1. Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide (PC)(Action)2. Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (SNES)(Fighting)Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 is Mortal Kombat 3 but now Ultimate because it adds back in missing characters and Endurance matches. While not all of this content made it into the SNES version, this particular port brought us the Brutality...which the AI was quite happy to show to me early on as I started playing it. There's also at least one character still cut, dropped sound effects, and various cut corners to make things easier on by-then aging hardware.
That said, it's still Mortal Kombat. The Mortal Kombat games are not about fighting with honor; they're about cheese, exploits, cheapness, and punishing mistakes. UMK3 is no different from its predecessors, though it thankfully still plays like Mortal Kombat 3. We haven't gone back to MK2's ridiculous jumping supermen AI. Still, many of the same old tricks apply, and since UMK3 brings back in my mainstay Scorpion, well, I was more than happy to spear my fair share of opponents.
This also means that many of the SNES port of MK3's flaws are still present in UMK3. For instance, your first opponent generally stands there and lets you beat them into a pulp, but the next opponent will put on their game face and end you like a bag of potato chips at fat camp. Feed in a new credit, and now that opponent who just smashed your hopes and crushed your dreams basically stands there and lets you win. They're not totally defenseless...but they don't really start trying to fight back until they've got 1/4 of their health left, and even then, it's not by much. And bosses? You jumpkick those, just like last time.
Some interesting quirks also popped up along the way. First, either Scorpion's hitbox while throwing the spear is massively enormous, or the sweep kick has a range like a mother, because opponents would sometimes duck when I chucked a spear and knock me off my feet despite the edge of their toes being a couple of meters from me. The mid-air directional input trick still works, so you can jump, put in the directional command for a special move, and then execute with the final attack button as soon as you hit the ground, often letting you catch a completely off-guard opponent. And there are apparently some terrible wonderful ways to chain combos, though I didn't get the hang of it.
Frankly, I just don't have any desire to return to the good old days of Mortal Kombat anymore, and this wraps up the series on the SNES for me. I'm glad it's over with as I have many other SNES titles to get to. Gotta knock out some RPGs at some point this year!
As of now, I'm down to three NTSC-U fighters on the SNES left to beat before I can say I've taken them all down, and two of them are highly questionable as fighters:
King of the Monsters
King of the Monsters 2
DRAGON: The Bruce Lee Story
