DF Retro: Mortal Kombat - The Legend, The Arcade Tech, The Console Ports - 16 Versions Analysed!

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Join John for a very special, extended episode of DF Retro. Midway's classic Mortal Kombat is under the microscope, with a look at its beginnings, its meteoric success in the arcades and the inevitable ports to console systems - and beyond.
The bezel used during the SF2 segment was created by Orionsangel and you can get it right here!
/ orionsangel
The bezels created for Mortal Kombat were created by ArsInvictus and you can download them here.
forums.libretro.com/t/new-4k-...
Be sure to check them out if you're using PC emulation
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Опубликовано:

1 фев 2020

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Комментарии : 1,3 тыс.

@amirhmirzaee 4 года назад

These videos have totally moved past being just technical analysis and are more akin to professionally crafted documentaries in their structure and editing. Much more than what someone would have in mind for a sole comparison of different versions of a video game. I don't know who should I credit more, the DF team or John, but all in all, what a fantastic, informative and beautiful video. Big thanks to Digital Foundry.

@LeonSKennedy7777 4 года назад

Unparalleled work. Really astounding to think of how much work goes into making videos like this one.

@steveothehulk 4 года назад

These episodes could easily be a weekly show for tv maybe one day they will get shown on tv

@jitsorooney 4 года назад

It’s crazy how these guys still haven’t reached 1 million subs yet, I feel like DF is one of the most respected and looked at for gaming analysis if I didn’t check I would just assume they would have millions of subs.

@thechugg4372 4 года назад

Now if only they actually but these videos on their own channels, and leave them out of the technical analysis.

@DeformedLunchbox 4 года назад

You are absolutely right. They could make a 2hour documentary and hit the big time with it. (and they should)

@somerandomdude3366 4 года назад

Not gonna lie. I love it when there's a ton of different ports to go over. The Doom epsiode is still my favorite for that reason.

@RefinedRetroReviews 4 года назад

The Doom episode really was great!

@Anita028 4 года назад

There are many games like Doom with many many ports that deserve a DF Retro like Lemmings, Prince of Persia, Flash Back, Alone in the Dark for example... I would love to see a DF Retro on these games.

@doomdoomerson6524 4 года назад

Absolutely

@outsideredge 4 года назад

The Doom and 32X episodes are my favourite. The 32X marked a very contentious time for Sega as they struggled with a vision for next-gen gaming

@benryves 4 года назад

@@Anita028 DavidXNewton has some excellent videos comparing the different versions of Prince of Persia on his channel.

@arnaudcalistri2433 4 года назад

Fun fact at 42:30 : the presenter of Gamesmaster is a very young Dexter Fletcher, better known today as the director of ROCKETMAN. I did not expect to see him in a Digital Foundry video about Mortal Kombat 1 😅

@Jaqen-HGhar 4 года назад

He was also in the Doom movie as well as Band of Brothers and has been in a ton of stuff. Was wondering why his face looked so familiar.

@ebridgewater 4 года назад

Soap from Lock Stock!

@andrewcassidy4799 4 года назад

To me he will always be Spike from Press Gang.

@davidallinson8248 4 года назад

I didn’t know it was possible for my heart to be filled with embarrassment and nostalgia simultaneously but then I saw that Gamesmaster clip. Dominik Diamond was a more entertaining presenter than Fletcher though.

@ModernVintageGamer 4 года назад

Best part of the video - 0:00 to 53:25

@kaktus2872 3 года назад

Nice

@zachsteiner 3 года назад

Good to see you here

@criznittle968 3 года назад

DF Retro and MVG go hand in hand

@glenni83 3 года назад

I wonder if there is different versions of Mk2 on Amiga, if im not wrong. Due i had 2 copies of it, in different disk sizes. One was on 4 disks, the other was in 2 or 3 disks. I cant remember what exactly was different with em due how many years ago it was, but i remember one version was better then the other due loading time. One had to shuffle disks multplie times on loading between stages. One was shuffle before start of the game, then it was between 2 disks only of start and end of game. Also the game played different from Amiga 500 and 600. We where 2 mates having amiga, and my friend had the 500. What we notice was a more fluid gameplay on the 600. So he was jellous of my 600 at that time.

@merlingt1 4 года назад

One thing that MK1 got very right was the balance of the colors between the sprites and the background. The characters felt like they belonged in this world, unlike many other games based on the same technology that came later.

