I don't particularly care for MK3 for different reasons than most, it's because of how intentionally incomplete it was, but in a way, it was good that they didn't introduce everything immediately, it gave players time to adapt. For the other side, people don't like it because they removed a lot of favorite characters, and made the fatalities corny, this I felt was a good move because they started gearing the series towards competition. MK2 was competitive, but not in the same way.

Matt

I love MK3 but UMk3 is better.When it first came out it was great i dont think it ever had a chance because it had to live up to MK2.MK3 is a classic and is still a great game and its underated.

I thought umk3 was way better just because of the fact it had 9 more characters!

Intentionally incomplete?

Please elaborate.

Like most of the fans of MK wanted to see at that time, I hated it because it didn't have popular fighters returning. Examples: Scorpion, and Reptile, etc. That was the main reason I hated it. Lack of better fighters.

1. They removed popular characters from MK-MK2

2. The new characters like Stryker and Nightwolf were kinda lame.

3. Bringing back Friendships and Babalites was lamer than lame. It was funny in MK2 as a response to all the criticism over the violence, but making it a part of MK3 just solidified the feeling that MK3 was too cartoony and dumb.

4. The Run button made cheap players 10000000000x more annoying. Why bother playing when you know the local arcade rat is just going to pick Smoke and run around throwing you 100 times.

5. MK3 had a definate unfinished feel which only was made worse when they came out with UMK3. I also think part of the problem with the feel of the game was how they took a lot of the Asian/Martial Arts tone of MK-MK2 out and gave MK3 more of a gritty "inner city" look which just didn't seem to mesh with the storyline of an ancient martial arts tournament.

I think if they would have waited and released what we know as UMK3 as MK3, it wouldn't be trashed so much these days.

They talked about releasing UMK3 even before MK3 was released, but "finished" and they left out characters everyone wanted, so they could make the upgrade, and make more money later. I don't think many of you realize just how important, and how emphasis there was on making money with this series. They took every route possible to get just another quarter dropped into the machines and making console versions sell.

I think it's funny how Scorpion was the first character I picked cause I wanted to play as him so badly, but then I gave him up for Human Smoke, cause he was just better.

Also, for those of you who have a problem with run, just learn how to use it to your advantage. I have a problem with not being able to run in MK2, I don't like it, the game is slow enough as it is. There's nothing I can do about it.

Matt

Yeah, UMK3 was always planned. In fact there's even a teaser for it when you beat the Master tower in MK3.


Kungbroken's absolutely right about their ultimate goal being money, not a quality, finished produced. That's not the only reason they sometimes halfass things though. They also have an extremely strict deadline, especially back in the arcade days. They used to have to work around the clock for days at a time, even sleeping at their computers, just to get the games out on time. That's why they always had so many drastic changes in the revisions. They finished up the best they could before release then had to tweak it all afterwards.



I've always loved MK3. I was sad to see Baraka go, but the robots, Stryker and Kabal more than made up for him. I really like the faster pace and combo system.

Anyanka Wrote: I've always loved MK3. I was sad to see Baraka go, but the robots, Stryker and Kabal more than made up for him. I really like the faster pace and combo system.

As do I. MK3 will always be better than MK1 and MK2, because of the sweet combo system. I thought it couldn't get any better than MK3, until UMK3 came out. Muhahahah.

It's obvious that money was the main motivation when it came to MK3.

It's also why MK was all but dead before Deadly Alliance came out, money was more important than quality and it showed.

Money was the main motivation behind every MK game.

At the end of MK3's master tower it has an extra picture and text.

This is what Anyanka was talking about.

Matt

Yeah I like MK3 over the past 2 MKs. Overall I think it is only popular belief that MK2 are fans favs. I've been here for a while( not as a member but just a person coming to MKO) people are split down the middle own what MK game is there fav, even with the 2-D games. Yeah MK2 is popular but I bet if there were a poll on there fav 2-D MK game. MK2,MK3,UMK3,and MKT would be evenly split.

I loved MK3 and I look forward to playing it in Midway Arcade Treasures 2. I used to go to a local arcade at least once a week and play it for hours. LOL the arcade machine also had an error sometimes that let me play for free. But I have a lot of good memories playing that game, good times. The only game I have with the MK3 engine is UMK3 for Saturn which is fun too.

