How To Beat Mortal Kombat 2's Insane Difficulty! | Arcade1Up 

The sound effects and visuals in the game are amazing. The voice overs are still some of the best ever made.

God this brings back so much memories of going to my local arcade and watching people line up to play MK2 for hours... Best childhood memories there. Miss it. Sure you can play online with people in the comfort of your own home, but something about actually being there next to your opponent.. making friends.. the sights and sounds of the arcade.. nothing like it.

Man I used to know every single ability for every character, how to turn into each character with Shang Tsung, beat all my friends, and still never beat the game vs this AI. Awesome to see them smashed. Thank you for the video!

The Mileena / Kitana AI throws are ridiculously frustrating and bs

When you get to Kintaro..with any character, when the round starts, don't move. High punch repeatedly, Kintaro will get hit with the first punch an stand there as long as you keep high punching. Do this for 99 seconds an win flawless victory both rounds.

The most effective strategy I found was to force the CPU to jump towards you and counter them with a quick jump kick. To do this take one step forward and jump backwards. You'll notice the CPU hesitate for a split second before jumping forward. You'll hit the ground first and that'll give you the opportunity to launch the jump kick counter. Its pretty effective.

Don't hold block at the beginning of the round against Shao Kahn. Hold down to duck, his dash attack won't connect, and then you can uppercut.

The AI was likely made insanely hard to promote people playing each other which, of course, equates to more quarters.

This game's final ROM revision has loop holes depending on who you pick and which side of the machine you play on. These loopholes require the difficulty to cranked all the way to max (VERY HARD) to make the CPU AI predictable from the 3rd fight to the end. This way, the only hard battles will be the hidden characters (Jade for 1P game, Smoke/Noob 2P game) and the bosses ... If you're playing on the left side: Pick only Cage, Reptile, Sub-Zero, Shang Tsung, Jax, Baraka, and Scorpion. With the latter being the only exception, all these fighters have one thing in common: no teleport move. Teleporters are handy only on the right side because they have a different loophole to exploit. From here, during the 1st match on the Deadpool, just duck down. The CPU will walk right next you, and whiff high punches. Time it right and uppercut 'em. Or if you're Cage: nut punch, football punt (F+HK), shadow kick juggle. You can win the fight with just all uppercuts but the CPU could still get in some retaliation. For the 2nd fight, the pattern there is two or three jumps backward to create distance and then jump forward and kick, and juggle or sweep if it lands. Fairly easy fight but this pattern only works here because now the CPU is pissed off and ready to kill you. 3rd fight onward: When the fight opens duck for a split second. The CPU could open the round with either a jump kick attempt or a teleport, and if you time it right, you can make them pay with an uppercut. Other than that, this is where the CPU likes to approach you until they reach just outside of sweep range and either throw a projectile or teleport move. This is where a CPU Raiden becomes dangerous because he can decide to just ... hooomakamatayeeee ... from the front or back! The key here though is they usually chuck 3 or 4 projectiles moves in a row before advancing forward, teleporting, or shadow kicking. If they advance forward, you need to time a backward jump so that when they walk in close for a high punch, it should whiff since you're already near the arc of your jump or making your descent. This goads the CPU into leaping after you after a brief hesitation ... and that hesitation is key because you're already on the ground by the point to either uppercut them or set them up for a combo. Without this hesitation, you should jump back one more time to create more distance since the odds are the CPU will follow you with another forward jump, setting themselves up for punishment. The drawback here: if you put yourself into the corner, *DO NOT FIGHT YOUR WAY OUT*! If you don't let the CPU throw you out of the corner, they will wreck you with a corner combo and then throw you. So letting them throw you is the best option as it's less damaging and puts them in the corner, where there's a 75% chance they follow up with a special move that can be blocked for a corner combo of your own. If they pursue instead, leap backward once they're within sweep range. They'll probably follow you with leap forward for the hesitating leap forward. Use this all they way up to the bosses ... BOSSES: For Kintaro, play defensively. He's going to fireball and leap a lot. But he's also going to roar and pose just as much. If you're using a character that has a 25 degree angled jump kick, you can Flawless Victory is ass all day long because if you do a snap jump kick right at his forehead when he's walking toward you, he'll bend down to double uppercut you and eat the jump kick instead. This snapping jump kick -- i.e. where you hit the kick button at the same time to leap forward -- is crucial for the boss fights, but fighters with a 45 degree jump kick (Raiden, Lui Kang, Kung Lao) can't pull this off but they have fireball and teleport traps to make up for it. Just keep practicing here. The 25 degree angled jump kickers can wreck Shao Kahn by forcing him into a corner and once there, duck his hook, and retaliate with a ducking low punch + uppercut for a sick two-hitter! RIGHT SIDE LOOPHOLE: This will be short and sweet: the CPU is a sucker for being goaded into throwing projectiles when you're doing a leaping backward kick. So if you time your kick very late so that the animation for it starts just a split second before you hit the ground, they'll throw a projectile, opening them up for a teleport combo or Liu Kang's low fireball. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. I shit thee not! You can fireball trap, teleport trap, diving bullet kick, ground roll yourself all the way to the bosses with the remaining characters since they can't perform any of the loopholes on the left side of the machine. Attempting those loopholes on the right side = Roundhouse City! Not good!

