Fatalities

A Fatality is the finishing move Mortal Kombat lets the winner perform on a beaten opponent. Shang Tsung screeches “Finish Him!”, the loser stands stunned, and a secret button sequence turns the free hit into a decapitation or a spine rip. The moves sold the game, got it renamed and censored on the Super NES, put it in front of the US Senate, and multiplied into Babalities, Friendships and Animalities as the series went on.

Fast facts

Mega Drive release: 13 September 1993, “Mortal Monday”, from Acclaim; the Super NES cartridge was reviewed the following month.
Super NES version: “Fatality Moves are now called Finishing Moves and four of them have been replaced” (Nintendo Power, October 1993).
In Congress: “Congress focused on the violence in Mortal Kombat, and on Night Trap” (Ken Williams, spring 1994).
The sequels: Babality and Friendship in Mortal Kombat II (1994); Animality added in Mortal Kombat 3 (1995).

“Finish Him!”

CVG reviewed Probe’s Mega Drive conversion in August 1993, a month before Mortal Monday, and described the ritual for readers who had not seen the Midway arcade machine:

At the end of your second victory your battered victim will stand stunned for a few seconds and Shang Tsung will screech ‘Finish Him!’ You’ll then get a ‘free’ shot at his crumpled body to complete the slaughter.

The reviewer added that “although Mortal Kombat’s all about destroying your opponent in the most violent way possible, there is a points structure to the cart as well”. By December Edge’s charts had the game at number one on both machines, at £60 on Super NES and £50 on Mega Drive.

The Super NES version

Nintendo’s reputation for softening violent games was known before the cartridge shipped. A Superplay reader wrote in July 1993: “I heard Nintendo will most probably cut out the fatalities (death moves), and all the blood and stuff. Is this true?” The magazine’s answer was that “for commercial reasons, Nintendo have traditionally toned down violent games in the past”, that “Nintendo’s reputation remains untarnished, something that’s far more important to them in commercial terms”, and that “it is quite ironic — after all, the game is spectacularly popular simply because it is so violent”.

Nintendo Power’s own review that October confirmed it: “Fatality Moves are now called Finishing Moves and four of them have been replaced from the arcade version: Rayden zaps opponents, Sub-Zero turns them into crumbling ice sculptures, Kano punches through the chest and Johnny Cage sticks his leg through the chest.” Its verdict box offered that the changes “can also be a positive if you want a new challenge”.

In Congress

Sega’s own magazine described the winter of 1993-94 in its April 1994 issue: “headlines all over the nation have centered on video game violence, fueled by highly visible Senate hearings on the issue.” The letters page named the two senators sponsoring rating legislation, Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, and explained that Sega had withdrawn Night Trap from the market in January. Ken Williams of Sierra, in a guest editorial the same issue, recorded which games the senators had singled out:

Congress focused on the violence in Mortal Kombat, and on Night Trap. The amount of violence in a creative work cannot be used as a means of determining whether it has a right to exist.

The publishers’ answer was a rating system. Sega, Nintendo, 3DO, Atari, Philips, Acclaim and Electronic Arts formed a committee at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and on 4 March the Interactive Entertainment Industry Rating System Committee announced it would have “a comprehensive rating system in place by the end of the year”. See Congressional Hearings 1993 and ESRB.

Mortal Kombat II

By the time Mortal Kombat II reached the Super NES in autumn 1994 the position had reversed. Nintendo Power announced that the game “has it all — all the moves! Fatality, Babality, Friendship. And all the characters”, then dismissed the previous year’s argument: “the content of MKII is pure fantasy. Anyone who thinks you’ll need a mop to clean up after it is seriously misinformed.” Its review scored the conversion for including “all the fatalities, babalities and friendship moves” “in their original form”.

The new finishers inverted the original. Nintendo Power’s strategy guide explained that “to go for a Babality move, there can be no punches thrown in the final round of the match. Instead of ripping off body parts or gouging spleens or something really cool like that, your opponent turns into a diaper-wearing baby.” The Friendship had the same no-punches condition and was, the magazine said, for “the weak of heart”. The Game Boy cartridge kept the Fatalities and Babalities; “the Friendship moves didn’t fit”.

Mortal Kombat 3 and the imitators

The Super NES Mortal Kombat 3 of late 1995 carried “the multiple Fatalities, Friendship, Animality and Babality moves”, the Animality being the new one. Killer Instinct had finishers too: Nintendo Power called its Humiliation moves “a kinder and gentler alternative to bloody Danger moves”, the Humiliation leaving the loser dancing, and GamePro’s 1996 moves list gave each character a “No Mercy” and a “Humiliation” alongside the combo breakers.

Finish them