This is SNES Man and welcome to Mosh March. Today's game is the classic 2-D fighter, Killer Instinct.
Killer Instinct was made by Rare, the British company that brought us Donkey Kong Country,
Goldeneye, and Banjo-Kazooie. I shouldn't have to tell you that these guys were brilliant.
They squeezed great 3-D graphics out of the Super Nintendo that still look pretty good
today, almost twenty years later. But it wasn't just graphics that made Rare great; their
games were respected for their creativity, fun factor, and this weird kind of charm they
had. I can't even describe it -- it's just there I guess.
Let's get down to gaming. Hm, which character should we choose? There are 10 in total, which
was pretty standard for the time. I'll pick Jago the Generic! He's your typical ninja.
At least Killer Instinct only has one ninja unlike Mortal Kombat where you can't hide
from the army of palette-swapped abominations! This is a fun game. It's not pretentious or
anything; it's just you and some other dude battling to the death. If you've played any
Street Fighter game before, then you'll be familiar with the battle system. All the characters
have different ways of punching and kicking and they also have their own set of unique
special moves. Unlike Primal Rage which I reviewed last month, the controls here aren't
too difficult to learn. Rare isn't too ambitious in this category -- they just combined the
button combinations from Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter into a cohesive whole and I've
gotta say, it works pretty smoothly. Killer Instinct isn't exactly a revolutionary game
but it wasn't trying to be. Instead of focusing on inventing a new fighting genre, it just
tries to be fun.
And it does succeed at that. For example, all the characters are unique from each other
(no clones!) so trying them out isn't a chore. My favorite is Riptor. I know he kind of sucks
but he's a freaking raptor! I have no shame! How many games out there let you play as a
raptor? Well -- Jurassic Park for the Genesis -- but that game has all kind of problems
that I don't want to get into. I'm SNES Man, not Genesis Lad. Anyway, I always have fun
when I play as Riptor. Die, Cinder! You pompous piece of shit. Ouch -- he just ripped Riptor
a new one.
Okay what about the other characters? I already mentioned Jago the Generic. He's basically
Ryu from Street Fighter but with ninja clothes. He's even got a really cliched Hadouken move.
It's exactly the same; I'm not kidding. But in Killer Instinct's defense, all the 2-D
fighters of this time period had a ripoff of the Hadouken and I don't blame them. It's
such a cool attack! Now, other characters: we've got the fire and ice characters: Cinder
and Glacius. We've got Spinal the Skeleton who looks like he belongs in a Jason and the
Argonauts movie. There's T.J. Combo the boxer, Sabrewulf the wolf man, and Orchid who is
the only woman. She's really crudely drawn and just plain embarrassing on Rare's part
so let's move on. Oh yeah, there's Chief Thunder. What was with these 90's game companies and
their obsession with Thunder and Native Americans? Whenever Thunder Hawk, I mean Chief Thunder,
uses his special move it sounds like he's saying "Beans!" Beans, beans! The last character
is Fulgore the cyborg. He's the guy on the front cover and I have to say, he looks pretty
cool and he's definitely one of the more intimidating characters.
Despite some cliches, the different fighters are pretty likable and fun to use. Killer
Instinct throws in a fun game mechanic called the "Ultra Combo" which allows you to string
together a bunch of attacks in a seemingly endless combo. Luckily, this isn't as cheap
as it sounds because if you're fighting another human, they can do a special button combination
called a "Combo Breaker" that ends your reign of terror. I was never great at wracking up
combos but some people really love this feature.
Another subtle mechanic I liked was the One Round system -- there's no Round 1, Round
2, or Round 3 -- just one long, continuous fight. This keeps the gameplay more intense
and gives it a unique, fast-paced style.
And Killer Instinct has fatalities like Mortal Kombat! Should you be excited? Well, sort
of. You can do finishing moves but they're not as gory or nasty as you would expect.
Now, I didn't grow up playing this game so I don't really know how to do these moves,
but I can still tell that they're not too special. Killer Instinct was more Street FIghterish
than Mortal Kombatish because it focused more on the actual fighting, not the fatalities.
For that, I give it some credit.
What else does Rare do well with this game? Well, obviously, the graphics. The sprites
were pretty big for the time and they move around really fluidly. The game has a sweet,
semi-realistic art style that reminds me of Donkey Kong Country. All the sprites are 3-D.
They've got a computer generated look to them that separates Killer Instinct from the other
fighting games of the decade (the others either had an anime style or digitized actors).
The audio department isn't as stunning in my opinion. The music is pretty good, a little
forgettable, but pretty good. The sound effects, though . . . am I the only one who thinks
they're ridiculous? "Er-er-er-er-ow! Turbo combo!" It sounds like they just sampled two
sound effects for every character and then played them over and over. Why? Couldn't they
have played fewer sound effects? Why do we need to hear a bunch of stuttering grunts
every time someone get punched? It kind of baffles me.
THINGS TO MAKE IT BETTER -Better sound effects. And don't play the
same ones so often! -Change some of the more generic characters
like Combo and Chief Thunder. -Redraw Orchid - that's all I'm gonna say.
-And finally, add some unique fighting elements. The combo system and one round system were
nice but they weren't exactly new.
Killer Instinct scores an 8/10. That's our first game of Mosh March! If everything goes
according to plan, my next video will come out near the end of this month. And that one
is going to be Street Fighter Alpha 2. Thanks for watching and I'll see you guys then!