Mortal Kombat 3

Variants

Also released in a standard jewel case version.

Jewel Case Release

Misprints

• There are no known misprints.

Review

Mortal Kombat 3 and at the time, its main rival Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo received absolutely ludicrous amounts of media coverage and gamers’ attention. While pitted against each other by both parties, the comparison was unfair; Street Fighter’s entry was simply another upgrade to an existing game, and MK was a whole new title. None the less, both were insanely popular at the time.

This wasn’t to say neither didn’t have a dark side to the popularity. Since we’re on the MK3 page, we’ll deal strictly with it’s problems.

Mortal Kombat II, for me, was the pinnacle of the previous generation Mortal Kombats. It had the best cast of characters, the coolest (and well designed) Fatalities, just the right amount of secrets and Shao Kahn wasn’t the absolute [jerk face] he is in this one…but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

This time around, Outworld invades Earth, foregoing any tournament rules and obliterating anyone and any thing in their past. Souls are stolen, cities are destroyed, and for whatever reason there are more copy-and-pasted characters than you can shake an arcade machine at. Some of the then new characters included Stryker the Riot Cop, Sheeva the Outworld she-creature, and Kitana’s mother, Sindel. Levels are now mostly set on Earth in a graveyard, along Chicago, and some Outworld areas. New to the boss fight is Motaro, an equestrian half horse / half minotaur creature that is as cheap as he is unfairly balanced.

Control was tweaked in two ways, an added Run button, and dial-a-combos. The combos added a bit of fun thanks to the unique animations hidden in them, but skilled players or the computer on a higher difficulty could obliterate the player (read: me) easily every time. Both Motaro and Shao Kahn are absurdly pain-in-the-asses in this game, though the latter can be easily controlled if you’re playing Sub-Zero. There’s a fine lean between cheap programming and true difficulty. MK3 runs head first into the cheap bin giggling along the way.

Midway’s attempt to make the game seem darker and more dreadful than its past iterations regretfully takes a wrong turn into absurdity. There’s now another Sub-Zero, the token black character (Jax from MK2) decided he needed robotic arms, the ‘scary’ ninja robots are just people in BMX armor, and Shang Tsung now looks like he belongs in a trailer park rather than a martial art’s tournament. While the urban areas are a nice change of pace, the locales are fairly boring, especially the bank and the tower. Very few stages have any life to them, the only bright spot being the bridge with its flying garbage and the cemetery with the developer references.

Worse, the Fatalities, the very heart (no pun intended) of the series were nonsensical and almost insulting. Jax has the ability to become a giant and step on someone, Kabal scares you to death (no, seriously), and Smoke destroys the entire planet…and then you all come back for the next fight. Worse still, abandoning MK2’s ingenious button-press-matches-the-fatality animation in favor of completely random button patterns. Pushing further, the animation team phoned it in. It’s so bad, if someone gets cut in half, their hands and arms just float there. Don’t even get me started on the Animalities.

Mortal Kombat saw some seriously bad times after the third installment. The PlayStation was home to several side-story games that were…bad. It would take years for the series to return to form on the PlayStation 2 and Xbox.

With the series having a brilliant reboot on the Xbox 360 and PS3, and the classic Trilogy (via 1,2, and Ultimate MK3) available on their online shops, there’s little reason to track this version down. Left to us collectors and variant hunters, this is a home game that needs to be left in the OutWorld.

Final Score: 5 / 10 – Average

After a fantastic second outing, the MK team is clearly tired and out of ideas. When the guy named Scorpion isn’t the one to morph into a Scorpion, something is wrong.

