Gaming in the years where politicians gave game devs swirlies, and forced them to change stuff for their most anticipated home ports.
I think this is gonna be the 3rd or so time I post this article online. First, it was on a static site I kinda wish I kept a backup of. Then, it was on another blog that's currently private for reasons I don't remember(knowing me like I do, I'm sure I have the best reasons, so I'll just pick the bones of that blog and repost some stuff here).
Anyway, Back in 1993, two herbs in the United States Senate(one actually named Herb, while the other was Joe Lieberman) made an argument about how evil video games could be. They brought up the FMV game Night Trap, which instantly invalidated their argument because no body was feeling FMV games but the people who kept making them.
Doom and Mortal Kombat were also thrown under the bus, so we eventually got that rating system that no parent actually pays attention to when buying lil Johnny a war crimes simulation game. It's been 30+ years since the First MK landed on the Genesis and Super Nintendo. The SNES version is notorious for being censored heavily. Let's take a look at what that games fatalities were changed to.
Liu Kang: Cartwheel Upper
Liu's fatality was always the weakest looking one of the bunch. He does this power ranger-like kata thing, and follows it up with a big uppercut. It's only kinda neat because you can do it on the Pit stage and have the enemy fall down to the spikes. So in this case, it doubles as a stage fatality 👍
Know what's different in the SNES version? There's no blood. Yeah, this was the easiest fatality to change and they didn't take the opportunity to give him a new one. Instead of a big stream of Cherry Juice, you get brown sweat bursts on hit from the uppercut. Also, the Pit has been cleaned so there's no more decapitated developer heads.
Johnny Cage: Decap...I mean, Mudhole Stomp
There's a cool glitch you can do in the arcade version of MK(not sure which revision, but let's assume that doesn't matter even if it does) where you can can punch your opponents head off multiple times during Cage's fatality. This is one of the goofiest cartoony moments in an series that got people excited over how real it looked at the time.
Johnny's original Fatality is good. His SNES replacement is really close to being good, if not for the whole censorship thing. He steps forward, in what looks like a powered down version of his shadow kick, and sticks his foot into the enemy's chest. Instead of having them explode into fireworks or something cool, they just fall down as if he said the famous line from that first MK movie.
Kano: Heart Rip...I mean Pulse Check
The act of ripping someones heart out of their chest, then raising it to the heavens as if to show the gods you're not built like these other fools, is what made Kano a pretty bad ass character from the jump. The guy who played him in the First MK flick also helped to establish the brash personality they eventually got around to using in Mortal Kombat 11.
This one is really odd because it winds up altering the enemies position on screen. Instead of having Kano reach into someones chest, the enemy shifts so it looks like Kano is reaching for his neck or something. I don't think Doogie Kano MD is trained in reviving a fallen fighter that he himself is responsible for being fallen in the first place.
Raiden: Electric Deca...Nah this is better!
I almost forget the console ports for this game spelling his name with a Y. It's not as jarring as it should be thanks to the fonts used for names in the lifebars. I'm sure there are people who prefer this spelling of his name, but I'm also sure there are people who were fine with having a completely neutered version of this classic on their SNES. So yeah...People like weird things I guess.
Striking dudes with a bolt of lightning in this port causes them to turn into a skeleton, and decompose into bone meal at an alarming rate. This is exhibit A for how stupid censorship really is. Violence is only acceptable if it's based on what you saw in a Merry Melodies short, apparently. I'm sure anyone who hates thunder storms hovering around their house at night gets hella anxiety as seeing these pictures. Poor Baby...
Nintendo said this is fine, so whatever....
Scorpion & Sonya Blade literally got away with murder.
If there's an MK documentary that explained the whole Toasty!! thing, it's probably the one I haven't watched. I remember seeing the G4 episode of Icons where they focused on Mortal Kombat, but that bit of trivia wasn't shared. I could be wrong(it's not probable) as I haven't watched any of those in a while...
...foreshadowing? More likely than you'd think.
Anyway, I don't actually see a tangible difference in this games interpretation of his Fatality. I guess the skeleton dropped to his knees quicker...That's really the only change here. You still hear a scream from the victim, but as there was no blood involved with this move, they didn't need to do anything.
I would have given him a chain chomp head, just to see if Miyamoto would shoot milk out his nose from laughing too hard.
Sonya's Flaming hot Kiss of Death is iconic. It also hasn't changed in this port, which adds to the legacy of that move.
Sub Zero: Spine Ri.. oh wow!
Sub Zero is a lot of peoples favorite character from this series. He can freeze you in the air, and get a free attack off of successfully zoning. He's one of the best fireball characters ever made because playing lame is what he's all about. I love and hate this bastard at the same time. I knew he was an instant classic from the jump!
This is the most interesting fatality in the SNES version. It's basically his MK 2 fatality, only with a standing back fist instead of a big uppercut. The home versions of this game were released in September of 1993. Mortal Kombat 2 was already in arcades at this point. The SNES may have gotten a gimped version of MK1, but at least it featured a lil flavor from the sequel.
Conclusion: Did this save the children in any way?
I'm not sure if any of these changes really did anything. I can't even blame the Senate hearings for this. Mortal Monday(the home port release date for MK) was in September. Sure, there was a lot of noise about game violence before the December 7, 1993 hearing, but I don't think this game suffered because a bunch of bored soccer moms wanted to cluck for attention.
Nintendo wanted Boon and the boys to tone everything down because they had a reputation to uphold. There was no way Club Mario in the 90s would let THAT game come out, uncensored, without a reason to justify a lax in maintaining the family friendly slant to their library. Something big would have to happen...like, a money situation for example.
Ahem....
The Genesis version outsold Nintendo's seal of quality laden lemon. That's reason enough to rethink your strategy, right? I grew up with MK 1 on SEGA's 16-bit Sonic Machine. Kinda felt bad for my friends who had the overly-protective stepmother certified version.
The MK sequels would later be released on SNES with all the gore intact, just as the Neatherrealm gods intended! Even with the ESRB still being a thing, game censorship hasn't been too much of an issue for most dev teams. I don't think the argument for it will ever be as big as it once was. People were just looking to point fingers at the time, and unfortunately video games were a very visible target for the ire of vote hungry friends who only railed against this hobby because they probably suck at Q-Bert.