@jcardboard 4 года назад

Good point. Contributes to the way MK has always had the most cohesive and atmospheric lore/world building of fighting games in my view.

@psfanboy79 4 года назад

Imo, if I happen to see a mortal Kombat cabinet in a bar or bowling alley I'm still impressed with how it looks. It just works. It's pleasing to the eye. I think u really brought up a great point about character sprites in relation to the backgrounds

@Albert8044 4 года назад

When playing mirror matches, Sonya Blade's alternate red color palette swap only exclusive on the player 2 side in my mind look pretty awesome. Even though Sonya looks more iconic in green, but her red alternate color swap look at lot cooler.

@alexadelaide 4 года назад

I miss being a kid and thinking that the home versions were exactly like the arcade

@yellowblanka6058 4 года назад

To me the differences between the home and arcade versions of games were always blatantly obvious, even as a kid. The sprites for SF2/MK etc. are noticeably smaller, with fewer colors, cut frames, the music and sound are lower quality etc etc etc.

@bensalas1009 4 года назад

You had to be REALLY young at the time to think that. The differences between the arcade and consoles were pretty obvious to me and most kids aged 9 to 14.

@lirfrank 4 года назад

I miss not noticing aliasing.

@clarenceboddicker6679 4 года назад

When I was a young kid I believed that the SNES version of Mortal Kombat 2 was absolutely identical to the arcade version, at that time I believed there were no differences between the two versions at all. However when I watch comparison videos today it is blatantly obvious that there is a huge difference, the graphical fidelity of the arcade version is vastly superior and the sprites are much larger.

@jak_1894 3 года назад

Yeah but can you fly Bobby🤔😂😂

@Ish0tJR 4 года назад

29:15 The game footage from the Mortal Monday commercial on the Sega CD is actually from the SNES version, yes, that actually happened.

@BasketCase-rr7tx 4 года назад

They probably used the SNES footage because they didn't want to show blood.

@Tempora158 4 года назад

@@BasketCase-rr7tx The Genesis version also doesn't have any blood when played as-is so they could have shown it in the commercial, but it's obvious the SNES version was the best looking home version of the game, which is why it was used in the commercial.

@segadatabase 4 года назад

What's so special about that? They just included the commercial (which had footage of the SNES version) as the intro. I can see why they didn't bother editing in footage of the Mega Drive/Genesis version.

@Tempora158 4 года назад

@@segadatabase It's the optics of it. It's like showing a third party game trailer during an Xbox E3 press conference and the trailer contains PlayStation button prompts during its gameplay segments.

@drunkensailor112 4 года назад

The Sega Cd version had blood in it at default and no blood code though

@balaam_7087 4 года назад

“...you play as Bruce Lee on a vengeful journey across continents and infringed copyrights...’ 🤣

@TheAufziehvogel 4 года назад

Yeah I love this and prefer the oldschool stuff over this Science-Fiction bullshit where they turned Liu Kang into a laughing stock and let me fight against Zombie Jax who will someday turn the world into Wakanda. The series always was beautifully hilarious and became unfortunately some Superhero nonsense. Damn Ed, turn this franchise into Martial Arts Action again and get rid of this Sci-Fi thing intoxicated by Warners monetizations.

@vh9network 4 года назад

@@TheAufziehvogel Science-fiction bullshit? Spoken like someone who doesn't own the game.

@Dex99SS 4 года назад

This is great! I love these episodes, especially on the weekends... Like being a kid and having cartoons to watch all over again, reliving some of the best of the past with a host who recalls it all as fondly as myself. Love it, absolutely love it.

@justanotheryoutubechannel 4 года назад

OH MY GOD YES 16 VERSIONS!? John, I LOVE you! These are so incredible, like true documentaries rather than RU-vid videos.

@jorge69696 4 года назад

With the death of cable TV, this will be the future of documentaries.

@Ballowax 4 года назад

@@jorge69696 that's good because network television is horrible these days. It's nothing but reality tv programs

@johnnycage3673 4 года назад

Mortal Kombat 2 is still my favorite, followed by Mortal Kombat Trilogy.

@freezersk 3 года назад

Played MK a lot, but destroyed several keyboards on MK2…

@demonreturns4336 3 года назад

Yo Johnny can I get an autograph!!??

@ThailogXanatos 4 года назад

37:58 John, FM synth in the DOS version of MK1 sounds decent when played on a period correct soundcard like a SB Pro or a SB 16. Those cards use genuine Yamaha OPL3 chips for FM synthesis. Creative's later cards like your SB Live use CQM, a clone chip which sounds noticeably worse.

