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Sheeva’s been removed from the game entirely due to memory constraints, and in her place are… try to constrain your excitement here… more ninjas. The Super Nintendo and Genesis ports are pretty much just the same ports of MK3 with UMK3‘s new content added in, which means that while it doesn’t look much like the arcade, it at least plays like it. The problem is that certain options are only available on higher difficulties, so if you want the good stuff, be prepared to spend a lot of credits. The other treasures do things like starting a fight with either Noob Saibot, Ermac, or both at the same time, the Galaga minigame, and a demonstration of some of the game’s Fatalities, among others. Not that it’s really worth it, since the unique ending artwork for each character has been replaced with their VS portrait placed next to a bunch of scrolling text. Yes, this time around, you actually have to choose if you want to see your character’s ending. From here you select one of twelve different symbols, each one giving you a different prize, one of which is getting to see your character’s ending. If you manage to beat Shao Kahn this time around, which you probably won’t be able to do without some serious cheating or AI exploitation, you’re sent to a screen called ‘Shao Kahn’s Lost Treasures’. This game does not want you to beat it, ever. Even worse, the endurance matches from the original Mortal Kombat have returned, and on higher difficulties you even have to face three opponents on one round. Anything you try to do, it’ll find some way to punish you for it. If you try to jump backwards, nine times out of ten, it throws a projectile that will more than likely hit you.
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For example, if you try to jump towards it, it jumps at you and does a kick, every single time. Now the AI will counter nearly everything you do from the first few matches, and it’ll do it so well that there’s absolutely no way it isn’t cheating. Unfortunately, the AI’s been made much more brutally unfair compared to the original MK3. The single player mode has been changed a little, so now you have four difficulties to choose from when you begin a game.
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