Collection essentials #417: Mortal Kombat Trilogy (N64)

I previously covered Mortal Kombat Trilogy for the PlayStation.


So, why talk about it again separately for a different console in the same generation? Simple, really, because this is a unique and quirky version of the game. Why is that? Well, it mostly has to do with differences in the Nintendo 64 hardware. As I’ve mentioned before, Nintendo 64 cartridges held much less space than PlayStation discs. Fighting games with a lot of characters back in that day had a tendency to require what was at the time considered a lot of space. Porting the game to the Nintendo 64 precisely as it was on the PlayStation was impossible, so a lot of changes had to be made. Some of these changes were negative, but there are many quirks to this version as a result that make it very interesting and unique.


Let’s start out with the biggest, worst and most obvious drawback. This version of the game sounds AWFUL. Practically everything in this version sounds horribly muffled due to compression. Some of the music seems to have much worse instrumentation too.


There is also some content missing here. The four “classic” versions of fighters are missing, as well as two of the boss characters and the secret character Chameleon. But these character changes aren’t necessarily all negative. The PlayStation version had two versions of Sub-Zero, masked and unmasked, while the Nintendo 64 version only has masked Sub-Zero. This sounds like a drawback, and it sort of is…but this Nintendo 64 Trilogy Sub-Zero is super interesting because he has all the special moves of the two Sub-Zero characters COMBINED. There is no other version of the game where you can play as a Sub-Zero like this. And while the secret character Chameleon is missing, a different one took his place, the female ninja Khameleon. The gimmick of Chameleon was that he would randomly morph into the various other male ninja characters. Khameleon, similarly, swaps between the game’s three female ninja characters. But I rather dislike Khameleon, because in order to see whose moves she currently has, you have to look up at her health bar, while Chameleon’s entire outfit would change color to make it far more obvious.


As a move to also apparently save space, some frames of animation for character moves and attacks were cut. This was done without any regards to how it would affect gameplay, so there are some weird results. Crouching kicks are suddenly much more useful, and one particular character can literally crouch-kick opponents infinitely when up against a corner. Some characters have a “teleport attack”, and because the animations were cut shorter, they recover from these attacks way more quickly, and thus they are more dangerous. Is the game better off for these differences? That’s really a matter of opinion, and I think if you have to go with one you’d probably want to go with the PlayStation rendition. But it certainly is interesting and different.


There is an objectively huge advantage that the Nintendo 64 version has, which stems directly from the fact that the game is on the cartridge: no loading times! Other versions of this game take quite a long time to load matches, but on the Nintendo 64 games start nice and quick. This means that playing as Shang Tsung, who can morph into any other character, is way more smooth. This also allows for a cheat code called “Randper Kombat” where both players’ characters keep changing.


This version also has an exclusive “3 vs. 3” mode for two human players, where both players pick three fighters to use. When one character is knocked out, instead of the round ending, instead the next character selected comes onto the screen and the match continues.


Sadly, I didn’t pick up Nintendo 64 Mortal Kombat Trilogy when I was at the peak of my Mortal Kombat fandom as a young teenager. And that’s a shame, because I would have enjoyed it and played it a lot. I didn’t know about some of this version’s advantages and kinda wrote it off as inferior and not worth it. Even though I haven’t spent a lot of time with it in my life, as someone with a soft spot for klassic Mortal Kombat, this weird little version certainly has a spot as an essential in my kollection.

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