Mortal Kombat 4

Mortal Kombat 4 from 1997 was the first installment in the series to abandon digitized 2D sprites filmed with actors and switch to three-dimensionally modeled characters created using motion capture; the fights, however, remained tied to a single plane just as before, so the game stayed at its core a 2D fighter with only a 3D look. Midway moved the story forward to a new main villain, Shinnok, and his henchman Quan Chi, while the giant Goro also returned to the game as a mid-boss; meanwhile old familiar faces such as Sub-Zero, Scorpion, Raiden, and Liu Kang returned to the roster alongside newcomers Fujin, Jarek, and Tanya. This new villainous duo brought the theme of treacherous gods and demons from the underworld into the series in place of the previous emperors and sorcerers of Outworld.

The key new feature was weapons – each fighter got their own blade, hammer, or staff, which they could lose during a fight, and which their opponent could then pick up and turn against them, so the fight could completely change in the middle of a round, and the player had to reckon not only with the opponent's fists but also with whatever had just fallen from their hand. The interactive backgrounds also contained destructible objects and traps usable in the middle of a fight for the first time, and the switch to 3D models gave the animations and fatalities a much more three-dimensional look than the flat sprites of previous installments. The game also became the last arcade game of the main series before it moved permanently to home consoles as its primary platform, so for many arcade players, Mortal Kombat 4 remained their last encounter with the series right there in the arcade, not at home in front of a television with friends gathered around a single screen.

Why play it: The fourth game is interesting as a turning point of the series – the last game with the classic 2D fighting system, but already with 3D graphics, weapons in the fighters' hands, and Goro's return, making it ideal for fans who want to see how Mortal Kombat found its way toward its later three-dimensional installments.