@3DGECASE 4 года назад

The SB Live also doesn't have CQM, its FM is entirely software emulated, based on the sample-based FM "imitation" (calling it emulation is a stretch) method used in the Ensoniq AudioPCI, which was rebranded as the SB16 PCI.

@ThailogXanatos 4 года назад

Nintendope64 my bad, it was the AWE64 which had CQM, not the Live. My point is, cards that don't have a genuine OPL3 chip tend to mangle FM synthesis in various ways. I was surprised that John chose the SB Live to showcase FM synth since it makes the music sound worse than it's supposed to be.

@snetmotnosrorb3946 4 года назад

How can you know so much about these things? I've gamed on PC from time to time since 1995, and never heard of _anything_ about this sound jungle until I started watching these retro videos a few years back. Even when I tried to look into it, it seems everything is undocumented.

@kenmckell 4 года назад

Also, the MT-32 was a MIDI sound card produced before the General MIDI standard was established. The music we hear - which made me literally LOL during the video - is actually the *correct notes* being played but on the *wrong instruments*. Many games that used the MT-32 - Sierra Online's specifically come in mind - directly loaded onto the card new "instruments" (and sound effects) that were meant to be used for that game only. Especially when it comes to drum-based sounds, which were produced on its own individual "track", one could come up with a completely different palette of sounds that would be perfect for the specific scenario in which it was to be played but would sound like junk in any other case. Trying to use a General MIDI-based card (like anything produced by Soundblaster or later Roland cards like the SCC-1) to play MT-32-based MIDI files would produce the horrible sounds like what we hear in the video. I imagine if you used a real MT-32 to play the music on the PC, it would sound like what the original composer intended it to sound like. :-)

@Dwedit 4 года назад

MT32 wasn't a card, it was an external MIDI synthesis module. You connected the module in via MIDI cables, then plugged in speakers.

@dreammfyre 4 года назад

"Guardians of the Hood" Now that's a spectacular game title.

@shreder75 4 года назад

Agreed lol

@Newgodofwar 4 года назад

Guardians of the Hood: A Story of Bloods and Crips

@zachsteiner 3 года назад

Lmfao

@pobbityboppity1110 4 года назад

This is an amazing video, John! You should be very proud of the work you've done with DF Retro. Also I really love when a Game Boy port shows up in any of these retro vids. Always a huge curveball.

@mikejenkins4924 4 года назад

I had an arcade next door to my house, so was pretty much in there everyday. Remember when this released. Everybody was stll obsessed with Street Fighter II, but this cabinet got my attention immediately, and was responsible for eating all of my pocket money, birthday momey and christmas money in the first few weeks. Amazing game in an amazing time.

@roberthanthonymartinezrive7383 4 года назад

This is, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the best history crash course videos about MK1. Props for showing the mighty impressive Atari Lynx homebrew release and for briefly mentioning the never released (and not often talked about) Atari Jaguar port by Iguana :D

@hkoizumi3134 2 года назад

I vividly remember the first time noticing MK at the pizza place where my parent used to work at. It wasn't the visual but the sound that drawn me closer to it. It was screaming, bashing sound, and grunts. When I laid my eyes on the arcade, it was love at first sight. I was 12 years old at the time and I felt cool for being able to watch along with older teens around it. These kinds of nuisance are seldom can be replicated today.

@m1keand1ke 4 года назад

Love this series! I remember the first time I saw MK in the arcade in the 90's. Nothing even came close I was in awe.

@merlingt1 4 года назад

Agreed. I was obsessed with this game as a kid.

@luisjalabert8366 4 года назад

@@merlingt1 Me too! I can only remember the huge amount of time I wasted playing this on PC...

@jbscotchman 4 года назад

Haha yep, I was 12 at the time and couldn't believe what I was seeing. It looked so real!

@ZuneGuy1118 4 года назад

Not me. I hated the stiff animations of digital characters. Every Street Fighter game was my obsession.