Screenshots

PSX PlaySTation Mortal Kombat 3 Screenshot 1

PSX PlaySTation Mortal Kombat 3 Screenshot 2

PSX PlaySTation Mortal Kombat 3 Screenshot 3

PSX PlaySTation Mortal Kombat 3 Screenshot 4

PSX PlaySTation Mortal Kombat 3 Screenshot 5

PSX PlaySTation Mortal Kombat 3 Screenshot 7

PSX PlaySTation Mortal Kombat 3 Screenshot 8

PSX PlaySTation Mortal Kombat 3 Screenshot 9

PSX PlaySTation Mortal Kombat 3 Screenshot 10

PSX PlaySTation Mortal Kombat 3 Screenshot 11

PSX PlaySTation Mortal Kombat 3 Screenshot 12

PSX PlaySTation Mortal Kombat 3 Screenshot

Videos

Trivia

• Mortal Kombat was part of a bizarre (and annoying) trend in system exclusives that caused other series to follow suit. MK3 was exclusive to the PlayStation, but Ultimate MK3 was Saturn exclusive. MK4 went back to PSX when the Saturn died. Capcom had DarkStalkers on PSX, it’s sequel on the Saturn, and then part 3 back on the PSX. Bear in mind that this adheres to the US side of things only.
• There is a peculiar design flaw on the back of the long box packaging. They have the same screen shot twice. The jewel case variant fixed this.
• Mortal Kombat 3 may be the only game in the PlayStation library that marketed itself, both on the disc and manual, as its nickname / abbreviation of MK3 rather than it’s full name of Mortal Kombat 3.
• There are 10 entries in the non-existent High Score area of the game, used simply as goals set for the player. However, each set of initials refer to another Midway game. Right now the going theory on them are as follows:
  • MK4: Mortal Kombat 4
  • WWF: WWF Wrestlemania
  • NHL: NHL 2 on 2 Open Ice
  • MK3: Mortal Kombat 3
  • MK2: Mortal Kombat 2
  • MK1: Mortal Kombat 1
  • DOM: Doom (Midway / Williams did the home version)
  • CAR: Cruisin’ USA
  • ROD: Hot Rod Rebels (canceled sequel to Rush 2049)
  • OFF: Off-Road Challenge
• There are three famous quotes that randomly cycle through out the attract screen. The first one is the most ‘rare’ one, while the second is the most common. They are:
  • Imagination is More Important than Knowledge
  • There is No Knowledge that is Not Power
  • The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth
• Stryker’s Friendship was altered due to RAM issues. In the arcade, all characters run past while he acts as a crossing guard. In the home version, several ‘Babied’ characters in a wagon scroll by. In Mortal Kombat Trilogy, it was partially repaired. Instead of using all the characters, they simply dumped in all the palette swapped characters (ninjas, female ninjas, robot ninjas) to an almost similar effect.
• Due to RAM limitations and the disc loading time, the original arcade Kombat Kode ‘Randper Kombat’ became ‘Quasi Randper Kombat’. Here on the PlayStation, the code causes each player to constantly switch between either character and back. In the arcade, it would randomly change to any character in the roster.
• This was originally released on damn near everything. GameBoy, Super NES, Genesis, PlayStation, Game Gear, and even PC DOS.
• There’s this really odd issue with the background cycle program that can also be found more prominently in the Saturn MK Trilogy game. When the player knocks the other character through the ceiling in a two-stage level, if the match goes to the next round, the CPU thinks that the 2nd level is where you started from, and will begin the level cycling all over again. The Saturn version is so bad you could literally go through the entire game on only 3 backgrounds.
• Mortal Kombat 3’s background choices were a bit peculiar, though understandable. While the first 2 games had tournament areas, haunting OutWorld locations, and the like, MK3 used more common everyday locations to illustrate that Earth was indeed the battleground this time around. In this case, you fight in a bank, on the street, in a church, etc.
• MK3 featured a ‘password’ system using symbols that if properly cracked, would allow different aspects of the game to be altered.

Secrets

Mortal Kombat 3 is full of secret codes, especially in the 2-Player Versus mode. All of the individual standard codes are actually rolled into the Expanded Cheat Menu, so use what you like. Let’s do it!

