The visual style and finishing moves stand out most in my mind. Like its predecessor, Mortal Kombat 2 uses digitized actors except everything has a more colorful, more fantastic, slightly animated, slightly photoshopped, appearance. Neither cartoony nor real. Somewhere inbetween. Combined with the games moody, atmospheric, lo-key music; the game's darker, more dynamic and visually interesting backgrounds; the more intense announcer whose voice takes on a menacing quality. And MK2 succeeded in attaining the appropriate tone for an other-wordly over the top fighting game with gore galore.
The trademark Fatalities return with a vengeance. Going bigger, more over the top, than the original Fatalities delivering some of the best in the series. It hits a good mixture of dark, violent, slightly fantastic, some slightly humorous, and all outrageous -- Jax smashes someone's head, Kitana delivers a kiss that makes them inflate and explode, Kung Lao cuts them in half with his hat, Liu Kang morphs into a dragon, Sub-Zero throws an explosive ice-ball, Scorpion still has his trademark "Toasty" Fatality, and my personal favorite: Shang Tsung morphs into the four-armed monstrosity, Kintaro, and punches his victim in half.
In addition to not one but two fatalities per character, everyone receives two joke finishing moves -- friendships and babalities (the former, funny. the latter, pointless.) Friendships range as much as Fatalities in diversity, only in the goofy department. From Kitana baking a cake, to Reptile advertising a doll, to Liu Kang breakin' down with a disco-ball. Hey, if the Fatalities themselves weren't enough clue that this violent game has a sense of humor, here's the Friendships. Babalities? Turn your opponent into a baby. "Woopee."
The game play deepens significantly from its predecessor (which, granted, MK was pretty shallow as fighting games go.) Like Mortal Kombat 1, all of the characters share all the same basic punches, kicks, uppercuts, jump heights (etc) which again gives the character-specific special moves all the more emphasis and importance in differentiating the characters. Mortal Kombat 2 features special moves that flow more naturally, more fluidly, into high damage combos/juggles (watch a Kitana player for a crash course.)
An expanded character roster dropping two characters from the previous game (Kano and Sonya), MK2 added five new characters to the lineup including Kung Lao, Kitana, Jax, Mileena, and Baraka, and finally making two previously unplayable characters playable (Reptile, and the shape-shifting Shang Tsung). Returning characters, naturally, receive a few upgrades. Lui Kang gets a little more color to his costume, and gains a low fireball, and a bicycle kick. Sub-Zero can now freeze the ground and make his opponents slip. Johnny Cage has a shadow uppercut to match his kick, just to name a few.
MK2 drops the endurance matches, the mini-games, replaces the underwhelming Goro with the bigger, badder, faster (not to mention far more interesting) Shokan Kintaro. Then further adds a taunting boss, Shao Kahn. Both bosses possess moves that start faster than any playable characters, and feature less recovery time. Oh yes, they also do far more damage than any individual move a playable character could unleash.
Once again, Mortal Kombat delivers bosses who play by a different set of rules. In MK2's defense, at least the Kintaro and Shao Kahn battles still entertain, which I can't say the same for a few future MK games (MK3, Deadly Alliance.) Overall, MK2 doubles everything the first game offers, and delivers a game infinitely superior to its predecessor. It looks better, it sounds better, it plays better.
Mortal Kombat II rocked.