@stingymcduck5450 4 года назад

Here is my Mortal Kombat story: when I was a kid in the 90s, the main platform I had to play the game was in my 386SX PC. Of course, the 386SX being what it was, I had to set the graphics to Low (it meant some background layers were absent, like in Genesis), I only had access to PC speaker sound (just awful) and then we have the performance, it was almost half the normal speed. But with all these drawbacks I LOVED IT, I played the game like crazy for a long time. I'm not kidding, one day when I went to the arcade and saw the game there, it felt like I was watching Super Mortal Kombat Turbo, it felt so fast it was hilarious. When I later got a sound card I could enjoy diigital sound and even later on when I got my beloved AMD 5x86 133Mhz, I finally enjoyed the game in all it's MSDOS glory. Fun fact, the exact same experience translated to Doom.

@pelgervampireduck 4 года назад

I played both mk1 and doom on a 386 dx 40mhz with 4mb of ram, I had to lower the graphics too, but in some stages it still was like slow motion.

@stingymcduck5450 4 года назад

@@pelgervampireduck I remember The Pit was the best performing stage, I loved it LOL. Doom was slow, everywhere. Hell, even Wolfenstein 3D and Duke Nukem II performed poorly.

@artthefarter 4 года назад

I would love a digital foundry video on the Microsoft flight simulator games. Also I love these videos thank you for making them.

@J.A.Z-TheMortal 4 года назад

Especially now that the new version seems ultra impressive

@ShindlerReal 4 года назад

I love Den Forden's sound design in the original 4 MKs.

@robhiro 4 года назад

I still play this game today. Emulation is such a gift.

@pkaulf 4 года назад

It's no coincidence that one of my best summer holidays as a kid was the 2 weeks I spent in Crete in 1993 where I got to play Mortal Kombat at the arcade pretty much every single night. Got the Amiga version as soon as it was released and looking back it wasn't fantastic, but at least it seems to have been derived from the best console port. It's a shame they didn't support the A1200/CD32 which would have done it justice.

@MykeBatez 4 года назад

Thank you so much for your efforts John. These pieces are such a special experience getting such knowledgeable research packaged up with your polish and flair. Thanks to all of DF, but especially to John for being yourself and making such unique and special films.

@Sylveryse 4 года назад

DF Retro is easily one of the best things on RU-vid. Keep up the great work!

@Rationalific 4 года назад

Wow! Such an entertaining episode! I do hope that you do explore the explosive sequel, Mortal Kombat II, as that is my favorite MK game! It would also be interesting to see the differences in techniques for The Pit 2. I loved my Genesis version, but was blown away with the pixel zooming and turning of the Mode 7 (or similar) SNES implementation. I'd definitely like to learn more about the technologies and techniques involved in all of the versions of MKII!

@CalvinCrack 4 года назад

One of THE BEST and most essential episodes you have done. this is required viewing for anyone getting into this show....this could have been episode one the pilot for all I care, but obviously it has the benefit of years of experience getting better at this sort of video. You make the best gaming content on the web as far as I'm concerned. Keep it up, and thanks!

@lahma69 4 года назад

Wow, what an awesome thorough job! You simply couldn't have done a better, more complete study of the history of Mortal Kombat ports. Keep up the great work!

@thecathat2725 4 года назад

You know it's a good Sunday when it comes with a df retro Love this series!!

@Superdimensional 4 года назад

I remember the first time I saw MK and it was at The Yellow Brick Road Arcade in University Town Center, La Jolla California. That place was the fighting game Mecca at the time, I was there all the time around the time it came out and the day it was unveiled there, my friends and I were there. Initially we were so embedded in the Street Fighter camp we hardly gave it a chance and talked shit about the robotic looking animations of the characters. But since nobody was playing it, and it was new, we pretty much had the machines all to ourselves. Good memories!

@m.l.679 4 года назад

The sheer quality of this video is simply staggering. Subscribed to the channel right away!

@ChrisBarrett1 4 года назад

Thanks John and Audi for all the time and effort you put into this video. The production value of these videos go above and beyond a lot of content on RU-vid.

@renatodealmeidalopes4638 4 года назад

Also, I would love to suggest a DF Retro focused on ports of SNK fighting games to home consoles and handhelds.

