The trick for Reptile's fight required a ginormous amount of Guide Dang It! which involved not using the block button and performing a Fatality. The only moment in the match you're allowed to use the block button in order to trigger the secret battle is when performing Sonya's Fatality, which requires it. The block button isn't a requirement for triggering this fight in the SNES version, however.
To trigger the Stage Fatality in The Pit, you have to uppercut your opponent. Liu Kang's fatality's last hit is an uppercut, which makes it trigger the Stage Fatality as well.
While everyone looks at the cups and uses their finger to trace the movements in the "Test Your Sight" minigame, Kenshi, who is blind, will instead use his hearing.
Right before Jax's fight with Wonder Woman in Story Mode, he throws away his gun due to it being ineffective against her. The gun is actually removed from the player model and the player cannot use it in that fight. This also extends to his Free Fall Super Move, which normally has him shoot the opponent before hitting them with a Blinding Light; His move in this fight consists of just the Blinding Light.
Kratos has different animations for when he falls victim to certain Fatalities. While the other fighters react with fear, Kratos does not, a design decision which, according to Ed Boon, was requested by Sony Computer Entertainment as they didn't want to make him look weak. (He IS a Spartan after all.)
When killed by Johnny Cage's "And The Winner Is..." Fatality, Cage does not plant a faux-Oscar trophy into Kratos' split head.
In Mileena's "Be Mine" Fatality, Mileena will not eat Kratos' head after tearing it off, instead going right to throwing it away.
When shrunk during Ermac's "Pest Control" Fatality, rather than run around panicking, Kratos will instead challenge Ermac outright before being crushed (He's faced even bigger, after all.)
When hit with Cyber Sub-Zero's "Brain Freeze", Kratos will not fall down in a humourous rigor mortis pose.
When Stryker slams a grenade into Kratos' stomach during the former's "Have A Blast" Fatality, Kratos does not panic before said grenade explodes, instead growling and trembling in fury.
When killed by Kung Lao's "Razor's Edge" Fatality, Kratos does not wave his arms in horror when being dragged through the hat and being cut in two.
When hit by Noob Saibot's "As One" Fatality, Kratos reacts to being bisected by a portal less so than other fighters do.
When ensnared by Skarlet's blood pillars during her "Make It Rain" Fatality, Kratos attempts to break free of his restraints instead of panicking.
Kratos does not flinch when Kenshi throws his sword during the latter's "Split Ends" Fatality.
Kratos does not inflate when being filled up by Rain's "Bubble Burst" Fatality.
During Freddy Krueger's "Tell 'Em Freddy Sent Ya" Fatality, as soon as Freddy vanishes, Kratos prepares for a possible sneak attack instead of looking worried as others do. When tossed into the boiler in Freddy's "Welcome To My Nightmare" Fatality, Kratos tries to grab at Freddy before the latter slams the door on his arm.
Kratos is one of the few characters that doesn't cry or get made fun of during his Babality.
Whenever Nightwolf or Kabal are playing in the Netherrealm stage, the hands try to catch them.
The head Kintaro destroys on his intro has its blood on his foot during the match. This doesn't appear in Story Mode for obvious reasons. And, if you skip the intro, Kintaro's foot will not be bloodied up.
Cyrax and Cyber Sub-Zero's winning round animations are different in Armless mode. In normal modes, they pop out a bomb from their chest, twist the top, and put it back. In Armless mode, the bomb drops out and explodes.
When Reptile wipes his mouth during his round win animation, the green liquid stays on his forearm.
When Sub-Zero's Bi-Han costume is selected, his voice set will change to Noob Saibot's voice set, only he sounds less... wraith-like.
If Johnny Cage wins the match, without having his sunglasses get battle-damaged, during his match-winning animation his glasses will break and be replaced by a new pair of shades anyway, but after Johnny says "Oh yeah." his shades will twinkle.
After Noob Saibot does his X-Ray, the vomit on his leg is kept for the remainder of the match. Also, when he uses his "Shadow" specials and "Saibot" specials, his real shadow disappears while the shadow-clone charges forward.
The characters being absent from stages where they'll appear, such as...
Goro in his Throne Room.
Noob Saibot and Rain in the Cathedral.
Shao Kahn in his arena. Likewise with Kitana and Skarlet not being chained.
Cyrax on the Desert stage.
Cyrax and Sektor's human alternates having different intros/outros, and the way they perform their special moves and Fatalities is also changed. This actually plays into the competitive scene quite a bit, as some of the frame data between their human and cyborg forms are different and slightly influence their standings.
When teleporting using Raiden's Dark Raiden alternate costume, his teleporting is red instead of blue, but all his other powers are still colored blue.
