Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3
The definitive version of Mortal Kombat 3 — the one with all the ninjas back in it. Owner's memory is the Sega Genesis port: the run button, the fatalities, and everybody on the roster.
Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 arrived in arcades in November 1995 as Midway's expanded revision of Mortal Kombat 3 — not a new game so much as the definitive one. It restored fan-favorite ninjas that MK3 had controversially left out (Kitana, Jade, Reptile, and Scorpion), added new modes including 2-on-2 and an eight-player tournament, and rebalanced the fighting on top of MK3's run button and chain-combo system.
Home versions followed in 1996. The Sega Saturn got a near-arcade-perfect port from Eurocom, while Avalanche Software handled the 16-bit conversions for both the SNES and the Sega Genesis, released October 11, 1996. Both 16-bit versions cut the four-armed character Sheeva and altered some finishing moves to fit the cartridges; the Genesis was the scrappier of the two in graphics and sound — but for Genesis kids it was as close to the arcade as you could get at home.
The PlayStation port later evolved into Mortal Kombat Trilogy, folding in characters from all three games, but UMK3 remains the beloved peak of the series' 2D era — the one with everybody in it. (A 2007 Nintendo DS release titled simply Ultimate Mortal Kombat is an arcade-perfect port of this same game, not to be confused with the 16-bit originals.)
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