Standard Codes

• Discover the Hidden Realm of Rellim Ohcanep – The Hard Way
  In two player versus mode, one player needs to maintain and reach a 100-Game (yes, ONE HUNDRED) win streak. Doing so will cause a special message to pop up, and then both players will play a Galaga-inspired mini-game where both players must shoot alien shapes. Each player only has one extra life, but you do not need to destroy all the enemies. Once you reach enough, you will hear Shao Kahn say “Outstanding!” and return you to the 100th fight. To understand how difficult this is, it requires that the opposing side never misses continuing. If their timer hits zero, the win streak will end, allowing your initials to be entered into the Scoreboard. Once player 2 logs back in, it’s back to 0 for the current champ. There is a trick to help this…see the next cheat.
• Give The Losing Player More Time on Their Continue Screen Or Kill Your Win Streak
  Whoever wins a 2-player versus match can give the opponent more time to Continue. The winner can press their Start Button to reset the loser’s timer, up to 3 times per loss. If you want till 1 second, it means a maximum of 8 more seconds is added; up to 24 possible extra seconds. While useless at home, this would have given an arcade player more time to fumble for the next quarter or token. Pressing any other button will speed up the counter, easily killing your win streak.
• Random Character Select
  For player 1, press Up + Start on Shang Tsung. For player 2, press Up + Start on Liu Kang.
• Activate Free Play
  During attract mode where it explains the story, press Up, Up, Right, Right, Left, Left, Down, Down. Shao Kahn will say something and you’ll see ‘Free Play’ appear on the attract screen and Continue screens. Infinite continues!
• Activate the Ultimate Kombat Kode screen and Unlock Smoke
  At the Copyright screen, spin the D-Pad or Arcade Stick a full 360° Forward (Right, Down, Left, Up, Right). If successful the UKK screen will pop up. Press R1, Triangle (x6), Circle (x9), and Cross (x6). This will fill in the bar as Kombat Kode 010-696. Once the timer runs out, Smoke will now be playable.
• Standard Cheat Menu
  When the screen goes black after the “Prepare For Kombat” screen,  quickly press X, L1, and L2. If you did it correctly, you will hear a drum snare roll as the copyright screen pops up. Press Start and at the main menu “cube”, press Up to see the Question Mark. Press Cross to access. You will now have access to Free Play, Smoke, turning off the Fatality Time Limit, and Level Select before each match.
• Expanded Cheat Menu
  Need more than the standard options? Do this instead. Turn on the game and at the Copyright Screen, press Cross, Circle, Triangle, R1, R1, R2, R2, R1, R1. You’ll hear Shao Kahn say “You’ll Never Win!” Now press Start, press Up at the Menu Cube, and choose the Question Mark. Besides all of the other options, this will also give you access to 1 Hit Kills and 1 Round fights.

2-Player Versus Kombat Kodes

After you pick your characters but before the fight starts, a Versus Screen pops up with 6 tumblers at the bottom of the screen. Player 1 controls tumblers 1-3, and Player 2 controls 4-6. There are 10 possible icons that can be placed in each tumbler, with each players’ HP, HK, and LK manipulating their individual boxes. Each icon is assigned a number, so if you wanted to enter the code 1-2-3, it would  HP (x1), HK (x2), and LK (x3). This would produce the visual tumbler of MK Logo, Yin-Yang, Number 3.

The Icons and their number assignments are:

• 0 – MK Dragon
• 1 – MK Logo
• 2 – Yin-Yang Symbol
• 3 – Number three
• 4 – Question Mark
• 5 – Lightning Bolt
• 6 – Goro
• 7 – Raiden
• 8 – Shao Kahn
• 9 – Skull

If you press and hold Up while pressing the buttons, you’ll count backwards. So if you needed to get to 8, you could hold Up and then press the respective button twice to reach it. This would be shown as -2 in some guides. The codes and their respective effects:

• Player Health Related
  033-000 – Half Energy for Player 1
  000-033 – Half Energy for Player 2
  707-000 – Quarter Energy for Player 1
  000-707 – Quarter Energy for Player 2
  975-310 – Health Slowly Regenerates For Both Players
• Player Move Related
  020-020 – No Blocking
  987-123 – No Meters
  100 -100 – No Throws
  722-722 – No Combos
  555-556 – No Special Moves
  390-390 – Both Players Inflict Half Damage
  390-000 – Player 1 Inflicts Half Damage
  000-390 – Player 2 Inflicts Half Damage
  466-466 – Unlimited Run
  321-789 – Super Run Jump (Press Run + Jump to leap full screen)
  688-433 – Super Uppercut Recovery (Can now juggle with uppercuts)
• Match Related / Combination Kodes
  688-422 – Dark Kombat (Screen goes black)
  460-460 – Quasi Randper Fight (You constantly morph into the other player and back)
  040-404 – Real Kombat (No specials and health regeneration)
  024-689 – Super Endurance (Health Regeneration, Half Damage, Unlimited Run)
  985-125 – Psycho Kombat (Dark Kombat, Randper, No Blocking, Meters Flicker)
• Winner of the Match Plays Against…
  969-141 – Winner Fights Motaro
  769-342 – Winner Fights Noob Saibot (Kano in Silhouette on a modified stage)
  033-564 – Winner Fights Shao Kahn
  205-205 – Winner Fights Smoke
  642-468 – Both Players Enter the Land of Rellim (A nod to Galaga. Shoot the creatures! Miller was a friend of Ed Boon’s)
• Hidden Messages (No game modifications)
  987-666 – “Hold Flippers During Casino Run” (Referencing the Jack-Bot pinball machine)
  282-282 – “No Fear – EB Button, Skydive, Max Countdown (A hint for Williams’ No Fear pinball)
  123-926 – “There is No Knowledge That Is Not Power.”