@josecabre1 4 года назад

This

@loganjorgensen 4 года назад

Digitization is a funny term in present time as the advent of digital cameras there is no analog form to convert to digital anymore, however the Photoshopping or touch up aspect was something skipped by many using video sprites. But the control and flow of MK sprites is definitely something taken for granted as nobody else did it this well ever again. Always kind of wished the Genesis version had the same amount of voice samples as the SNES but in hindsight I learned it wasn't just a matter of trading muffled for scratchy but that samples on Genesis simply couldn't compress as much so there was always fewer. Ah so that's how that SMS/GG version uses background tiles, people say it does but I've never heard the how and why of it. ;) Nice highlight on the SCD enhancements, I didn't notice much of this bitd but the sound enhancement was nice. It's not complicated to describe the Amiga color reduction as it's 32 colors like SF2 rather than the 64 the the GEN/MD used, the performance demands of big sprites must have been a factor plus sound and how many disks it would come on. I wonder which version I had since the first PC game I bought was MK on disks. Lol yeah I got that version of SF2 on a DOS Capcom CD compilation and it wasn't worth playing much like DOS Mega Man. Don't remember the music sounding like that, sounded great on a Gravis Ultrasound card. Kudos on featuring the pirate games, a lot of people have tried to make fighting games work on NES/FC to various degrees of success and failure. ^_^

@JZF629 4 года назад

This is HANDS DOWN, by FAR, the ABSOLUTE BEST DF Retro video I’ve ever seen, AND THE BEST MK VIDEO TO DATE!!! No amount of praise could give this proper justice, well done. Please do MK2 and MK3 also!!!!!

@MCMXLVIIIAlt 4 года назад

Thank you so much for this great and informative video! I see a lot of work and passion were put on this, congratulations for crafting this amazing documentary.

@crookim 4 года назад

I remember the first time I saw this game at the arcade, I was mindblown! And I knew I had to have it!

@thehoodybadger3402 3 года назад

*Cues the score when Goro drops down from the top of the screen* Shut up and eat my quarters!

@dreammfyre 4 года назад

PS the MS-DOS version of Super SF2: Turbo edition from -95 was pretty damn solid for its time. Ran pretty flawlessly on my 486. Also has some of my favourite versions of the songs.

@paulj5336 4 года назад

Phenomenal work John. This could be one of (if not THE) best videos you've ever done.

@BrunoFonsecaPT 4 года назад

Great video! Thanks for your continued support of retro games.

@shreder75 4 года назад

It's funny seeing all this handheld footage while my son is playing splatoon 2 at 60 fps in the next room. We've come a long way, gamers.

@CherryPixelBun 4 года назад

Heck you can play MK11 on the same handheld that is visually paired back but content complete

@shreder75 4 года назад

@@CherryPixelBun also true

@lirfrank 4 года назад

@@CherryPixelBun at 60fps, too!

@sppspharmdude 4 года назад

Van damme declines MK, years later Acclaim gets him to motion capture for a Street Fighter game thats designed after MK

@coleredmond8459 4 года назад

Not only that but the SF game is so awful and terrible while MK, for the most part, is still fondly regarded to this day.

@pferreira1983 4 года назад

@@coleredmond8459 The Saturn version of Street Fighter The Movie is well regarded.

@Alexander5R 4 года назад

@@coleredmond8459 I guess you meant SF movie.

@KillThad 3 года назад

@@pferreira1983 The Saturn version is just a texture mod of SSF2T. The arcade version used a custom engine was its own engine and was awful.

@pferreira1983 3 года назад

@@KillThad Probably why the Saturn version is well regarded. 😊

@Corygarry 4 года назад

Love to see this format of DF Retro, can’t get enough of these historical breakdowns. Keep it up!

@DeformedLunchbox 4 года назад

I am just constantly amazed by the content this channel puts out. I can safely confirm this is my number 1 favorite youtube channel right now!

@Hezkore 4 года назад

I've never seen the arcade version this clearly recorded. It's shocking to see the characters I know and love in this high quality.

@xyz2theb 4 года назад

damn 54 episodes already?? feels like this series started yesterday lol

@MrPoisonito 4 года назад

One of the best DF Retro vid in my opinion. Great work, great storytelling. Thx John and all DF retro team! Look forward next vids!

@msbae 4 года назад

The original arcade and Genesis versions are always going to be my favorites.

@jeremybowers3181 4 года назад

This video was "EXCELLENT!"

@paulsmith3416 4 года назад

DF retro is the best, i love the normal Digital Foundry episodes but im an 80's kid, my life was Amiga, arcades, mega drive, super nes and all of the above consoles, keep up the good work :)

@matcarfer 4 года назад

John you keep getting better and better. This video is superb.

@madfinntech 4 года назад

1:10 Right choice of music right there. I know this is going to be my favorite DF Retro episode. Here's hoping MK2 and MK3 sometime in the future.