"It's doesn't care how many times it's kicked your ass, it's just wants to kick it some more..." MrGstar321

The AI was so damn brutal in this game even on the easiest difficulty

Oh man, after so many years I finally have the glimpse of a chance to beat this game. Thanks a lot!

Kintaro is very easy to beat if you're playing as Sub-Zero, just lure into a corner then freeze him when he taunt then push him to the corner before he de-freeze and repeatedly use low punches on him until he's dead.

For some reason this really satisfying to watch lol

14:03 "surprisningly Shang Tsung is not that difficult here" Shang Tsung: proceed to punish him

Crouch. Wait for the character to get close. Jump back. The enemy will jump towards you. Do a roundhouse kick. Jump forward (depending on character a combo may be possible.) Rinse. And. Repeat. This is pretty much how everyone in the arcade beat the game.

Barakas shredder is OP. The ai often walks or jumps into it.

Version 2.0 was actually fun to play in the arcades, and just about everyone could 1cc it. That all went away with version 3.1. My exploit fighter is Kitana - I use her longer sweep kick which has sometimes a phantom connect, and just take my time to draw the CPU in for an unguarded hits. Technique is pretty similar to yours in the video!

If you played arcades like this in the 90s, then you would be come the coolest kid on the block.

This is the definition of an arcade game, pulls the player in and takes all their money away.

My tactic used to be: Pick Liu Kang. Jump back and hold LK to charge his Bicycle Kick. Spam his Flying Kick (Fwd, Fwd + HK) a couple of times. Then release LK to do the Bicycle Kick. The AI would duck the Flying Kicks but stand up and get hit by the Bicycle Kick 9 times out of 10.

Thanks for shining a spotlight on the Kintaro method I use! The timing and distance are indeed crucial, but once mastered it becomes extremely consistent. Cheers!

Thank You So Much! Your video helped me to beat Mortal Kombat 2 (SNES) as Baraka! I kept on using that Shredder Move!

Proud to say, I beat MK2, in the Arcade, in the 90s (I don't recall the exact year). I used Katana, and I cheesed the SHIT out of it :) Fan wave, jump kick, air fan, zip punch combo on repeat.

Raiden is the easiest character to defeat Kintaro with. You can teleport after a knock down followed by a roundhouse kick. You can continue teleporting and roundhousing until he's defeated.

