"What If...Street Fighter Vs. Mortal Kombat?" - Episode 3

Hodouken!!! Street Fighter 4 is finally here!!! How many years has it been since Street Fighter 3? How many years has it been since Street Fighter 2? How many years have we been waiting for Capcom to stop dilly-dallying with the franchise by pumping out remakes of the same game? It’s finally over and now Capcom has finally made a Street Fighter game that’s actually DIFFERENT! It’s not 2D. It’s not another version of Street Fighter 2. It’s not another non-sequel like Street Fighter Alpha or Street Fighter EX. And it’s not another cross-over like Marvel Vs. Capcom, X-Men Vs. Street Fighter or the upcoming Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom. No, this is Street Fighter 4!

Now that Street Fighter 4 is officially out, what else can be done with the franchise? I’d imagine a Street Fighter 5 being a ways off from being released (probably another 5-7 years!). What other things would we like to see be done with Street Fighter that Capcom hasn’t done yet? Just last year Midway released Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe, which was a total surprise to everyone. It was just so out of left-field like when SquareEnix announced Kingdom Hearts nearly a decade ago. Walt Disney and Final Fantasy together in the same universe? Huh? Mortal Kombat and the DC Universe together in a fighting game? WTF?

With the announcement of Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe, the first thing I was thinking was, “Why did it have to be Mortal Kombat Vs. DC? Why couldn’t it be Mortal Kombat Vs. Street Fighter? That was the most logical conclusion that I, as well as many gamers, came to. Both Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter came out around the same time and battled each other for dominance in the Fighting game genre in the early 90's. They both popularized and revolutionized the genre so why not have them duke it out? It’s just so logical and yet so anticipated. Freddy Kreugger Vs. Jason Vorhees, King Kong Vs. Godzilla, Sonic Vs. Mario, Aliens Vs. Predator, Robocop Vs. Terminator. You see how logical that is? Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe is NOT logical! So with that said, I present to you “What If...Street Fighter Vs. Mortal Kombat?”



First things first when it comes to all Fighting games are the characters, or should I say, the street fighters and mortal kombatants! LOL. The usual characters from the Street Fighter hierarchy must be present such as Ryu, Ken, Guile, Chun-Li, Blanka, Vega, Balrog, Zangief, M. Bison, E. Honda, Akuma and Dhalsim . Mortal Kombat characters such as Kano, Liu Kang, Rayden, Johney Cage, Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Sonya Blade, Shang Tsung, Shao Kahn and Reptile have to be on the roster as well.

As you progress through the game you should be able to unlock new characters Capcom style. Like if you beat the game with a particular character from the Street Fighter roster you’ll unlock a new Street Fighter character like Cammy, Fei Long, Rose or Sakura, just to name a few. Likewise, if you beat the game with a Mortal Kombat character you’ll unlock a new kombatant such as Jax, Cyrax, Smoke, Jade, Goro, Kintaro, Baraka, Kabal, etc.

Of course this game would be a Fighting game first and foremost, but in this day and age having a Fighting game being nothing more than a Fighting game just doesn’t cut it. It just doesn’t deliver enough in terms of lasting replay value. That seems to be the only real complaint people have with Street Fighter 4. Other fighting games such as Soul Calibur 4 and Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm offer character customization, action/adventure scenarios, mini-games and other secondary objectives to add more variety to the games’ overall package.



Mini-games that were featured in past Street Fighter games like destroying a car under a certain time limit and breaking bricks in the “Test Your Strength” mini’s in Mortal Kombat should return but with some expanded features. Breaking one car is okay, but how about breaking multiple cars? And not just cars but trucks, maybe even semi-trucks and construction vehicles! With today’s advanced physics engines, just imagine how much fun you can have with the physics and crazy explosion effects you could unleash with the “Hodouken” attack! You could set the place on fire and blow up cars like crazy!

On the Mortal Kombat side you could add more breakable objects within an environment for the “Test Your Might” scenario. Instead of just being stationary and pushing buttons as fast as you can to break a stack of bricks, why not punch it up a notch by having you traverse through an obstacle course of bricks that need to be broken. Imagine traversing through an obstacle course and breaking as many bricks and brick walls as you could and reaching the end of the course before time runs out. These bricks can be stacked on tables, protrude from the sides of walls or be imbedded in walls. Some bricks are higher than others forcing you to jump kick to reach them and some may be stronger than others forcing you to use you special attacks to break them.

Other mini-games or secondary missions can be added like a story mode for each character in both the Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat universes. You could get more insight into the story when you play as each character. This can add more replay value by forcing gamers to play through the game with each character in order to see the different endings and see the bigger piece of the puzzle of the games’ overall story.



For the games Fighting mechanics the standard versus mode and fatalities are expected. What would be a warm welcome would be the tag-team feature from Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 where you can add 1 or 2 secondary characters to your team who can jump in and out of the fight. If one character goes down another team member jumps in to replace him. Online co-op versus and jump in-&-out Marvel Vs. Capcom styled gameplay and tag-team super attacks could add a whole new dimension to the gameplay. Another added mechanic would be knocking enemies in and out of different stages. Knock an opponent down to the Pit and the two of you wind up continuing your fight in the Pit.

Last, but not least, the story. How will these universes cross over? The Outworld portal from the Mortal Kombat games can open up in the Street Fighter universe with Shao Kahn wreaking all kinds of havoc and cooking up something fierce. The good guys like Liu Kang and his entourage can team up with Ryu and his entourage to fight against M. Bison who joins forces with Shao Kahn in exchange for power. Having the Outworld portal open across the Street Fighter universe will be like in Mortal Kombat 3 where you could see the Outworld portal in the background of certain stages.



And there you have it folks. Street Fighter Vs. Mortal Kombat. A logical solution to a smash-up between the two greatest Fighting game franchises in the history of gaming. This is the one Fighting game that many gamers deep down have been dreaming of for 20 years. Will it ever happen? Well, it seems possible given Midway’s financial woes over the past several years. It’s a safe bet that some time in the future Midway will pitch a proposal for a Street Fighter Vs. Mortal Kombat game to the folks at Capcom in a desperate attempt to stay afloat in the gaming market. You never know, if Freddy Vs. Jason, Alien Vs. Predator and Sonic & Mario can come together then maybe Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat can as well.

Street Fighter Vs. Mortal Kombat - Wish List...

- Have unlockable characters.

- Should have action/adventure scenarios to add variety to the gameplay.

- Expand on the car smashing & “Test Your Might” mini-games.
- Story mode for each character.

- Utilize Marvel Vs. Capcom’s jump in-&-out tag-team fighting mechanic.

- The ability to knock opponents into other levels.