The passage of time makes the mid-late 90's era of video games look like a desperation period, as franchises were trying to lay the foundation for the future of development and engines. But the foundation is mostly laid out with Rhode Island Z blocks, as the tech wasn't strong enough to meet the ambitions of some studios. this left some games stuck in this awkward period between the old and the new, and in the field of fighting games, Mortal Kombat ended up with its gears in neutral.

The Mortal Kombat series rose to critical acclaim for its solid, approachable gameplay, lore, and was infamous for the gratuitous violence that raised the ire of parents and senators (it's the only reason I ever learned who Joe Lieberman was in grade school). While still maintaining some popularity, Mortal Kombat was starting to look a little bit old, with its MK3 dial-a-combo battle system feeling like a poor imitation of Killer Instinct's fluid and bloated palette-swapped roster of ninja clones. With this era of gaming coercing devs into buying engagement rings for the polygon era of video games, everyone was taking a swing at 3D entries. Enter Mortal Kombat 4.

Developed and released by Midway in 1997, Mortal Kombat 4 would be the final time the franchise would see an arcade entry. And it's Midway's second 3D fighter, following the comically atrocious abortion known as War Gods. It certainly played better, and introduced some things NeatherRealm Studios would integrate back into their games, but for the hype, pomp, and attempt to return the series to a more darker route, Mortal Kombat 4 ended up feeling like the same stuff, but clumsier.

Not making the same mistake of vanilla Mortal Kombat 3 by omitting fan favorites and replacing them with horrible knockoffs (mall cop Stryker is NO Johnny Cage), MK4's roster blends some old with the at-the-time new warriors. At the time, only sorcerer Quan Chi seemed to be treated with overwhelmingly positive fanfare. Other than that long-running rumor that Reiko was Shao Khan, the populace seemed rather lukewarm with these colorless additions.

I was long tired of Liu Kang as the canonical hero of the series by this point, and hoped Kai would've been a viable new successor. I was also still steamed about Cage was pretty much a parody of himself after being cynically shoved into MK Trilogy, so even his return didn't excite me. Kuai Liang puts the Sub-Zero mask back on, an interesting decision, and Jax still has his metal arms, those would become a very annoying nuisance for the character, as they would be his only defining trait for decades, I hate it.

Goro is just back as a mid-boss fight, his return was a big part in the marketing. The game's villain, the Elder God Shinnok, is alright, and I don't mind a break from Shang Tsung and I was exhausted with Shao Khan's taunts and unblockables, his initial appearance here comes off rather subdued, not quite feeling like the imminent threat he's set up to be. I'll stop, I'm getting derailed here and just rambling at this point.

Visually, MK4's polygon models were pretty impressive for the time. While there were limitations with the digitized actors going forward, I still have a soft spot for them and felt they were synonymous with the series. It also gave some grisly realism to the finishing moves (nb4 some retorts "...but you explode into 45 femurs and skulls"), namely Mortal Kombat II.

With 3D models, you do have free range to make fatalities more brutal, but the visual style just wasn't ready, and the savagery of these match-enders just look funny. Quan Chi ripping off someone's leg and beating them with it feels like something I'd see on an Adult Swim program.

Your trademark violence is also harder to impress when the blood is now blocky rather than splattering the arena. During story sequences in endings, characters also gyrate about like they're having Parkinson's spasms, so any seriousness in there poorly voice-acted bits are impossible to take with any weight or gravity. And it's probably customary to share this clip, since it's mostly what MK4 is remembered for.

The gameplay is practically Mortal Kombat 3's speedier rushdown philosophy, the Run button still exists, but significantly more floaty. No real changes or overhauls to a formula that felt rather bare bones to begin with, and the combos seem to do way more damage than before, as scaling practically doesn't exist. One chain can decimate a life bar and leave an oppenent fairly grouchy. 

The weapons, MK's new feature, is an interesting idea in theory, but along with looking really stupid (Sonya's silly pinwheel blade), they didn't really overhaul the meta all that much. Maybe decent combo extenders, but that's about it. Generally, when they get knocked out of my hand, I won't even bother trying to get them back, since the start-up can be abysmally slow for the heavies.

These weapons do little to flesh out any personality for anyone on the roster, and just feel like a last minute gimmick to include to make the already aging combat seem fresh in some matter. The playing field can also be scattered with rocks, heads, and such, which can be picked up and thrown. Another feature that would be later seen in the Injustice series, so what's old becomes new again. Here, it's counterintuitive and becomes an oversight. 

Mortal Kombat 4 is a weird game. And not in that interesting way, in more like that guy who wants to pull you aside to watch a compilation of Carlos Mencia on YouTube sort of way. Or your friend's band being geniunely terrible and he wants to ask your honest opinion sort of way. It changed very little with how the team wanted the game to work as a competent fighter, and the glorification of the fatalities was never a strong foundation to build a fighting game around. The characters feel haphazardly built, projectiles suck, the added gimmicks more hamper the controls and feel than add to them, and the sound effects are total ass.

Tekken, Street Fighter, and King of Fighters boasted much more to offer in terms of gameplay and nuance, while Mortal Kombat is the Steve Buscemi meme with the skateboard trying to fit in with the youngsters. Killer Instinct 2 in arcades felt fresher and more nuanced, leaving MK more in the dust. The later enhanced port, Gold for the Dreamcast would beef up the roster and try to open up the gameplay, but following 4, Mortal Kombat would wander aimlessly in the wastelands of Outworld for a very long time before finding their footing in the late 2000's.