History VideoGame / MortalKombat4

* ContinueCountdown: A particular creepy one. Your chosen character will keep keeps flailing and falling into a deep well as the countdown keeps running. If the player does not wish to continue, the character eventually reaches the bottom of the well and is promptly [[ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice impaled on some spikes.]]

* [[DevelopersForesight/MortalKombat the franchise's Developers' Foresight page]]
* [[ShoutOut/MortalKombat the franchise's Shout Out page]]
* [[StageFatality/MortalKombat the franchise's Stage Fatality page]]

* DarkerAndEdgier: Takes itself much more seriously than ''VideoGame/MortalKombat3'', despite that game's ostensibly darker plotline. There's no friendships, babalities, animalaties, etc, and the Fatalies are generally much less goofy. Still has a fair share of BlackComedy in many of the fatalities, and the endings are [[{{Narm}} unintentionally hilarious]], but for the most part it's a lot more tonally consistent. %%invoked

* ContinueCountdown: * A particular creepy one. Your chosen character will keep keeps flailing and falling into a deep well as the countdown keeps running. If the player does not wish to continue, the character eventually reaches the bottom of the well and is promptly [[ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice impaled on some spikes.]]

! Administrivia/SpoilersOff for ''[[VideoGame/MortalKombat1 MK1]]'', ''[[VideoGame/MortalKombatII MK2]]'', ''[[VideoGame/MortalKombat3 MK3]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/MortalKombatMythologiesSubZero MKM:SZ]]''. Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned.

* ''Returning from VideoGame/MortalKombat1'':

* NostalgiaLevel: [[VideoGame/MortalKombatII The Living Forest]] and [[VideoGame/MortalKombat1 Goro's Lair]] return, complete with rearrangements of the old BGM. Also returning are [[VideoGame/MortalKombatMythologiesSubZero the Shaolin Temple and Wind World]]. The ''Gold'' release adds [[VideoGame/MortalKombat3 the Church, Soul Chamber, and a combination of Scorpion's Lair and Kahn's Kave]].

* HaveANiceDeath: Have fun with the Game Over sequence.

* SinisterScythe: Noob Saibot uses a scythe as his WeaponOfChoice.

* WindIsGreen: Fujin the god of wind has a green theme, with green pants, grey hair with a green tint, green energy attacks and green bolts shot from his crossbow (his WeaponOfChoice in this game).

* SimpleStaff: Kai's ending has him receiving Raiden's staff as a gift. If you beat the game with Kai, he can use the staff as his WeaponOfChoice during gameplay.

In order to test its "virgin" 3D engine, Midway released a "test game", ''VideoGame/WarGods'', which was panned by critics and allowed Midway to learn from its mistakes before finalizing ''[=MK4=]''. Midway changed the engine to allow only two slow movements on the z-axis (the side steps, which only worked to dodge beam-attacks), which made ''[=MK4=]'' similar to previous games (and thus helped it to avoid hitting the PolygonCeiling). ''[=MK4=]'' also introduced the weapon fighting system to the franchise.

* PolygonCeiling: A weird case. Even though it's fully 3D, the gameplay is not greatly altered from the previous games (with only one limited way to move on the z-axis), making it very faithful to the original 2D games. Midway limited the 3D-based mobility after the poor reception from their previous game, ''War Gods''.

! Administrivia/SpoilersOff for ''[[VideoGame/MortalKombat1 MK1]]'', ''[[VideoGame/MortalKombat2 MK2]]'', ''[[VideoGame/MortalKombat3 MK3]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/MortalKombatMythologiesSubZero MKM:SZ]]''. Administrivia/YouHaveBeenWarned.

