Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3278 in Video Games
• ESRB Rating: Teen
• Platform: Nintendo Super NES

Manufacturer Description
Don't wait in endless lines to play-Killer Instinct comes to Super NES with action graphics and sound that annihilates all other combat games! Fulgore Jago B.Orchid Spinal and all your favorite warriors contend in the Ultratech KI Combo Theory of connected moves and finishing tactics to destroy their opponents. With incredible displays of eyelasers ice lances wind kicks and laser blades these fearless fighters prove their battle prowess. But remember if you lose it's hero to zero!

Customer Reviews

Rebuttal
The following will be some counters used against some points made by previous reviewers who either are obviously uninformed or unfortunately hopelessly ignorant.

Originality:
The main concern regarding Killer Instinct is apparently that it is unoriginal. One reviewer suggested that it has a six button fighting scheme ripped off from Street Fighter. First of all, KI and SF are apples and oranges. When Super Street Fighter II Turbo came out in 1994, it introduced a system where the character would execute a combination of combos by building a separate energy bar and then releasing it at will. The combo system in KI is not only completely different, but it innovated the industry by bringing fighters altogether to a new level. Never before has a fighting game possess combos as high as 50 hits. The arcade version even allows infinite juggling! No other game has anything distantly similar to KI's exceptional combo system of openers, autoseconds, linkers and endings. No other game has the patented "combo breaker" that allows players to end their opponent's assault right in the middle of their combo. Thus, the argument that KI ripped off SF's fighting style is quite absurd. You're better off comparing SF to Fatal Fury or King of Fighters in the SNK Company. Or better yet, you might even find more similarities between SF and Marvel because KI is in a completely different league.

If anything, KI is more similar to Mortal Kombat in its game design. Even so, MK has utterly nothing on KI when it solely comes down to gameplay. KI not only has the uniqueness of MK's special moves for each character, it also has a much superior combo system and overall a better flow in the game. Although it is somewhat true that the "no mercy" finishers in KI are in the same vein as the "Fatalities" of MK, KI was still able to innovate this further by the creation of the Ultimate Combo, allowing players to perform finishers in the middle of a combo. MK also wished it came up with the genius of the Ultra Combo, hands down the greatest feature ever made for a video game.

Weak Controls:
How exactly does Killer Instinct possess "weak controls"? It combines the style of controls for special moves in traditional Street Fighter (such as the basic D,DF,F+P) with the ones introduced by Mortal Kombat (such as F,F+P). Therefore, how can it possibly do any wrong? For characters such as Cinder, KI's controls allow you to use both styles! A lot of the more complex combos are very difficult to perform, but that's the deal with any game. Practice makes perfect.

Life Bars:
The life bars do not regenerate between rounds in Killer Instinct because the game happens to be cumulative. Do not approach a fight with an expectation of two rounds but rather one. Comebacks may be tough, but it is definitely not impossible. I've seen situations where players are in the "last breath" stage where the announcer says "danger", randomly push the pad and buttons rapidly, escape and win. Why? Because you do over twice your normal damage in the "last breath" stage! There are always opportunities to make comebacks but this is more issues concerning the gamer, than the actual game.

Balance:
Contrary to some false accusations, Killer Instinct is actually perfectly balanced. Just because some characters are easier to learn than others does not make them superior. This is actually part of what makes the game so appealing, the learning process of each character's advantages and disadvantages. Whether it's Cinder's air priority, Orchid's ground edge or Thunder's chipping technique, it all eventually evens out. Spinal, the hardest character to learn is unstoppable if a player can master his specialities. Riptor's amazingly fast transition between moves makes him a dominant force as well as Sabrewulf's ability to manually power up through his howl. Even Eyedol, KI's best character has lag time, just like everyone else. If the computer takes advantage of an initial mistake, combo break him. Again, this is concerning more of the game's strategy than game design.

Honestly, there are no flaws in this game. If so, they are so trival and miniscule, it's not even worth mentionning. Killer Instinct is undeniably a video game classic, period.

Sigh...Need To Bump This Back Up
It's official, Der Kommisar is an idiot. The reviewer before me tore apart his pitiful argument piece by piece before shoving it into his bladder. It was rather amusing.

Anybody who does not hail Killer Instinct to be the holy grail of video games should just give up and go back to the basics of how to jump with Super Mario.

15 Reviews and 4 and a half stars is unacceptable. Any respectable gamer who was around in the mid Nineties should know just how exactly revolutionary and important this game was to the genre of versus fighters. KI players, I know you're out there. Show your appreciation.

WHAT A THRILL RIDE
This game had more combos then Mortal Kombat it should have been remember now. I wish they were still making games of this on PS2. You can make the fighters fight faster by holding down all the buttons when you pick your fighter and when they have on the screen your fighter vs the computer to tell that it worked it will make a punching sound. The computer always tell you how many combos you made in other words how many hits. The most hit is the altra which has 24 hits, thats the finishing one. My favorite fighters are Spinal, Fulgore, B. Orchid, Jago, Combo, Thunder, Saberwolf, Raptor, Cinder. This game makes the Street Fighter games on Super NES look like a pre school game.