I recently acquired the Saturn and Saturn version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. I had played UMK 3 for the saturn a long time ago when it first came out and I remember that the game was pretty solid. Fast Forward to today. I used to own the UMK 3 arcade standup, (actually, still do, friend has it in a different state) and I thought to make up for not having it with me, that I would break down and get a Saturn and UMK 3. I did that a few weeks back for about $40. Lets just say that this game is not as good as I remember. Yes, it is the best ported home version of UMK3. But its not perfect and why its not is just odd.

The color scheme is off, it looks horrible. The graphics are grainy but not horrible looking. The music is what is just annoying and most die hard MK fans would be annoyed too. The music is all mixed up. Not every stage is wrong but a lot of them have the wrong music to go with em. Just doesn't feel right.

The game is playable. I have heard that the characters gravity and what not are off. i cannot comment on that subject, hopefully MK2KungBroken can.

The Saturn controller for me is hard to use.

Other than that, its a good version of UMK 3 (for 1996). Today its like, "how could this have been released this way?" The saturn should have been capable of much much more.

The Saturn controller to me was perfect, I'm talking about the Japanese pad, not the UK one.

UMK3 on Saturn is indeed very broken, and is no-where near arcade perfect.

For example Sheeva, throw opponent in corner and jam on HK, and u have a 100% kombo.

OMGWTF

I have owned a Sega Saturn for quite a while and I have MKT, UMK3, MK 2 for it. Here are some things I've noticed while playing these titles.

MK2:

Graphically it is amazing. The characters are large and detailed and the colors are vibrant and correct. The music and sound is also decent but not a match for the arcade, also several sounds are missing. Now for gameplay...this is where the game really falls short. The gameplay is good for the most part until you do a special move. For some reason the first time during a round that you do a special move the game will freeze for about half a second like it has to load the characters moveset at that very second. This only happens once per round but it is enough to make the game crappy to play. Personally, I found the controls a little odd...they just seemed a little to loose for me... that’s just my personal opinion. Either way I wouldn’t recommend getting MK2 for the Sega Saturn. The MAT2 version of MK2 is better and that isn’t saying much.

UMK3:

Decent port of UMK3, like someone already stated the graphics are a little coarse but not horrible. The colors were slightly dull definitely not as vibrant as the arcade version. The Sound and music is good... all there for the most part (Not arcade perfect tho). The gameplay is somewhat slow but the game is playable and it doesn’t take away from the fun factor. There is no slowdown during gameplay although loading times are somewhat long. UMK3 on the Saturn is pretty good and I would recommend anyone that has a Saturn to get it if they can’t afford a UMK3 Arcade machine or don’t / can’t use MAME.

MKT:

Like most home system ports the graphics are not arcade perfect. In fact I found that the characters of UMK3 on the Saturn are superior to both PS and Saturn's MKT. The characters seemed slightly small and the graphics were again grainy, but not horrible. The colors were slightly better then in UMK3 but still dull. The sound and music although decent seemed lacking in some areas. Also I noticed some of the music seemed to be sped up for some odd reason. Example: Character select music for both MKT and UMK3 are the same...but if I rip both seperately and listen to them on my PC the music from MKT is noticibly faster paced. This is true for several tracks. Overall MKT on the Saturn is a solid title and IMO slightly better then the PS one.

yes. i like my saturn mkt too . ok now back on topic.... to make a long story short, as far as gameplay is concerned the best 32-bit mk is mkt for psone. but for me the overall most enjoyable to play is mkt on saturn. i think part of the reason the home versions of the mk games they were done by a different development studio. if you are looking to get umk3 on saturn then only do it if u cant play the arcade version.