Would You Still Want To Play Mortal Kombat Trilogy All Over Again?

If there was any Mortal Kombat game which I brought home during the late 90s it was Mortal Kombat Trilogy. I remembered spending time at the arcade unleashing my rage with Mortal Kombat II. I still can remember having this game on the first Playstation which for me was a mixed bag in the long run. I have the urge to want to have the game downloadable from Playstation Network all the while I'm caught in the Mortal Kombat reincarnation hype that happened last 2011. 

What's my memories of this game? This game can be fun and frustrating at the same time. The Playstation version gave us the option to play as the bosses namely Goro, Kintaro, Motaro and Shao Kahn. But there was one issue with that one: two player games can be fun or frustrating. I remembered how often Kintaro was spammed by me or my peers until one of us yelled in frustration. The game had a lot of balancing issues for two players especially with Shang Tsung's ability to morph into other characters which thankfully got limited in the reboot edition. 

What I considered fun about this game are the Auto Combo features (combos were SO MUCH harder back then), the One Button finishers (which made Brutalities MUCH easier), the several ways to finish your opponent than just the fatalities (and I wish Friendships returned in the game's reincarnation) and sometimes, the ability to play as the bosses in single player mode. Yet I also thought of other parts why I think Mortal Kombat aged badly back then: it was the attack scheme that made almost everyone the same together with the palette swapping.

So what's with the frustrations? I could talk about the limitations of the first Playstation. There's the very slow loading times. The A.I. can be such a cheating bastard to the point it's frustrating. Sometimes, I end up spamming Rain or Noob Saibot just to win and there are times I end up mashing like crazy. There's also the memory of bosses being a lot more difficult to defeat. Goro may have gotten rid of the stomp move but he's still frustrating as ever. Kintaro is really still that frustrating. Worse, Shao Kahn tends to pound me so much that I had to use the secret menu just to defeat him or any of the bosses for that matter.

Time came and a lot of stuff happened. I couldn't play Mortal Kombat Trilogy on the PS2 without the crashing. I enjoyed Mortal Kombat Deception but I couldn't enjoy it for long. Tekken's simple yet deep fighting scheme was a lot more enjoyable. The day came when Mortal Kombat got reincarnated with the reboot game. The game was fun for a lot of reasons which I could name. Some of these involve the back to the 2D fighting plane, the use of the one-button per limb system similar to Tekken's, easier to perform fatalities, the fatality tutorial, babalities are modified as the new "Humiliation" taken straight from the first Killer Instinct game and the legendary Story Mode which is a reincarnation of the old game's storyline.

With that in mind, I really feel like I don't miss Mortal Kombat Trilogy that much. Sure, I might miss playing as the bosses but there's a good reason why the bosses in the reboot aren't available for gameplay. The bosses are quite imbalanced and are too strong which makes playing as them in actual tournaments unfair. The game was meant for tournament circuit boards and it's all about balance. I can think of how my fights with Goro and Kintaro in this game are challenging without making me want to break my controller. Also, I'm glad that Motaro never got included because that guy was more frustrating than fun to fight against. The game was more balanced and I can still think that I'd rather frustrate gaming buddies using Liu Kang than using the bosses against them.

But some people may still want to replay Mortal Kombat Trilogy. In my case, it's a mixed bag whether or not I still want to play it in this day and age. The digital age could let that game be downloadable and maybe Netherrealm Studios could have considered giving it as in-game bonus content. But again, I really still find myself in the reboot hype than wanting to play Mortal Kombat Trilogy all over again.