@AztecUnshaven 4 года назад

fuckin classic soundtrack man... even after all these years... Dan Forden is a legend... "Toasty!!!"

@EposVox 4 года назад

Great job, as always, John!

@eliasmalam 3 года назад

hello

@uniqutilities2831 4 года назад

Incredible retrospective! Great depth and objectivity! I remember anticipating Mortal Monday, and appreciate the thoroughness of your work!

@reagandow850 4 года назад

What a phenomenal and informative video. You’ve gone way above and beyond here. Thanks for putting together such an amazing piece of work. Thumbs up all the way around. 👍

@ALKATRAZZ 4 года назад

MK1 was in Mortal Kombat Unchained? That's something I never knew!

@lirfrank 4 года назад

Me neither, I couldn't find how to unlock it either.

@Poever 4 года назад

Bless their hearts for (trying to) get it on Game Boy

@Favourites669 3 года назад

I was expecting some light comparisons between games, but this turned out to be like a very entertaining, well done and informative full-on documentary. You earned another subscriber!

@GustavoYmusica 3 года назад

Man this was a great one! Just amazing work. Thank you.

@strikefirst3404 4 года назад

You missed talking about the Secret Menu called the EJB Menu, for Arcade. See later. This also works for the Kollection version of PS3 (2011)

@justanotheryoutubechannel 4 года назад

That Famicom game ripping off Mortal Kombat sprites looks INCREDIBLE. Like wow, for a Famicom game it’s stunning! They almost never have colours that good. *EDIT:* The platformer, I mean, not the fighting game.

@pelgervampireduck 4 года назад

I still have the cartridge, famicom kept being very popular in south america until like 1999 or 2000. everybody had those pirated versions of mortal kombat, street fighter 2 and even mortal kombat 2. the mortal kombat 2 version is even better than 1, it has all the characters, almost all the stages, all the powers/special moves, and blood too!. no fatalities... but hey, for a pirated 8 bits port, the famicom mk2 was awesome!.

@CptBladd 3 года назад

The production quality alone in this video is amazing. Great work John! Can't say enough good things!

@dangr3957 4 года назад

Awesome video! I never forget the summer of 1993 when I was 12 years old and met with a Mortal Kombat cabinet and it literally shocked me, and probably made me a video game enthusiast for life!

@mindphaserxy 4 года назад

Genesis fans always bragged about getting blood... And then Mortal Kombat II released and the SNES version totally slayed Sega's paltry 64 color palette and terrible sound. John if you do a breakdown of MK3 please include the MS-DOS and Windows versions, since they're different.

@JuggaloDundee 4 года назад

Yeah hardly anyone brings that up. If MK1 on SNES had of had blood, it would be considered the better version as well.

@Justin-do7ll Год назад

Genesis version played better though, just like mk1 despite looking and sounding worse. Snes got the feeling of the game all wrong.

@strikefirst3404 4 года назад

MS-DOS was the best MK1 port, I had this one in 94 with a floppy disk and for SNES as soon as it launched.

@wellspokenman81 2 года назад

Amazing work guys - thanks for a great deep dive on MK!

@VideosbySteve 4 года назад

Ive been waiting my whole life for this video. Thank you John.

@WWammyy 4 года назад

Subzeros fatality on the SNES is underated though so much that it was the better fatality for Sub Zero in MK2

@dedkmk 4 года назад

That's a great video indeed! However, there are some things wrong: 1. Any emulated MK1 version, uses Revision 4.0, not T-Unit. You can easily check that by doing the EJB code on each platform; 2. The Atary Lynx port is home brew, it was never official 3. PS3 version of Arcade Kollection has been known to be worse out of the 3, as it had biggest input delay; 4. PS2 and Xbox versions differ a little (from the MKD Bonus Disc) and the ps2 does not slow downs if played from hdd; 5. I am surprised you did not mentioned the MAT: Deluxe Edition version 6. And there is one more official port you've missed - Tiger Barcodzz Overall, fantastic video and I enjoyed watching it.

@nikijacobson1178 4 года назад

Another awesome watch, loved it! Even though as an emulation enthusiast and owner of the PC CDROM MK1 at the time knew how it would go, was amazing to see the differences chronicled! Well done.

@pachinkor83 4 года назад

Great stuff once again. I've missed these full proper DFretros.

@GameplayandTalk 4 года назад

Amazing video, John. I too stand by the Sega CD version. Over the years I believe its load times have been overblown. The rest of the game more than makes up for it. Looking forward to the inevitable (I hope?) Mortal Kombat II episode!

