Why Can't We Be Friends? Looking Back at Mortal Kombat's Friendships

Mortal Kombat X has been out for a couple of weeks and players have been finding new and disgusting ways to maim their opponents. It's a testament to NetherRealm's ongoing creativity, with the newest installment of the series showing just how far Fatalities have progressed. In fact, Mortal Kombat's finisher game has never been stronger. Fatalities take advantage of the next generation of hardware, allowing for more visceral tactics and evocative imagery. Meanwhile, secondary Brutalities add a slightly different twist to finishing off opponents, bypassing the "Finish Him!" phase entirely by simply completing the proper conditions at the end of the deciding round.

The new generation of players are mainly familiar with the most violent of Mortal Kombat finishers. But once upon a time, there was a different way to finish off opponents. It was much more non-violent, it was much more light-hearted, and it was... friendlier. Mortal Kombat II and Mortal Kombat 3 players will remember... the Friendship.

The Seeds of Friendship

How in Outworld did Friendships get started? The story goes back to the origins of Mortal Kombat itself, a game that was lauded for its innovations by the gaming audience, but absolutely loathed by parents. Gaming was still widely considered a kids activity, so the idea of over-the-top violence was largely foreign in the early 90s. Mortal Kombat was met with protests, outcry, and would lead to the creation of the ESRB rating system. Greg Burke actually does a good job of explaining this in a recent Shack's Arcade Corner for the original Mortal Kombat.

Naturally, that didn't deter any of the Mortal Kombat developers, as they came back in Mortal Kombat II with even gorier finishers. But partly as a tongue-in-cheek response to the parental outcry (and also partly for laughs), the former Midway Games had some new finishers in mind. Babalities would turn the opponent into a harmless baby, while Friendships would introduce completely non-lethal finishers that would serve as an alternative to the bloody Fatalities.

Friends Forever

With over 20 years of retrospect in mind, Mortal Kombat II's Friendships were an amazingly absurd addition to one of the most violent games of the early 90s. As one might imagine, many of the Friendships were on the silly side and had little, if anything, to do with the actual characters. Liu Kang would dance to a disco ball, Kitana would hold up the birthday cake, the game's many ninjas would hock dolls of themselves, and all of it would be done to whimsically wacky music. While Midway arguably meant for this to be in jest, it actually provided a nice break from the heaviness of the game's violence. Some of the Friendships were even on par with Fatalities, with Raiden's 'Kidd Thunder' Friendship standing as one of the game's cooler finishers.

With the Mortal Kombat 3 generation, Midway went even farther in on the craziness. The music got even wackier and the humor level was amplified with even more nonsensical Friendships. Cyrax danced the Charleston, Jax jumped rope, the ninjas had terrifying Jack-in-the-boxes, Nightwolf turned into Raiden... for some reason, and Shang Tsung turned into a... bouncing... metal thingy. The Friendships got downright bizarre and they were all the richer for it. Again, they provided an escape from the wanton violence that filled the game and helped keep players from getting overly saturated with gore.

The other thing to remember about Friendships was that there were certain conditions that had to be completed before players could perform them. Rounds had to be completed with kicks or without blocking, meaning opponents had to lose especially hard to be at the receiving of Friendships or Babalities. Performing these non-violent finishers brought along their own unique badge of honor, even without tearing the opponent into a dozen pieces.

Valuing Old Friendships

If there's a minor criticism I could lob at Mortal Kombat X, it's that the action sometimes takes itself too seriously. It's not just in the serious tone of the Story Mode, but it's in the action, as a whole. Kombatants tend to take themselves and the matches extremely seriously, which isn't a negative in itself. But it's easy to get lost in nostalgia and miss the days of Mortal Kombat II and Mortal Kombat 3 when Midway would sprinkle in just as many silly gags into its games, from Babalities to something as simple as Dan Forden shouting "Toasty!" after an uppercut. But nothing indicated a lighter side to Mortal Kombat quite like Friendship.

But is there room in today's Mortal Kombat games for something like Friendships? The 2011 Mortal Kombat reboot was able to toss in new Babalities to great effect, adding in new bits of humor to what was once a straightforward (and frankly, somewhat dull) finisher. Given the advances that next-generation hardware has allowed Mortal Kombat to make in the Fatality department, there's still hope that Friendships may one day receive the same treatment. Imagine something over-the-top ridiculous like Kung Jin shooting an apple off an opponent's head, Ferra/Torr offering a high five, or Kenshi carving a wooden heart with his sword -- something that wouldn't have been possible decades ago, but now able to happen with the aid of next-gen hardware.

Sometimes, it's still nice to to mix up the wanton, over-the-top gore with some wholesome fun. Maybe Friendships will make a return someday. In the meantime, it's still nice to look back at the old-school Mortal Kombat games and remember the times when an autographed photo was just as effective a finisher as a decapitating uppercut.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?