Lost Classics: Killer Instinct (SNES, Arcade, Game Boy, N64)

Yeah, I’m gonna catch some heat for this, but I don’t care. This game is underrated in the fighting game arena. It had a solid fighting system, excellent graphics, and cool characters. It also went a long way to proving that Nintendo’s systems weren’t just for kids. Developed by Rare using Nintendo’s ‘Ultra 64’ hardware, and published in the arcades by Midway, this game would serve as a demonstration of the technology that would make up then unreleased Nintendo 64. It borrowed parts of Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, and made them into something totally different. It may not be the greatest fighting game ever, but it set itself apart from other 2-d fighters of the period.

Picking one of 10 characters (11 counting the unlockable boss character), you bash your way through everyone else. The game utilizes a 6-button control scheme similar to Street Fighter. The game utilizes automatic combos, similar to Mortal Kombat’s brutalities. This is the biggest criticism many have with this game, as players can activate high hitting combos by simply hitting buttons in a pre-determined sequence, almost like a music game. This made parts of the fighting system come off incredibly cheesy looking. However, this was redeemed by the fact that instead of rounds, players simply get 2 life bars. This keeps you right in the action throughout the match. At the end, players have the option of preforming a ‘No Mercy’ attack, which is pretty much a PG-13 version of Mortal Kombat’s fatalities.

The game was ported to Super Nintendo and Game Boy, although several edits had to be made, particularly to the cut scenes and animated backgrounds. It should be noted that the SNES version of the game came with a free soundtrack cd that showed off the game’s awesome music. A sequel would be released, which added in several new characters, multiple endings, and new super moves. This sequel would be ported to the N64 in a special enhanced ‘Gold’ version. Unfortunately, that would be the last time we would see this series it was rumored that Rare was working of KI3 for Xbox, but sadly, this wasn’t the case. Since Rare is still on good terms with Nintendo, there is hope that both of these games will hit the Virtual Console in the future. There is also hope that either game will show up on Xbox Live arcade, since Rare is a second-party Microsoft developer. Either way, I got the urge to pull off a SUPER HYPER COMBO!