I have to admit, I have always wanted to beat MK2 on a very difficult setting with Baraka while doing the same thing over and over.... and now I know how! Thx!!

baraka's blade fury is the most damaging move in the game if i recall correctly. kintaro can be killed by any character by trapping him in the corner and low punching repeatedly. once you connect unblocked, he dies. shao kahn can be killed by repeated jump kicks from close range. he will block, but you can get into a groove where you connect before you character balls up and the space created by his blocking gives enough room to rinse and repeat.

Still have the muscle memory of how to do all these moves 25 years later....insane

Nice King of The Hill shirt you're wearing!

There is a mechanic in the game, which you can tell the AI jumps when you jump. If I recall it had to be player 2 side. But if you duck, wait for the AI to walk towards you , then jump back. The AI will delay then jump at you. This gives you free rain to do whatever you want to them. Whether it be juggle them or whatever you like. GL and enjoy.

Everybody in my town used these strategies: MK1: jump backward; jump forward + dropkick MK2 vs regular characters: crouch and wait; jump backward when AI gets close; AI will jump toward you -> uppercut or roundhouse-kick it while it's midair. Jump toward it and crouch. As it gets up, jump backward, and so on. Works with any character but only if you play on the Player 2 side. MK2 vs Kintaro: leg sweeps. Vertical jump + kick when he does the leap move. MK2 vs Shao Kahn: leg sweeps. crouch to avoid his shoulder tackle and uppercut him.

There’s a much simpler method with scorpion to beat the regular fighters after the 3rd one. Jump kick, hold down while they’re landing and getting back up, then when they walk towards you, jump back. They’ll jump with you, but you’ll land first. As you’re landing, start the spear move while you’re in the air. You should be pressing low punch to finish the sequence of the move when you touch the ground. By the time they land, they’ll jump right into the spear. You just do this forever until you get to Kintaro. With him, you can easily beat him with anyone and their jump kick. You just have to time it perfectly right after he uppercuts and misses you when you’re jumping towards him. The jump kick has to be SUPER late and super deep in order for this to work. You can beat anyone with Shao Khan, too. Sometimes he’ll mow over you with a shoulder thrust or a punch, but you can basically jump towards him, land right in front of him and crouch immediately. He’ll do a punch move. Wait for the punch move to completely end, then uppercut him. Jump towards him as he’s getting up and just keep repeating the crouch and uppercut method.

Great video. When I play at the arcade with Sub Zero, my strategy involves using roundhouse kicks, slides, and uppercuts, but the difficult thing is manipulating the AI into doing what you want it to do. When it comes to Kintaro, jumping forward and pressing high kick late tends to work, though one has to time it right in order for it to work. With Shao Kahn, I have done it by either jumping forward into him, and doing an upper cut, or by moving all the way back, ducking, blocking, waiting for him to ram into you, and then upper cutting him.

The AI difficulty never actually changes regardless of what the setting is in. What changes is how fast the AI ramps up the difficulty.

Great vid, bro! I get a nostalgia overload every time I see any of the og MK games (MK2 being the best). Damn, I yearn for those days as a kid playing in the local arcade, lol.

There's a method for beating Kintaro based on a simple fact: he does not have max damage pushback from punches. What I do is I choose Sub Zero and jump into the corner. Sometimes Kintaro jumps after you and does his battle cry. When he does, you have to freeze him. Once he is frozen, jump over him and push him into the corner while frozen. Then take a small step back and spam punches. You will be able to drain all his energy and he won't be able to escape from this.

Now that's interesting. Back then when I tried to figure out how all of this works in MK2 and how the CPU is cheating my top choice was always Barakka, followed by an intentional continue in the Kintaro match, choosing Kitana for that and the fight with Shao Khan. For both I always used the careful-defensive technique and when they got close enough without hitting me I threw the fan elevation thing, hitting them hard after that. It wasn't as hard and combo'ed as you did and took a lot more time but did the trick without a doubt using only one continue in best practice :)

There is a couple tricks I learned for mk2. Sweep repeatedly. I have won entire matches just but sweeping over and over again. The computer is more prone to falling for this in mk2. If your not playing as baraka you can still learn them into jumping towards you by jumping backwards and then when then flip towards you press back and high kick to do the round house

This definitely brought back some amazing horrible happy/sad crying moments

One thing I remember noticing in MK2. Johnny Cage got a new fireball attack, which looked like the ball in NBA Jam when you're "on fire".