* ''Returning from VideoGame/MortalKombat2'':

* AntiFrustrationFeatures: The game introduces a Maximum Damage cap regarding combos. In previous games, some characters (like with Kitana and Scorpion in ''VideoGame/MortalKombat2'' or with Sub-Zero and Noob Saibot in ''[[VideoGame/MortalKombat3 Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3]]'') were capable of 100% combos, which would effectively guarantee a victory if pulled off, and some of them (''especially'' Noob Saibot's) were rather easy to perform with practice. ''Mortal Kombat 4'' instead forcibly makes both players backflip away from each other if 20% of an opponent's health is drained in a single combo.

* NostalgiaLevel: [[VideoGame/MortalKombat2 The Living Forest]] and [[VideoGame/MortalKombat1 Goro's Lair]] return, complete with rearrangements of the old BGM. Also returning are [[VideoGame/MortalKombatMythologiesSubZero the Shaolin Temple and Wind World]]. The ''Gold'' release adds [[VideoGame/MortalKombat3 the Church, Soul Chamber, and a combination of Scorpion's Lair and Kahn's Kave]].

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mortal_combat_4_portable_4069.jpg]]

* KukrisAreCool: Kai uses the "Gurkha Knife" or kukri as his weapon of choice.

* ObviousBeta: The initial arcade release wasn't technically supposed to get out to the public because it lacked among other things, endings, the Kombo Limiter system, as well as certain characters and Fatalities.

* UpdatedRerelease: ''MK Gold'' for the Arcade, which added several characters that weren't present in the original version.

The game performed well in arcades and was deemed a success, although it reached nowhere near the levels of success of its predecessors and it was clear that the glory days of ''Mortal Kombat'' were over: people were starting to lose interest in the series due to overexposure and the series' "cool-factor" having worn off. In hindsight it tends to be seen as the weakest entry in the series, and has gotten a (not quite deserved) reputation as the series' FranchiseKiller.

* AmbidextrousSprite: Surprisingly for a 3D game with models, they would do this at changing sides.

-->'''Baraka:''' ''[[FridgeLogic How do you rule a realm with no one in it]]!?''

* SelfPlagiarism: ''War Gods'', another bloody fighting game by Midway which was pretty much a beta-test for ''Mortal Kombat 4''.

* UpdatedRerelease: ''MK Gold''.

* DummiedOut: Quite a few things.
** In the original game old characters were last-minute changed for new ones. Kitana (returning in ''Gold'') in favor of Tanya, Noob Saibot (although he's still playable via a code) in favor of Reiko and Kano in favor of Jarek. This explains why these new characters have moves/fatalities similar to the older ones, particularly noticeable in the case of Jarek, whose second fatality is shooting an eye-beam when he doesn't have a robotic eye like Kano does (and he shoots it from ''both eyes'').
*** Kitana is playable in the Nintendo 64 version via Game Shark code; even then, she's clearly a recolor of Tanya with a different face model. Also, Noob Saibot was completed for the home releases and made into a secret character.
** There was also a stage called Skull.
** ''Gold'' had an unreleased character called [[http://mortalkombat.wikia.com/wiki/Belokk Belokk.]]
** In ''Gold'', via Kombat Kode, it's possible to play in the Stage Selection arena, which is called "Ladder?".

* {{Mondegreen}}: The jury's still out on what Liu Kang says to Kitana at one point during his ending, but it sounds for all the world like, "But I thought you were going to [[AccidentalInnuendo lick my--]]".

--> ''Jarek'': "You have to uphold the law! You have to arrest me! Wait! Wait! This is brutality! You can't do it!"
--> ''Jax'': [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall "Wrong Jarek, this is not a Brutality, this is a Fatality."]] (The "Finish Him" music plays as Jax drops him.)

* GameBreakingBug: The initial version, which wasn't technically supposed to get out to the public (it had missing Fatalities, no Combo Limiter, missing characters, no endings...) had a bug where one character could lift his opponent to the top of the screen by using a special move properly. The "lift" wouldn't wear off until the target was hit by something else, and nothing could get up that high, so the game was effectively stuck, especially if the game timer was disabled.
** Revision 3.0 had a bug where performing Reptile's Acid Spit fatality on Scorpion would crash the game.