Before the days of DLC and expansion packs, secret unlockable characters were a big part of Mortal Kombat.
Secrets were a weird thing in the old days because of the lack of internet.
The latter was problematic due to the strange phenomenon of, My father/uncle works at Nintendo and…
Many were fooled, including foreign publications and people doing leg work forCapcom.
One of the thingsMortal Kombatprided itself on back in the day was secrets.
Midway was the first to make such a concept a reality.
Mortal Kombatcame out in late 1992, and the third version of the game featured the mysterious Reptile.
Before random fights, the green ninja would pop in-between the kombatants and deliver some kind of clue.
Upon completing that, you would be transported to the bottom of the Pit to fight Reptile.
Reptile was just a palette swap of Scorpion and Sub-Zero and even kept Scorpions name on his health bar.
Killing him would net you ten million points.
Such a thing mattered once upon a time.
Further Reading: Mortal Kombat Timeline Explained
It was a perfect way to get more quarters into the machines.
To be fair, the big urban legend of the firstMortal Kombatgame had enough merit.
The bottom of the list said, ERMACS.
It was shorthand for error macros, but speculation ran rampant.
Weve already had yellow, blue, and green ninjas.
I guess Ermac was a secret red ninja.
There were even claims that the ninjas would briefly turn red with ERMAC appearing in their health bar.
Those rumors were unfounded.
While the so-called Ermac glitch was made-up, there was in fact a glitch-based opponent out there.
While believed to be an April Fools gag fromEGM, this actually came out in the March issue.
1993 brought usMortal Kombat II, which was bigger in just about every way.
More characters, better graphics, more Fatalities, and a lot more secrets.
Actually, thats pretty much just going back to the well after all.
To face him, youd have to be in the Portal stage and uppercut your opponent.
If Dan Forden (the games sound designer) pops his head in to yell, Toasty!
then you press start and itll interrupt the fight and go directly to your battle with Smoke.
Hes basically just a harder Scorpion, only gray and with smoke constantly coming off him.
and a lot of stuff that had nothing to do with anything.
Jade was a much faster Kitana, only wearing green, and was completely immune to all projectiles.
The two could also be seen lurking in the Living Forest stage.
The game really wanted to make it appear that they were around.
Thing is, Midway included virtually no clues about the third hidden character.
TheMortal Kombat II Official Players Guidefeatured a couple of images of a red ninja named Robin (Red Robin.
), but they were pretty blatantly doctored photos.
and, CHUN WHO?
which Im pretty certain is the only knock atStreet Fighterthat Midways officially made.
On SNES and Genesis, Jade would also occasionally say, HORNBUCKLE WHO?
That was misconstrued as a reference to yet another hidden character, which is understandable.
Once again,EGMgot involved.
Sometimes special messages would appear after beating the game: Who is Smoke?
One message flat out stated that Ermac does not exist.
But then you had questions like Where is Sonya?
and Where is Goro?
which only existed for the sake of getting people to speculate that they were somewhere hidden in the game.
Mortal Kombat 3came out in 1994, and Midway went a different direction with the codes.
It was through the Kombat Kodes that you could play asMortal Kombats very first unlockable character, Smoke.
The other hidden character, while not playable, was also rather interesting.
You could once again fight Noob Saibot thanks to a Kombat Kode.
Except this game didnt have any meat-and-potatoes male ninja characters to palette swap.
Sub-Zero was unmasked, Smoke was a robot, and Scorpion and Reptile were missing.
Instead, they used a blackened version of Kano without any of his special moves.
Not that it made much difference since his stage would make him nearly impossible to see anyway.
When the upgraded versionUltimate Mortal Kombat 3came out in 1995, Noob Saibot returned to his ninja form.
Eight characters were tossed into the game and they were all either male ninjas or female ninjas.
With the exception of playing as Human Smoke, all the secret characters were again available via Kombat Kodes.
Most notable was the introduction of Ermac, finally turned into a real character.
Even his ending was about him hiding in the shadows since the firstMortal Kombat.
He wasnotinMortal Kombat 4.
Midway once again went really sketchy by introducing Rain.
This was completely bogus.
There was no Rain.
It was false advertising.
I always thought that was a dick move of Boon and the rest.
He was finally playable in the console version.
Meanwhile, the diagnostics included a line for JOHNNY CAGE TRANSFORMATIONS.
No, he was not in the game either.
Each game had a hidden character, though with very similar names and gimmicks.
He was usable by selecting a male ninja and holding back and all the other buttons before a round.
An ending image also popped up, which looked just a little too clown shoes to be believable.
Either way, its off.
Well, character is a stretch.
He was actually, ironically enough, a skin.
Not really worth the trouble, but little ofMortal Kombat 4was.
The home versions had unlockable characters in Goro and Noob Saibot.
Dreamcast got an upgraded version in 1999 calledMortal Kombat Gold, which included more characters.
The hidden characters were easier to unlock, which included the return of Sektor.
Still, some figured that he had to be hidden in the game and tried to find him regardless.
In 2002,Mortal Kombatfinally returned from a hiatus to give usMortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance.
From there, you could stumble upon finding nine different hidden characters.
It had to be Friday between 12 and 12:30 am.
The fanbase figured this out in about a day.
Further Reading: Mortal Kombat Reboot Movie on Hold
Meanwhile, Shujinko was unlockable by finishing Konquest.
That would become the usual way to unlock characters from there on out.
In bothMortal Kombat vs. DC Universeand the 2011Mortal Kombatreboot, characters were simply unlocked by completing story mode.
Mortal Kombats classic arcade legacy would not be forgotten, though.
Through tasks that were very similar to the old school early 90s (ie.
Jade even had Kitanas fan!
But there was a fourth variation: Cyber Sub-Zero, aka the bestMortal Kombatcharacter in history!
Hell of a way to celebrate the milestone 10th game in the main series.
Maybe when the nextMortal Kombathits, well finally be able to play as Nimbus Terrafaux.