I did that at arcade 25 years ago, Jeez that takes me back

Before there was the "cheesy" victory in Street Fighter Alpha, there was Baraka's blade slice lol.

Whoa! now I can see why my brother was number #1 in a small area of Santurce Puerto Rico. He was able to beat this machine at all times. He was definitely good but now I know how good he was.

I abused that Kitana combo so much back then. Fan lift > jump into late kick > fan throw > uppercut. Super cheap, super effective.

Cool technique. Makes sense. Smart playing. Simple and effective. Appreciate the vid

I always walked all over this game with Liu Kang when I was a kid. I'd be spamming punches, fireballs, and sweeps while charging the bicycle kick, and the second I knocked down my opponent, I'd be on them before they could fiht back. It was pretty rad.

Just hearing that old arcade sound brought me right back to playing MKII as a kid.

All you gotta do is hold down and crouch, then jump backwards. AI will pause, then jump forward without attacking.

The Kitana fan lift method was how I defeated Kintaro and Shao Khan to win Mortal Kombat 2 as a kid. She became my favorite player for that trick.

I used to cheese kintaro with Scorpion - get him into the corner and try and do the in close HP elbow, the temporary stun means you can do it as long as it takes. Shao Khan is easier, jump into him with no attack and duck, more often than not he'll do the kick or the punch which will miss and you can uppercut. Very cheesy but also effective.

Years ago me and my buddy played through metal slug at an arcade that was free to play. We calculated the amount of times we would have had to pop in quarters to beat the game and it came out to about 50 bucks from each of us

Wow! Funny how I stumbled upon this. I used this exact strategy when I played this game as a kid

I was a Scorpion player. Teleport spam was my friend, and his spear proved effective against the bosses.

Awesome playing. I go through hundreds of fighters myself to inflate the kill list and exploits really are king in these games. Especially final bosses in alot of these games. Its usually a matter of finding the character and move or moves that exploits the opponent youre on. These games often cheat and skip animations, dont take damage, read inputs or perform charge specials instantly.

The difficulty goes up as you play. If you set it to very easy by the time you get to the final fight it'll be on very hard. I'm really good with Reptile, I pretty much get to Shao Kahn with him and then use another character if I want to beat it with someone else.

I always wanted to see someone with a setup like that with old arcade machines. Nice.

I can attest to this method working back in the original arcade back in 1993-94 when this first came out. Figured it out myself as I just thought baraka looked cool and fun bloody blades! Why I always mained Baraka. And swapping to Kitana for Kintaro. I didnt know about the blade swipe for Kintaro using Baraka so learned something new!

Easiest way to defeat the AI is to jump away. When they jump towards you is when they're vulnerable. Works until you get to Kintaro & Shao Khan.

This video JUST made me beat MKII Arcade FOR THE FIRST TIME! all of Baraka tricks worked for me even with Kintaro! Thanks so much for this tutorial!

Kintaro was easier than Raiden. That’s crazy. Great job btw. Have so many memories playing this game as a kid. I remember I loved SF2 and when I got MK2 from my older cousins, I was really excited to play. my mom saw me playing it and was like “is that blood?! Fatality?!” 😮😮 It was more graphic than SF2 lol

Here's my strategy for this game, for opponents 3 and onward (minus the bosses), I usually jump backwards all the time, and the CPU mimics that as well, as soon as he jumps toward you, immediately high kick, rinse and repeat. The bad thing about it is, it does NOT work for all characters you play as.

Mixing in baraka's command slash move (forward+punch) here and there is also effective against opponents that try to shimmy you like raiden was. It has longer reach than his slashing barrage does.