When using Skarlet's Make It Rain Fatality on Sheeva, Skarlet will summon 6 blood pillars, to accommodate for Sheeva's 6 limbs (although this is averted otherwise as Sheeva's extra arms don't typically get special accommodation by the game, evident when using something like Cyrax's "Nothing but Net" Fatality that dissects the opponent).
Kenshi's "Scatterbrained" Fatality usually gouges out one of the opponent's eyes, the one that is opposite of the direction he/she is facing. Doing it on the Cyborgs, Human Sektor, Ermac (Costume 1 only) or another Kenshi never gouges out an eye. Doing it on Kano, who has an Electronic Right Eye, only gouges out an eye if he's facing right.
Aside from the unique pre-fight dialogue for every combination of kombatants (we got you covered!), some of the exchanges are changed or altered depending on the situation.
If the Alienand the Predator are chosen, they have a specific intro where both of them roar to each other.
Picking the Hanzo Hasashi skin for Scorpion will lead to unique pre-fight dialog with Sub-Zero and Quan Chi. The former asks if there can be no peace between them, and Quan Chi is baffled that Scorpion is no longer his wraith.
If a character's intro animation has them interacting with something that changes between variations, the animation will take that into account. Examples include Kano (who puts his knife on his waist in Cybernetic) or Mileena (who leaves her mask down in Ravenous).
Choosing both the Carl Weathers skin for Jax, and Johnny Cage in the character selection screen will trigger an animation between them reenacting a scene from Predator.
One of Ermac's one-liners after a Brutality is "We are many. You are but one." Against the duo Ferra/Torr, it becomes "We are many. You are but two."
The intro sequences for the Predator are rendered in infrared vision. Likewise, when choosing the "Hunter" variation (in which the Predator is unmasked), the color of the infrared vision changes, just as in the movies.
The infrared vision also displays Jason Voorhees as no warmer than his surroundings.
Averted with the Alien in the same intro. While the Alien films establish that Xenomorphs do not generate body heat, which Alien vs. Predator showed makes them invisible to the Predators' thermal scanners, the Alien will be shown with a heat signature in the intro.
If the Predator performs a Brutality, he walks off the field toward the background. If he wins on the Kove, Krossroads, or the Pit (which would have him walking off the stage), he instead boards his cloaked ship.
If you perform the Predator's Skinned Alive Brutality, you do just that, unless you do it to an Alien. When you do that, the Predator takes the head and leaves the body behind.
Averted when the victim is Jax, whose flayed corpse is just like the rest of the male characters, even though his arms are supposed to be completely mechanical.
The newborn chestburster in the win screen for Alien changes depending on which race the victim was. If you beat Predator with Alien, a Predalien will erupt.
Going even further, one of the Alien's Brutalities involving a Face Hugger ends with a chestburster coming out of the opponent. If the victim had a hat (like Raiden or Erron Black) or some facial accessory (like Kano's eye or Johnny Cage's sunglasses), the Face Hugger will have it when it comes out.
Raiden's "Bug Eyes" Fatality involves shocking the opponent's head till both of his/her eyes pop out. The eyes popped out also depend on the variation the character is using. If used against Kano, who only has one eye, only one eye will pop out.
The Predator's "Certain Death" Fatality, when done against another Predator in either of its masked variants, has the final shot not blowing the head in half, but instead just apparently causing a powerful impact to the head. Why? Because the masks are made for protection and it's obvious they are designed to resist their own weapons. The final shot of the match will even be different, since the Predator will fall forwards instead of backwards.
In Erron Black's X-Ray, the name written on the bullet he fires changes depending on who he faces.
Against both normal and Corrupted Shinnok, the bullet says "Shinnok".
In the event of a Mirror Match, the bullet simply states "Me".
Against a Predator, the bullet reads "Ugly Mofo".
If you hack the game to make him fight Baraka, Rain or Sindel, he has a bullet for them.
He even has a bullet for each variation of Triborg: Cyrax, Sektor and Smoke. Plus Cyber Sub-Zero, whose bullet is simply "Sub-Zero".
The majority of Fatalities and Fatal Blows that target the face will have the opponent's headgear (masksnote Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Noob Saibot, Kitana, Jade, Skarlet, Erron Black, Kabal, Frost, Kollector, Geras, Nightwolf, Joker, Rain, Mileena, helmetsnote Shao Kahn, Baraka, Kotal Kahn, Nightwolf, Sheeva, RoboCop, hatsnote Raiden, Sonya Blade, Kung Lao, Erron Black, the Joker, headdressesnote Cetrion, Sindel, Fujin, glassesnote Johnny Cage, Sonya Blade, Cassie Cage, the Terminator, the Joker, etc.) disappear during the animation so as to not get in the way of the move. The only exception to this is Spawn's mask, which is a symbiotic being that generally cannot be removed.
