Publisher: Williams Entertainment
Developer: Software Creations
Release Date: 11/1995
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I remember MK3 very fondly growing up as a kid. I remember seeing ads for it everywhere. Specifically a cardboard standee in a Walmart with the giant logo. My parents had a friend bring the Saturn version over once during a really bad storm. I remember seeing the arcades as well. I wound up renting it for Super Nintendo and had a blast. I mostly loved the much darker and more mature tone the series took. MKII felt more cartoony and stylish while MK3 felt like it pushed the first game’s realism even further.
Sadly does not transfer over to the Game Boy version. I don’t know why they bothered at this point. Probe dropped the ball after the pretty decent MKII and made MK3 just about as bad as the port of the first game. Back are the smaller sprites, sluggish animations, unresponsive controls, and weird speed issues with jumping animations. Animations seem to speed up and slow down making the game just slightly better than a Tiger Electronics version. The control scheme is mostly intact, which isn’t that bad, but we also get the running mode which is useless on such a tiny screen with a low frame rate. A new developer took the helm here and went with a 512K cart this time which still could be bigger. Sure, we get four stages, but they’re ugly and the music sucks too.
Once again, we get quite a few cut characters. Liu-Kang, Stryker, Nightwolf, Kung-Lao, Jax, and Shang Tsung are all missing. That’s nearly half the roster. Every character has their Babality intact, but only a single Fatality and Mercies were kept in. It honestly doesn’t matter with how insanely slow the game plays. It feels like everyone is wading through mud. It’s just so unacceptable at this point as many Game Boy games looked and played so much better.
There is nearly no redeeming value in playing this atrocity. It’s the worst version of the game and at this point, 8-bit versions should have already stopped. We’re almost into 1996. 32-bit systems have been here for a couple of years now. The Game Boy is already almost 7 years old. I can only say this is for people who are curious or are collectors of Mortal Kombat games. Otherwise, stay away.