Why do people making the most interesting videos on the internet assume "makin' it as short as possible" is a good thing? Dude, give us hours-long worth of MKI and MKII arcade videos, 20 minutes is too short! Jokes aside, great video man, genuinely enjoyed it

Caught this video late as i was about to sleep. Booted up MK2 this morning. Beat MK2 on my ps3 for the first time in 10 years lol.

On SNES, I remember my fallback technique was to spam the leg sweep, especially once you got them cornered! There seemed to be a lack of invulnerability frames for standing up that would allow you to cheese the shit out of them like this if your timing was good! PS: nice shirt!

The strategy I used that I found as a kid was pretty simple and usually got me to Kintaro was this - Keep ducked > Let them walk right up to you > Jump Back > 4/5 times they'll jump with you > Uppercut or round house kick > move forward to gain ground > repeat. The basic strategy. Which I think others here in the comments have mentioned. Doing uppercuts was risky though, a late timed round house kick was better because it would send them right over to the other side of the screen meaning you could walk forward and not get stuck at the back of the screen where you couldn't jump backwards. Kintaro I can't remember how I beat him, I think I just use to cheese him with jump kicks.

my folks were carnies so i grew up on the carnival playing this game in the arcade for years.. let me tell you something getting melina and or katana hopefully both in the beginning is an absolute blessing.. Getting those 2 towards the end is rouuuuuuuggggghhhhhhh! I love this .. Subscribing now! Also when back in those days.. this game was definitely always full and you had to get in line and throw up your quarter on the dash there and wait your turn, when your quarter came up it was your turn. I miss those days. TOASTY!

I had this game as kid, the trick is to maintain a certain distance you jump with a low kick and try hitting them on knee if I recall correctly worked well about 25 years ago. Specially with Kintaro.

You should do another video of MK2 but playing from the Player 2 side. The A.I. gives a different feel when you're trying to beat the game with any character.

I just always timed my backflip for the CPU to pause and jump forward. From there, you can uppercut or jump kick them in mid flip every single time. For Kintaro, you can backflip to the corner and wait for him to teleport stomp you. From there, if you can position yourself when he does his flexing pose, you can just throw punches at him till he literally falls over.

A child hood dream fulfilled in less than 20 minutes

Love your videos.I spent 3rd grade playing Killer Instinct, mk2, xmen vs street fighter, darkstalkers, all street fighters, cadillac and dynosaurs... OMG I want an arcade machine now! Very nostalgic.

I played cheap and used Kitana or Shang Tsung to turn into Kitana and kept using her glitch move to make them go into a trance.

There is a coin counter built into the game, it's in the game audits section, if I remember correctly.

I own the real full size arcade of MK2 and I always set the difficulty to very hard and I am great at the game. I spent tons of hours when this game came out and it's sad to see my Aladdin's Castle closed down in 2000. I was also in a MK2 tournament back then and yes I did win so money for that but for owning a real arcade I had to buy that with my own money when I was age 19 so I started very young in collecting real arcades. I'm 43 now and it's cool to see these mini arcades come to life again especially for the people who wasn't around the 80's and 90's so i'm glad Arcade1up came up with this idea and I wish we had these back then.

Back in the days, I think I beat the game only with Liu Kang, using fireballs.

Playing the Sega Genesis version when I was 10, If I saw that Mileena and Kitana were at the top of the tower, I'd immediately hit "reset".

I remember watching this guy at the arcade use Kitana to high fan them up in the air while they in the corners and just high punch them to death as they couldnt fall back down.

Oh man.. brings back so many memories of my high school years '94-'96.. Sighs.. Thanks for the video!

