Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 is an update to the earlier release of Mortal Kombat 3. Most notable of the release is the inclusion of previous favorites like Scorpion and Kitana who were missing from Mortal Kombat 3. No version of UMK3 seems to be quite the same across the various platforms so I am going to focus solely on the SNES version which I owned and played a lot. The plot of this game follows that of the first and second Mortal Kombat games. UMK3 is NOT a sequel to Mortal Kombat 3 though. Just an update of characters and gameplay just like Mortal Kombat Trilogy is later on.

Graphics 9/10 – This game is the pinnacle of graphics for a fighting game for the Mortal Kombat series on the SNES. Each character looks great. Even the character with similar starting outfits (the 3 ninja girls or the 5 or so ninja guys) they all have very unique move sets and varying stances keeping them feeling even more unique than they did before. There are also a lot of other very different looking characters than before. Nice to see so much variety in the characters this time around considering there are 20+ in this game.

The levels also do not fail to amaze. They are all beautifully made and continue to fit the feel and theme of the game and series. There are also more fatalities in this game and they actually look really good (for the most part). And the blood this time does not look nearly as fake as it did in Mortal Kombat 2. The moves are cleaner looking and more responsive as well. Everything about the look of the game and the sprites is great.

Sound 9/10 – I LOVE the music for this game. Like the 2 previous games the feel for this music is dark and eerie. I think a word I used last time was oppressive and that is the feel I get. It is like the music is saying that you are trapped and you do not stand a chance and it is only a matter of time before you are done for. I can not really say much else about the music. I thought it was fantastic.

Another improvement this time around though is the fighting sounds. They feel like they have been refined yet again to feel that much more lifelike. I also really like the variety in sounds for all the special moves and technique the fighters use. It all has an improved sound that you notice when playing through each game in the series.

Addictiveness 9/10 – this game is extremely fun to play. There are 23 playable characters each having their own unique move, combo and fatality set. There are also 4 modes to play the game on: the story mode, where you try and beat the game in single player, a straight up 1 on 1 vs mode, and an 8 person tournament mode where each person participating picks their character and you fight it out in a bracketed tournament style fight and a 2 on 2 mode endurance mode where each fighter gets to pick 2 characters to fight against 2 other characters. With that much variety in the game play it does not get old playing this game. There are so many moves and combos and fatalities to learn that it takes a long time to learn the game let alone become good at it.

Something I want to mention that I did in passing but that I think made the Mortal Kombat 3 games (all of them) way more fun and interesting were the combos you could use. The first 2 games had combos that you could do because certain moves worked really well in succession but MK3 and UMK3 built combos into the game that were unique to every character. These combos are extremely fun to use. They were accompanied by a run button which helped you close the distance between you and your opponent in order to do the combos. This element alone added a lot of variety to the game that was lacking in the earlier 2 games.

Story 8/10 – I really love the story behind this game. Having failed twice at taking over Earth realm, first because of Shang Tsung failing to beat the Earth 10 times in a row and then Shao Kahn himself failing to win during an Outworld tournament, Shao Kahn hatches a plan to merge the Earth Realm with Outworld. He resurrects his former queen Sindel on Earth and then uses his power to breach the barriers between the realms to reclaim her. This causes the walls between the 2 realms to drop and the realms merge into 1. This merging kills nearly everyone on Earth except for a handful of former and new Mortal Kombat fighters that Raiden saved before losing his powers as God of Earth realm. These fighters then band together as best they can to fight the invading forces from Outworld and defeat Shao Kahn for good.

Add on top of this that each character in the “tournament” has their own back story and motivation for being in the tournament and possibly ending up winning it. Way more depth to this game than any of the other Mortal Kombat games and definitely more than most other fighting games of the era.

Depth 7/10 – this was a tougher rating for me to make. The game itself does not take very long to beat especially if you put the shortest route to beating Shao Kahn. I imagine the game could be beaten easily in under 30 minutes total. The depth of this game does not come from beating the game one time but in all the various characters and moves and game modes you can use. This game is much more geared to being played by 2 or more people than being played alone. It is fun either way but the real variety and depth the game exhibits comes from the 2 player experience.

Difficulty 8/10 – I rated this game high not because it is extremely hard to beat but in order to beat the game with every character it is quite a bit more challenging. I could probably pick Scorpion and beat the game without really trying but beating the game with Sindel or Nightwolf would be a lot more of a challenge because I am not as familiar with those characters as I am with Scorpion. And even with Scorpion depending on the difficulty level I do not know if I would win every single time. Motaro and Shao Kahn are unpredictable and difficult enough to beat that one wrong move can ruin the fight against them.

Still, this game is not anything like one of the side scrolling type games that are 10/10 on difficulty that have been made before. It is beatable with any character if you take the time to learn their moves and combos properly and that is worth doing because it makes the game even more fun to play after that.

Overall 8.3/10 – is Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 the best fighting game ever? No. However, it is quite nearly one of the best made for the SNES alongside Street Fighter 2. It builds upon the good things from the previous games and makes them better and it fills in holes where the earlier games were lacking. I highly recommend checking this game out but make sure to find a guide with all the moves and combos or you will be spending a lot of time guessing.

Great review.
I think Ultimate MK3 was by far my favorite MK in the series, including the newest additions.

I must have put over 100 hours into this game when I was younger and never got bored, so I would say 9/10 addictiveness is spot on.

As for the difficulty, I think you may have put it a bit too high.
I understand the logic behind it, but I feel like once you learn a new character, it's drastically easier.

The story I felt was a bit weak. It's better than the previous games, but it still seems kinda lacking. Well, what can we expect from a fighter though, right?

The other categories, I dunno what else I could say that you haven't yet. This is a huge improvement over the first 2 titles in both sound and graphics and with 23 unique (for the most part) characters, it certainly has a lot of depth and variety.

I am a little disappointed in your subtitle this time though... I feel like there was a missed opportunity for something like "The Ultimate Review"

Vanelan : yeah, I put 100 hours easily into this game as well. Thankfully I had internet access at school at the time so I was able to download move sets and fatalities so I could actually do a lot of them. Most of them are impossible to figure out otherwise.

I agree that I might have put it a bit high. A 6 or a 7 might have been a better choice. However, I was looking at this from the view point of I played a LOT of fighting games like this growing up so I was pretty good at them. The average player might not be as experienced at them so it might be considerably harder for them to beat this game than it was for me.

Fair enough about the story - I was basing my rating on the fact that many games like this have NO story at all. At least this game has an entire world it is based around and back stories for all the characters as well as what happens when each of them wins.

Yeah, the title was thrown together a bit more quickly than the rest. I couldn't think of anything witty to say involving the world Ultimate.