Mortal Kombat 4 featured new characters, gameplay, graphics, and a new villain and storyline. Also, the game has some elements from Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub Zero. In this game, players can also draw the weapons of every fighter, which is cool.
Plot. Thousands of years ago, during a war against the fallen Elder God Shinnok, and the Thunder God Raiden was responsible for the death of an entire civilization. To avoid such mistake to be repeated, Raiden banished Shinnok into the Netherealm. Before the first tournament, the original Sub Zero helped Quan Chi in obtaining Shinnok's amulet, the source of Shinnok's power. Now, Quan Chi has allied himself with the fallen Elder God, and rescues him from his confines. With the help of an Edenian traitor named Tanya, they kill most of the gods. Knowing the threat they pose, Fujin and Raiden gather Earth's greatest fighters to fight against the evil trio.
The fighters can draw weapons like swords, spears, and so on. And there are also new fatalities and stage fatalities as well. Stage fatalities are awesome, because when they are thrown into a fan, the blood splatters into the screen and the head bounces into it as well, which was great.
Concept. In Arcade mode, players can choose any character they wish to choose, and battle in four different combat levels such as: Novice, Warrior, Master, and Master II. Master II is much more fun with almost every fighter, and a lot more challenging as well. After beating Shinnok, each character has his/her own ending depending if they are good or evil.
Design. Developers decide to make the game into 3D, with 3D games becoming increasingly popular at that time. Ed Boon, however, he wanted to mix 2D with 3D when the game was being made. This is the first MK game to feature computer generated characters. An example of 3D fighting games is games like Virtua Fighter and Fighters Megamix. The game used complex animation, and some critics were disappointed with the game that did not play like any other 3D fighting games at that time. The Game Boy version was completely in 2D, but it was a watered down version and it was not very good.
Memories. In 1998 I played this game during a summer vacation in New York at my cousin's. After some swimming pool days, we would sit down and play some PlayStation and have some tournaments in Mortal Kombat 4. I still remember the live-action commercial, which made the game look awesome. I also played the Nintendo 64 version, but the controls were excruciating, and it was a lot better on the PS1. What happened to those great days when games were MORE than just the graphics? All we old generation gamers hear these days is "Graphics this! Graphics that!", noobs.
Rantings. Now some of the designs were not too well made, and the voice acting at times during ending sequences was a little bit exaggerated with some characters saying "NEVERRRRR!". The Living Forest stage, although it was great that it was brought back since MK2, it just lost it's morbid and grim looks.
Good Aspects. The fighting mechanics, weapons drawing, and violence were pretty good for a 3D fighting game. The facial expressions during ending and intro sequences were very well done, and some endings were hilarious like the one with Johnny Cage. My favorite ending has to be the Jax ending, because it is more bad ass. This game has replay value, and it is very fun to play.
Overall. This has to be one of my most remembered games of when I was in my pre-teens. This game gets a 7 out of 10.