It’s totally the developers’ prerogative when it comes to the respective animals their characters turned into for Mortal Kombat Trilogy’s Animality finishers, but it’s certainly the case that there wasn’t much rhyme or reason behind a lot of said transformations.
While some made total sense (Sub-Zero morphed into a polar bear) others made us double take at character names (Scorpion infamously became a penguin with inexplicably exploding eggs) as their animal pairings made little to no logical sense. With that in mind and with Animalities finally back en route to Mortal Kombat, we thought it’d be fun to take a historical look back at these kill moves for the MK1 characters that had them.
It’s clear that developers at Midway didn’t want to go with the most intuitive animals for these unique finishing moves for most of the UMK3/MKT roster.
Raiden becomes an electric eel, but besides the aforementioned Sub-Zero and Liu Kang that’s the only one you might guess based on character themes.
Reptile, for instance, is a humanoid lizard, so it comes as a surprise that evil sorcerer Shang Tsung is the one who morphs into a massive cobra. Reptile’s Animality sees him transform into a chimpanzee (admittedly vicious creatures who will literally tear one another apart) and proceed to merely chase his opponent off screen.
That’s right, no death, no dismemberment, no actual physical interaction. The lizard guy just turns into a monkey and chases you, that’s it.
Sequences like Reptiles were entertaining and the kind of tech available nearly 30 years ago definitely restricted what developers could do in terms of animations. Now Mortal Kombat boasts some of the most intense and realistic graphics in the business, and the snippets of MK1 Animalities we’ve been privy to already promise much more elaborate and cinematic animation sequences.
We’ve gone ahead and listed out the Animalities for all 15 of the MK1 characters who also appeared in Mortal Kombat Trilogy/Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 along with brief descriptions of how they took out their oppositions.
• Liu Kang – Morphs into dragon a la Mortal Kombat 2 Fatality, bites opponent in half.
• Sub-Zero – Morphs into polar bear, mauls foe.
• Scorpion – Morphs into a penguin, waddles to foe’s legs, drops explosive penguin egg, egg explodes.
• Kitana – Morphs into small white rabbit, leaps on opponent and begins mauling them as they flee off screen in what has to be an homage to Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
• Johnny Cage – Morphs into a kangaroo and kicks foe with both feet, sending them off screen.
• Kung Lao – Morphs into cheetah, mauls foe.
• Mileena – Morphs into skunk, sprays opponent and makes them faint.
• Rain – Morphs into a baby elephant and screams through trunk so loud that it melts your skin off.
• Smoke – Morphs into a porcupine and rapid fires quills at opponent until they explode, which is why you really want to avoid porcupines in real life.
• Baraka – Morphs into a vulture, slowly hovers over opponent and rips them in half, carrying the top away.
• Reptile – Morphs into chimpanzee and chases opponent off screen.
• Sindel – Morphs into giant hornet and stings foe repeatedly as both move off screen.
• Shang Tsung – Morphs into giant green cobra and eats opponent in one bite.
• Ermac – Morphs into a regular-sized frog, opens mouth to size of opponent and either bites or mouths them and they explode.
• Raiden – Morphs into an electric eel, wraps around foe and electrocutes them until they explode.
• Cyrax – Morphs into a shark and devours opponent in one big chomp
• Sektor – Morphs into bat and decapitates foe.
• Noob Saibot – Morphs into anteater and sucks opponent entirely into snout.
We don’t know who all turns into what quite yet in Mortal Kombat 1, but thus far we have seen a hippopotamus, jackal, gorilla, tyrannosaurus rex skeleton, wolves, scorpion (Scorpion), puffer fish (Rain), and praying mantis (Mileena).
Where Fatalities were sort of hidden behind commands you’d have to learn from friends or gaming magazines, Animalities were under yet another layer as unlocking your character’s spirit animal required quite a few steps. First off, you’d have to perform a Mercy, which required the match to go to the third round.
After winning you’d need to move at least half screen away from your defeated opponent, hold the run button and proceed to press down three times during the Fatality timer. They’d come back with a little bit of health and the fight would resume, and only after finishing them once again would you be able to successfully pull off your character’s Animality (given you knew the input).
Check out the full Animality compilation from Anonymous Affection here and let us know what kinds of animalistic kills you think are en route to Mortal Kombat 1 when the Khaos Reigns update launches on September 24.