Characters who normally wear a facemask that use a specific gear option to unequip it will have separate versions of their lines re-recorded without the mask effects.
Additionally, the vocal effects will depend on the type of mask currently equipped. Metal masks will have a metallic echo to the character's voice, while a cloth or fabric mask will instead muffle the voice accordingly.
In keeping with the two previous games, some characters have differently-colored blood and this extends to their organs. D'vorah's blood (and therefore brain) is blue, for instance.
Zig-Zagged with Cyrax and Sektor, who always bleed black blood, but their organs are still red. Baraka's "Food for Thought", Kotal Kahn's "Kat Food", Skarlet's "Heart Condition", and Nightwolf's "War Ritual" Fatalities stand out the most because of this. RoboCop also bleeds black blood, but his mechanical organs are properly stained with it. However, Robo has a different issue: the black blood shows up even when his still-organic head and brain are targeted, though the head's insides are properly colored red when exposed.
Averted with Frost and Jax, whose cybernetic bits are completely ignored in Fatalities, Brutalities, and Krushing Blows. Jax's mechanical arms will have bones and muscle, and Frost will have completely organic insides even when her intros show otherwise. You can have Frost enter the fight by showcasing her robotic spine, only to end the match by pulling out actual bone. She also has red blood unlike fellow fully-cyberized kombatants Cyrax, Sektor, and RoboCop, who all bleed oil.
Jax does have one case of this, though: one of Baraka's Krushing Blows has him rip out some muscle tendons from the opponent's arm. On Jax, he instead rips out some wires, which also happens to RoboCop. Frost, Cyrax, and Sektor will all show the tendons.
X-Ray shots in the game now account for Kano's faceplate rather than giving him a generic skull.
Like the "Scatterbrained" and "Bug Eyes" Fatalities mentioned above, using Baraka's "Food for Thought", Jax's "Still Got It", Cetrion's "Maintaining Balance", Shang Tsung's "Condemned to the Damned", or Sindel's "Scream Queen" Fatalities on Kano show only one eye on his skinless face.
Jade's "Pole Dance", Kotal Kahn's "Totem Sacrifice", Skarlet's "Bloody Mess", Kabal's "Road Rash", Erron Black's "Death Trap", Rain's "Eye-Solated", and Kollector's "Head Lantern" Fatalities, all of which involve one or both of the victims eyes visibly flying out, will not show an eyeball where Kano's faceplate is when used on him.
Unlike with the Shokan in previous games, Kollector's extra arms are taken into account for any Fatalities and Brutalities he falls victim to, causing them to be severed properly instead of being harmlessly phased through. The same goes with Sheeva.note Fatalities were possible on Goro in MKX, and he - along with Kintaro and Shao Kahn - could be finished off with one in a hacked version of MK9.
In Chapter 8 of Story Mode, Past!Sonya is forced to fight in the Black Dragons' Fight Club, with Kano taking her gloves to "Make things fair". Sure enough, in the first two fights of the chapter Sonya is unable to use any moves that require her gloves. This also includes everything but the first hit of her Fatal Blow. Damn You, Muscle Memory! can also apply to both Sonya and the player since the animations still play out if you input the commands for those attacks.
Much like with the names on his bullets in X, one of Erron Black's intros in 11 has him pull out a wanted poster with his opponent's picture on them. The listed bounty varies between characters; the most notable are Cetrion (just shy of a billion dollars) and Johnny Cage (a mere $500.)
All of the fighters from the first game (minus Johnny), as well as Shao Kahn, Kotal Kahn, Geras, the Terminator, Sindel, Spawn, Fujin, Sheeva, and RoboCop are all worth five million dollars.
However, this is averted for Noob Saibot and Kitana, who are both worth a million dollars. This is despite the fact that the former is the Sub-Zero from the first game (his brother is worth five million instead), and the latter became Outworld's new Kahn at the end of Chapter 7 of Story Mode, making her the only Kahn to not be worth five million.
The rest of the roster is worth $1,000,000. (Kitana, Jax, Kung Lao, Jade, Noob Saibot, Baraka, Kabal, Cassie, Jacqui, Erron himself, D'Vorah, Frost, Skarlet, Kollector, Nightwolf and the Joker.)