The biggest problem was that the jump from MK to MK2 was much bigger than the jump from MK2 to MK3. If the MK team had released UMK3 in addition to other things, like psudeo-3D arenas ala Killer Instinct, then MK3 would have had a much greater impact.

I think a lot of the people that loved MK2 but did not like MK3 simply wanted an updated version of MK2. They didn't want MK3, they wanted MK2b. They wanted the slow gameplay they had come to know, plus hugely violent fatalities, and a groovy asian feel with very colorful characters.

The characters in MK3 were not quite so colorful, or exotic, and the hugely violent fatalities received an upgrade that left them looking silly. And the Asian feel was left behind because of the big twist in storyline.

Plus, the gameplay got much faster and more intricate (and more difficult). It became a greater test of skill to play.

All that amounted to a lot of changes and a lot of people did not want change. They wanted something new and cool but they didn't want to give up what they already knew.

I always liked Mk3 more then Mk1 and Mk2.

It was so much fun, the combos, run, music, graphics, vs codes, etc.

It was better IMO, but lacked important aspects of the original games.

There was many new characters introduced, gave it more of a modern look.

Those were the reasons I disliked it.
I like Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 alot more.

I've seen people post about the corny fatalities in MK3. I do wish that Midway made the fatalities as gruesome as MK2, for many reasons. I mean, the characters in MK3 don't even have a fall-forward animation (the falling after a decapitation in MK1 and MK2). I don't like how the character just stands there, it looks too goofy. Plus, some characters just had complete rip-offs from the past characters. Ermac and Human Smoke had the Uppercut Decapitation, how dumb is that?! But, Midway was looking more toward how the gamplay was in the game, and I like that. It's sad to say this, but if the fatalities were more gruesome, there would have been more fans of the game.

mk3 i also thought was better than mk2 and 1. it was much faster and had a nice combo system. i never cared for the run button though. rarely ever used it. even if the fatalites were worse there were some
to like. like cyrax's helicopter fatality and sektor's trash compactor.

The reason decaps look so bad is that there weren't any decap fatalities in MK3. The only straight decap was Sektor's animality. So they had no need to animate them like in MK II.

Of course UMK3 and MKT had some, but they were just too lazy to bring people back for filming just for a fatality for someone like Ermac.

What killed the fatalites in MK3 for me is how when a fatality resulted in the opponent's body exploding, it would result in about 16 arms and legs from one person. It looked like a box of mannequins exploded.

I personally loved MK3. But, like everyone else has said, my personal fav was MK2. I would stay up all night playing that game, trying to beat everyone (including jade, smoke, etc etc). Back to MK3 though. When my friend got it, I was like "Whoa, MK3." The combo system introduced blew me away at the time, and just made me want to master it. Problems with MK3 was (like everyone has said) the characters taken out, corny fatals, and how incomplete it felt. All in all MK3 was not that bad of a game, but it could never live up to MK2.

On a side note, I just have to give it up to the people who mainly post in this forum. You guys seem like... no you guys are the true MK fans. And it's great that it does not get to the point where if someone says something alittle rediculous that you're all over him in a responce. I go to the Deception forum on and off, but I come here cause I know that you guys aren't as freaking immature as people in the Deception forum. Just like to point that out to everyone in here.

-Fuj

I don't quite get the issues people have with MK3 fatalities. MK2's fatalities were so corny and funny looking, like any of the ones that set people on fire. The flaming skeleton looked so terrible. Pretty much any chunks that flew off anyone in MK2 looked terrible.

MK3, they decided to make the skeleton look much better, and to add a lot of detail to the parts that fly off, and of course they had to overdue it by have 6 peoples' worth of parts fly out of one person. It just seems like a continuation of the same kind of humor as in the previous MKs.

And then in MKT you get the blood fountain (ie MK2 Jax Head Clap), and I think that really sums up the mentality of fatality creation.

I liked how in MK2, you could see the intestins (SP?) when Shang Tsung did his "in one hear, out the exploding body" fatal. Too bad they couldn't have the detail of the body, and the innards as well in MK3.

-Fuj