrappier in general too. Not unplayable, but certainly in need of more powerful hardware.
Little did fans know back in 1993 that Acclaim had set their sights on releasing MKII on as many platforms as possible, with conversions still emerging as late as 1996 – ergo after the release of MK3. There was rational thinking behind this long duration rollout, albeit one financially motivated. MKII was a sales juggernaut, becoming a best seller on almost every platform it graced. On launch day alone (9th September 1994) 2.5 million copies shipped to retailers in the US. If it wasn’t for Donkey Kong Country, it would have been the best-selling game of 1994.
As the hottest property in their catalogue, there was money to be made by putting MKII on every format going – even with MK3 adorning magazine covers throughout 1995.
1994 saw MKII hit the SNES, Genesis/Mega Drive, Game Boy and Game Gear. These versions, along with the MS-DOS release, are very well known. In Europe however developer Probe took two more conversions under their wing. The Master System had carved a niche throughout Europe as a cheaper alternative to the Mega Drive and was supported with a drip-feed of new software while the Mega Drive was in its prime. MKII was amongst the final games released for the system, essentially being the Game Gear version only with the screen size expanded. While lacking a handful of characters and backdrops, it was a solid contender for the best one-on-one brawler on the humble 8-bit system. This version saw a release in Brazil too, via Tec Toy.
Probe’s other conversion was for the Commodore Amiga. Curiously, instead of creating a version for the current and more powerful AGA range of Amigas, such as the Amiga 1200, this version was compatible with the standard Amiga 500 – which had made its debut in 1987. Together with the Master System iteration, Probe certainly had their work cut out bringing a cutting-edge arcade machine to platforms now in their seventh commercial year. That said, the Amiga 500 had always compared favourably to the Mega Drive – as evidenced here with this conversion, which appeared to share assets with the MD’s MKII.
MKII for the Amiga was a very playable version, even garnering 90%+ review scores, but was bogged by format specific issues – the kind Amiga owners would’ve been familiar with. The Amiga used one button joysticks (hence why so many games used ‘up’ to jump – YouTubers take note) and so special moves mostly used a combination of directions followed by a single button press. This version also came on three disks, and because they couldn’t be installed onto a hard drive, they had to be painstakingly swapped when choosing a different character, and occasionally for fatalities too. Unless you had an expanded Amiga with more memory, backdrops lacked animation. For some reason, Probe’s conversions of MKII had the wrong music associated with each backdrop, and this was no exception either. I guess they thought there was no harm letting the music play on shuffle. It’s all gloomy and downbeat, right?
Then, in March 1995, SEGA’s 32X add-on gained a conversion – barely a month before MK3 was due to hit arcades, and six months after the standard Mega Drive release. As any Mortal Kombat fan will no doubt testify, this version was a corker, being very close to the arcade by sporting more colours, richer shadows and more speech than its 16-bit counterparts. The SNES version did have better music, mind, and a six-button pad was ideally needed.
With MK3 hype stirring, and console releases planned for the end of 1995, you’d think that Acclaim’s eyes would be on the franchise’s future. But no. Early 1996 saw MKII on the SEGA Saturn. That’s two and a half years after the original arcade release, and after the PS1 version of MK3 – which Sony had secured as an exclusive. The Saturn’s MKII wasn’t a straight arcade conversion, or even the 32X version with a CD soundtrack, but rather based on the MS-DOS iteration. While the visuals were crisp and it benefited from more speech samples, it suffered from long loading times – making the SNES and 32X version superior. When compared to Virtua Fighter, it didn’t fare favourably on a technical standpoint either, although it’s worth noting that SEGA Saturn Magazine found the pre-release (preview build) in better shape than the final build. As a hold over until MK3 (eventually released as Ultimate MK3 in June 1996) it sufficed.
Collectors will know that this version is expensive to acquire nowadays, fast approaching the £100 mark, which would suggest it wasn’t a runaway success.
The MKII story doesn’t end here, as Japan saw Mortal Kombat II: Kyuukyoku Shinken on PS1. This version dates to August 1996 – the very same month Tekken 2 arrived in that region. It was likely that Acclaim saw the popularity of fighting games in Japan as a viable enough reason to put out this version, plus major western franchises often saw cult followings in Japan. Loading times were the biggest bugbear here, with even fatalities requiring a few seconds to load. The same went for Shang Tsung’s transforming abilities. As MKII conversions go, this is one of the weirdest, being a Japanese exclusive. A double pack containing MK and MKII would’ve made more sense in terms of value for money – something the Game Boy saw in 1997.
MKII turned up again several years later as part of 2004’s Midway Arcade Treasures 2, inadvertently bumping the age rating to ‘M’ for mature. Digital Eclipse – the team responsible for 2025’s Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection – were behind this release, and this wasn’t their first brush with the franchise, having developed Mortal Kombat 4 for the Game Boy Color in 1997. Midway Arcade Treasures 2’s version of MKII was known for being buggy while the lack of button mapping made some of its secrets inaccessible. This version was later reused in Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks as an unlock, consequently featuring the same flaws.
The takeaway here is that Acclaim didn’t want to leave a dime on the table with MKII. In doing so, they gave Master System owners something that truly pushed the aging 8-bit hardware, provided the 32X with one of its more desirable games, and made Amiga 500 owners feel like their seven-year-old system was still able to compete with modern consoles. The PS1 and Saturn versions may have been a step too far, but likely sold better than the likes of Dragon Heart, Battle Monsters, Rise 2: Resurrection and Acclaim’s other low effort 2D titles released around the same time.
Acclaim even took this business model and applied it to NBA Jam, creating a second multiformat million seller same time MKII was flying off shelves. How’s that for a slam dunk?