@rob_i208 4 года назад

50:20 "Will we ever see a remake?" Interestingly John Tobias recently tweeted: "Keeping busy! Building the WBGames San Diego Studio w some super awesome people to create some super awesome games 👍🏻" I wonder what super awesome games he'll be making there? 🤔

@ChrisBarrett1 4 года назад

They're developing F2P mobile games.

@WMARUoriginal 4 года назад

A truly outstanding feature! Tremendously entertaining and informative.

@baroncalamityplus 4 года назад

This is a wonderful thing to wake up to on a Sunday morning. This was very well made. I love the detailed analysis of ports.

@lancemartin7584 4 года назад

This is THE video game that really concreted me as a GAMER!!! I was born in 85 and I remember not to long after the game came out my brother had convinced me to rent it as it was my turn to choose. Needless to say, that decision changed my gaming experience forever!!! What an AMAZING video John!!!

@djoetma 4 года назад

The Megadrive sound might be inferior, but there is something to the audio from the Yamaha-chip that I like making me prefer it to the audio that came out it the SNES most of times.

@Atrahasis7 4 года назад

I dont know the terms but Snes games have a weird reverb and echo. Mega Drive has a more pc midi sound.

@djoetma 4 года назад

@@Atrahasis7 True. Like an over-echo'd and accentuated bass. Sometimes it works well, like the Yoshi sounds in Super Mario World. But it comes over as an audio 'trope' to me, since you hear it in every game. But I think many people like it.

@SianaGearz 4 года назад

It's how the instrument sound evolves when a note is held, and variation in performance techniques. SNES loops a very short sample (memory limitation) and it becomes readily apparent, that although the attack and timbre are representative of the actual instrument, the performance is pretty liveless. On MD/Genesis you sacrifice timbre for a sound that grows and evolves with time as a note is held and has more inherent variability available depending on note/pitch. I think they could have done a fair bit more with SNES hardware, but the obscure sound CPU and mediocre first-party middleware were an issue.

@madfinntech 4 года назад

Indeed. I really prefer it most of the time and in this case as well. And especially in MK2.

@atarijaguarsgarage8873 4 года назад

@@SianaGearz You are comparing apples with oranges. The SNES features a beefy DSP that does wavetables and digitized sounds (8x 16 bit channels) for music while the Genesis does 6 channel FM. It's a bit like Amiga vs Atari ST, of course Atari fans are insisting the ST could sound better but it mostly did not. There are some excellent soundtracks for SNES games, e.g. Super Mario World, Castlevania IV or Axelay, to name a few, which use digitized samples of real instruments to create an orchestrated sound. Something that simply can't be done on MD/Genesis. The sound hardware of the SNES is much beefier/advanced than what the Genesis had to offer, the low sample rates were mostly due limited ROM space.

@idontcare3315 4 года назад

Excelent job, DF !! This documentary made me love the franchise even more.

@lickkittysplit3871 4 года назад

Such nostalgia watching this. Thoroughly enjoyed it very much!

@LBPreviews 4 года назад

19:40 , so glad John picked the Throne Room song which in my opinion sounds incredible on the Megadrive due to the better song writing itself.

@moonloop46 4 года назад

Throne Room music on Megadrive is actually The Pit music from the original. No, the "songwriting" is not better.

@AllardRT 4 года назад

@@moonloop46 I'd still would say the tracks on the Mega Drive were just better composed than the original ones. Both MK1 and MK2 were far more memorable music-wise thanks to Matt Furniss' reimaginings. Mega Drive's PIt music stands as a glorious example of that.

@moonloop46 4 года назад

@@AllardRT I appreciate Furniss' work, especially comparing to other ports of MK (I enjoy the Amiga soundtrack though), but Dan Forden's original soundtrack will always be the best one for me. It was first and I wouldn't say any later remixed take on it was an improvement. For most of the people it's just nostalgia speaking.

@AllardRT 4 года назад

@@moonloop46 You know what they say - it's not who did it first, but who did it best that matters.

@moonloop46 4 года назад

@@AllardRT Still Forden

@kennethbergan 4 года назад

24:00 Don’t talk to me or my sons ever again

@balaam_7087 4 года назад

I don’t understand your post. Are u sure u got the time stamp right?