That was an interesting watch. Can't recall playing MK2 in the arcades, though I did play MK1. Mostly I played KI2 and somehow got far with just button mashing and careful positioning :P

When you let kintaro win I started laughing hysterically

If you wait till the opponent gets close to you, then jump backwards they always jump after you, (maybe not the first or second fight cuz they’re easy) then when you land you can attack with either high kick or a jump kick (with someone that has an air throw like jax you jump kick then hit block for the added back breaker) this is quite effective against the AI in that game.

back in the 90s what we did was a very simple thing.....wait for the computer to get pretty close to you, but not close enough to grab you, then jump back. if the computer jumps, upper cut it. if it doesnt, then jump back again. it takes a while to calibrate the distance correctly, but once you do, it will follow your lead every single time.

I figured out pretty quickly that Baraka was the fighter that would get you to Kintaro with that slashing attack when I first played the game. After that just jump kick with any fighter to defeat Kintaro and possibly Kahn. I only found out about beating Kahn effectively by watching youtube videos.

No one is mentioning the player 2 glitch where you duck and jump forward from the right distance and without pressing any button. It makes the ai walk backwards to the end of the arena.

If you wish to have or play the ultimate version of MK2 ever made, with a more forgiving and less cheap AI, i suggest you try MK2 PLUS. I installed it on my MK2 arcade cab and this is definitly hands down the best version of MK2 period. Your gonna throw MK2 ver 3.1 away. You get a few new moves, a new AI which is less cheap if you put it on extra easy, Jade, smoke and noob saibot are playable, and some fatalities have also been enhanced like for Johnny cage torso rip, the enemy's legs falls down once he throws the torso over his shoulder instead of remaining straight, which never made sense to me back in the day, stuff like that. Theres a new MK2 plus menu too and features you can tweak to your liking, you can choose the coin-up screen and the game over screen, use the classic or turbo mode, use the new AI or keep the old one.... In a word, its great ! And the greatest thing is, they used the original code within the game to bring out all those enhancement. Its not a mugen version, they kept all the original assets of the original game. Its like an updated version of the 3.1 revision. Check it out, its free if you know how to patch the rom (which i don't think will be an issue for you considering your skills) heres the link : www.mortalkombatplus.com you have all the instructions on the website on how to patch the rom and install the game. You can also get the new UMK3 PLUS that just came out a week ago. Enjoy !

Thanks for the tip, now I'm gonna have my revenge in arcade center around here.

First fight, console or arcade, hold down. AI will always punch, most of the time you can time a free uppercut. It's MK2 though, so sometimes they'll ignore that you did anything and punish.

Try crouching and jumping backwards when the opponent is coming towards you. Use kick to cover yourself. The opponent will jump after you and is wide open for uppercuts, roundhouses, fan lifts etc.

17:50 Shao Kahn's Shoulder Charge, all you gotta do is duck with no block, this leaves him wide open for an Uppercut. There is a certain distance where he gets up and automatically goes for the Shoulder Charge. After an Uppercut, stand that distance and you can just Uppercut after his Shoulder Charge everytime

11:14 LOL! That instant stage Fatality disrespect. 😂

I remember studying these move for weeks when It came out and beat the game on $1 so much fun

lol this was a cool video. my strategy was always doing a high output of damage or trying to manage one. I'd do Sub-Zero, jump back to bait them to jump in, roundhouse, freeze the ground, they walk into it, roundhouse/uppercut, slide, jump kick - rinse and repeat. not full proof though obviously

In the arcade I use to hope somebody would come over to challenge me. A human was slot easier than computer 😂

I remember doing something like this back in the day, but not as a static strategy. I had no concept of how the CPU AI worked back then, so I just assumed it would only work once and then that was it. Which is funny given how effective spamming the sweep often is and I did try to do that a lot.

Wear glasses and a Strickland Propante t shirt, he is going to "kick your ass" in Mortal Kombat

Haha yes, I would LOVE to know the $$$ these machines earned!

There is a way to quite literally control the computer, we used to call it "walking them back".

Thumbs up ✌🏻 Keep it up !

Great video mate and thanks for the tips...... excellent gameplay. 👊🏼