If you are a gamer from the 90s then you probably remember how stilted fighting games were on the 32-Bit CD-ROM based consoles that were “all the rage”. No matter what the platform was, 3DO, PlayStation, Sega Saturn, fighting games were subject to a, in some situations, game breaking problem. Load times. This fact of life with CD-ROM gaming was exacerbated with games that featured a character that could change into another character anytime in the match. Also, any game that had end of match abilities – often simply called finishers no matter the game. Mortal Kombat 2 was one that pushed both hard. Never officially released on the 3DO, MK2 is getting a port by a fan, and it is better than official ports.
While gamers today are spoiled by consoles that are powerful enough to emulate the arcade version of 90s games, back then, we had to settle for ports. Considering the consoles were still quite different in capabilities in that era, ports were sometimes quite unique. Most notably, loading times for cross platform releases were mentioned heavily in the media (or colors in the case of one fighting games shadows).
Mortal Kombat 2 was one release that was more of a tech demo by the time it was ported to PlayStation and Sega Saturn considering Mortal Kombat 3 was the latest hot release, also getting ported. MK2 also showed a glaring problem with CD-ROM based gaming and just how far developers and hardware manufacturers had left to go for true arcade at home gaming.
Loading times were causing, sometimes excruciatingly, long waits in the action.
The 3DO port of Mortal Kombat 2 that is being developed by 3DO HD on YouTube is already looking to break the glass ceiling that the PlayStation and Sega Saturn ports hit.
I am not going to pretend to understand the programming tricks and methods in use here, those are documented in the video by the developer for those interested. I will say, the game looks phenomenal and makes me wish 3DO could have gotten their official port, I believe MK3 was announced but not MK2, released so we could have a comparison of sorts.
There is no noticeable pause in the game as fatalities are loaded nor when Shang Tsung morphs into other characters (not just the one he is fighting). On PlayStation and Sega Saturn, there were noticeable pauses for both instances.
This is just more proof that the 3DO had tons of hidden potential.
What was your goto fighting game of the 32-Bit era? Mine was Street Fighter Alpha 2 (which oddly, somehow, got a port to the 16-Bit Super Nintendo). Let me know in the comments below.