Unlike the previous game, the pre-fight dialog (over here) avert this with the various skins, which almost always act as if their past self is saying them. This can lead to awkward situations such as Revenant Kung Lao denying that he's a revenant, Shao Kahn telling Dark Raiden that it's a shame that Dark Raiden is gone, and Cassie complementing her mother's killer.
Shang Tsung's post-Brutality win pose has him transforming into the opponent and laughing. Hack the game to make him fight Cyrax, Sektor, or Kronika, and he will imitate their laughs, even though the first two are story only opponents and Kronika is normally immune to being a victim of a Brutality.
If Kano is the victim of any Fatalities or Brutalities that leave them intact (with multiple exceptions), the lights on his cybernetic eye and chest will go out. Ditto for Cyrax and Sektor's visors, and the glowing markings on Cetrion.
If Cyrax, Sektor, or Kronika are the victim of Jade's "Bow Before Me" Fatality, they will be bisected normally, as apposed to replacing the body parts with full body copies of themselves.
Kronika has a special line if she is the victim of Johnny Cage's "$500 Sunglasses" Brutality. Since she’s an Arcade boss you should not be able to use any Brutality on her, she says "Impossible!".
TheTerminator doesn't emote at all when Fatalities are performed on him, fitting as he is a machine. In addition, most Fatalities, Brutalities, and Krushing Blows that would reveal his organs and skeleton show that they are all machine parts taken directly from the films, while keeping the organic layer of skin, blood, and muscle tissue visible where they should benote An early glitch with the Joker's second Fatality accidentally displayed organic intestines when it was used on the Terminator. This was eventually fixed in a patch. RoboCop works similarly, with his machine parts being visible, though unlike the Terminator he has even less organic bits to him, so Fatalities that expose raw muscle on everyone else instead expose a metal layer between his outer chassis and his inner framework. However, anything that opens up his head will properly display his organic brain and raw red interior.
There is one minor aversion to this, however; when Baraka bites down on the Terminator's CPU in his "Food For Thought" Fatality, it will spew red blood despite that part being entirely mechanical.
In addition, Terminator's uppercut move is him firing his shotgun upwards instead of an actual uppercut. As such, his version of the universal "The Klassic" Brutality, which normally uppercuts the opponent's head and spine out, instead has him simply blow their head up.
The Joker's "Party Pooper" Fatality ends without the UI saying "Fatality". That's because the sign that cut the opponent in half already says it. The same goes for the Tournament Stage Fatality, where the disconnected screen of the Deadly Alliance arcade cabinet fills in for the UI.
Speaking of the Joker, an odd aversion occurs when Skarlet’s "Bloody Mess" Fatality is performed on him when he's wearing any of his costumes where his left eye is replaced with an 8-ball, as his normal eye will pop out instead, despite the 8-ball replacing it.
In Erron Black's intro "A Day's Work," he throws the head of Hsu Hao on the ground and a pool of blood will appear when the round starts. The pool is even missing if the intro animations are skipped.
In Sheeva's intro "Insult to Injury," she rips the head of a centaur in two, splattering blood on herself that will appear when the round starts. However, this detail will be missing if the intro animations are skipped.
In the Retrocade stage, certain characters will be missing from the background stage if they are in the match. These examples include:
Shang Tsung in his Courtyard and Throne Room stages.
Notably, Shao Kahn will replace him in Shang Tsung's Courtyard stage, though the throne will be entirely empty if both Shao Kahn and Shang Tsung are in the match.
Shao Kahn, Kano, and/or Sonya Blade in the Kahn's Arena stage.
In Rambo's "Mission Accomplished" outro, he manages to visibly frighten the losing character before stabbing his knife into the ground by their head, complete with a shot of his opponent looking scared. That is, unless the opponent is the Terminator, who just looks at Rambo with little emotion, and Robocop, who manages to mask some of his terror.
The Gauntlet towers of the Towers of Time update themselves to replace stand ins for DLC fighters when that fighter becomes playable. For example, in the "Group Hug" towers, which consist of fighting the cast of Mortal Kombat 4, Fujin will replace his stand in when downloaded.
Modding the PC version to make Kronika playable reveals that she's mostly functional, although her move list is drastically different from the other characters - many of her specials are done at the press of a button, a lot of her teleports happen automatically after certain moves, and the player can't do anything with her that she already doesn't do as an NPC boss (block, crouch, jump, use meter, Krushing Blows or a Fatal Blow). Her scripted Flunky Boss events and stage-specific unblockable attacks also aren't available to players, even if they are fighting on the Kronika's Hourglass, Prehistoric Age or Chaotian Age stages. Lastly, her sole Fatality can only be performed with Easy Fatalities on, as it doesn't have a proper input.