@kennethbergan 4 года назад

Balaam _ oh yeah I definitely did

@stingymcduck5450 4 года назад

@@balaam_7087 I think he loved the portable versions. That's why he really felt John's comment LOL.

@bigblueassbaby9074 4 года назад

Stingy McDuck Try again.

@Sheen334 4 года назад

This game brings back so many happy memories from when I was a child. Seeing the advert for the first time absolutely blew my mind and I remember me and my friends saying how amazing it looked. Happy times indeed.

@Batsniper123 4 года назад

Outstanding video! Great job John

@peruprofundodance 4 года назад

See you again in 16 years upon the release of MK32!!

@stingymcduck5450 4 года назад

We'll probably be playing MK 15 by then.

@aL3891_ 4 года назад

DFRetro video: "GET OVER HERE"

@FrankHarwald 4 года назад

"Toasty!"

@cms1138 4 года назад

FINISH IT!

@16BitJayGaming 4 года назад

Excellent video John. I love the care and attention to detail you bring to these videos, I recently rewatched your Doom video for probably the tenth time. Love your work, keep it up.

@lelxrv 4 года назад

Great movie! Cinematography, presentation, research... I hope you will continue with other MK games in the future. 90s MK games (and the first movie) are some of my favorite gaming memories.

@snookers5123 4 года назад

I remember being stuck with that tiger toy version after getting it as a xmas gift. It sucked.

@noiryork 4 года назад

Having to wait for the game to load different characters during the Shang Tsung fight, on the Sega CD, sounds absolutely maddening and I'd pass on it just for that reason. With that said, I really hope John does a DF Retro for MK3 & Ultimate MK3. Those games got a lot of very questionable ports.

@LonelySpaceDetective 4 года назад

I'd love to see him rip into that GBA port.

@patton1977 4 года назад

What a brilliant detailed video please bring more of these

@type2red 4 года назад

Incredible analysis and documentary. Bravo.

@DuckAlertBeats 4 года назад

Nice one. Anyone know how to get this running smoothly on MAME though, with it's wacky refresh rate? I've never managed to run it without audio and video skips

@RetroGamesBoy78 4 года назад

I have every version here except for the PC releases & homebrew stuff. The Mega Drive port means a lot to me, just holding the box brings a wave of nostalgia over me let alone playing it. I even have a soft spot for the Snes version which i bought a year later, ok its buggy as hell , has input lag & no blood & 5 of the death moves changed, but i did wow at the graphics at the time and i loved the sound too. All in all i'd have to agree the Mega CD is the best console port of the day but i do find it a bit more of a disappointment than John did, having the background music jumbled up does really annoy me. I do want to give a shout out for the Amiga version which i was very impressed with all things considered and i personally had alot of fun playing it.

@Ross_Darlow 3 года назад

Loved the intro graphics and music, John. Nice touches!

@budge1972 4 года назад

Another fantastic video, love the work you and the DF team do.

@2strokesmoke783 4 года назад

32:00 sorry but whats going on with the Amiga Sprite of Sub Zero here? We just observed the sprite looking not too dissimilar to the Mega Drive version only 15 seconds beforehand, yet it looks atrociously portrayed here in this particular comparison picture.

@IngQuikemon 4 года назад

So is the arcade1Up a version that could have been included in this review? Is that one emulated? I would suppose it is...

@LordArikado 4 года назад

Arcade1Up machines all use decent-quality emulation, so there's not really a point in bringing them up in a discussion about arcade game ports unless they somehow manage to spectacularly cock up a particular game.

@BuzzaB77 4 года назад

Again another superb, thorough, entertaining slice of nostalgia thanks John.

@giantenemybird2687 3 года назад

This was way more in depth an interesting than I anticipated. Well done!

@ZinhoMegaman 4 года назад

And how is the Midway Arcade Treasures 2 versions? It's available on the 3 main 6th gen consoles and the Xbox version has the plus of being 480p.

@coleredmond8459 4 года назад

They aren't on that compilation, it just has the arcade ports of 2 & 3. 1 was yanked out of the compilation to be on the bonus disc for MK Deception's collector's edition. 2 & 3 were emulated pretty accurately despite minor issues(flickering shadows) and no save feature(you have enter the stupidly long code to unlock Smoke everytime).

@ZinhoMegaman 4 года назад

@@coleredmond8459 Oh I forgot that. But still John haven't touched the Xbox version of the MK 1 bonus disc, but it's probably the same as PS2 with 480p support.