Mortal Kombat II (Arcade)

Mortal Kombat II
Developer: Midway Games Publisher: Midway Games Platform: Arcade (Midway T-Unit) Released in US: November 1, 1993 This game has a hidden developer message. This game has hidden development-related text. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused sounds. This game has debugging material.

Mortal Kombat II is the second incarnation of everyone's favorite slasher/soap opera. More characters! More gore! More -alities!

Unused Sprites

A WWF logo found inside the game. Possibly meant for an advertisement that was scrapped.

Emoticon of unknown use. The first Emoticon is displayed in the PlayStation version whenever the game loads.

A red sky background meant to be seen inside the grates on the wall of the Dead Pool background like in the Super Nintendo version and on the Nintendo 64 version of Mortal Kombat Trilogy. In the normal version the background is merely dark green.

Acid bubbles meant for the Dead Pool background.

Acid splash meant for the Dead Pool background.

This can be seen in the Portal background by using a MAME cheat to break the screen limitations (so you can walk off the edge). It was later used in Mortal Kombat Trilogy.

Silhouettes from the Pit background found in the original Mortal Kombat.

Silhouette which seems to be Kintaro. May have been meant for an intro screen like Goro's intro screen in the original Mortal Kombat.

One of the male ninja characters throwing something on the ground.

Baraka's blades were probably meant to sparkle during his win pose.

Looks like Baraka was meant to have some sort of flip move with his blades extended.

This move was later used in Mortal Kombat Trilogy.

Kintaro standing. The shading implies it was meant for Kahn's Arena.

Kintaro grabbing and hitting opponent. This move was later incorperated into Mortal Kombat Trilogy.

Shine meant for Kung Lao's hat during his winning pose.

Had this been used in game it would have made Kung Lao's headbutt move less confusing. It shows he is actually attacking by using his hat.

This was used for MK2 Kung Lao in Mortal Kombat Trilogy for the PlayStation, PC, and Sega Saturn.

Lightning meant to go around Raiden during battle like in Mortal Kombat 1. The design is the same as that game but redrawn to match the style of the lightning of this game.

Raiden lifting up and shocking someone. Likely a Fatality. Raiden would eventually use a similar Fatality in Mortal Kombat 4.

Shao Kahn standing up. Shao Kahn was probably supposed to stand up after you beat Kintaro since he is seen sitting in the background of the level.

Shao Kahn doing a clap. Perhaps shot out a projectile.

Shao Kahn glowing. Unknown use.

Shao Kahn grabbing the opponent and hitting him. He would acquire this move in Mortal Kombat Trilogy.

Looks like Shao Kahn was originally meant to have a Fatality. These sprites show him punching the ground and a large hand which probably smashed the opponent.

Shao Kahn hitting opponent with both hands simultaneously. This was later used in Mortal Kombat Trilogy

Shao Kahn using a Sledgehammer. These sprites would later be inserted, yet unused, in Mortal Kombat 3.

Looks like Sub-Zero was originally gonna be able to do a freeze blast while in mid-air.

Sprites of various staff members. Perhaps they were gonna be shown on the Pit II bridge during the credits, like the motion capture actors were.

Unused Sounds

To do: Are any of the sounds [in here] actually unused?

There are several unused sounds in this game, mostly carry overs from the first game. There are, however, several vocal tracks and sounds for both existing and unknown characters.

General

Male Vocal : Yeah!

Unknown purpose. Possible win pose vocal for an unknown character or something else entirely.

Male Vocal: Yeaaaaaaaah!

Unknown purpose. Possible win pose vocal track for an unknown character or something else entirely. It was most likely a placeholder track for Kintaro's roar as it sounded like Goro from the previous game.

Female Sound: Kiss

Most likely an alternative to Kitana's normal kissing sound.

Male Sound: Kiss

Seems to align perfectly with Johnny Cage's win pose, but for some reason goes unused.

Female Vocal: Inflate Strain

Female characters use the male strain vocal track when Kitana's kiss is performed on them. It is unknown why this was left unused.

Male Vocal: Muffled Laugh

The laughing portion of this track was later used in the home console ports of Mortal Kombat 4.

Male Vocal: Attack 1

An attack vocal track for an unknown male character.

Male Vocal: Attack 2

An attack vocal track for an unknown male character.

Male Vocal: Attack 3

An attack vocal track for an unknown male character.

Male Vocal: Attack 4

An attack vocal track for an unknown male character.

Male Vocal: Damaged

A vocal track of an unknown male character receiving damage.

(Discovery: Abystus)

Developer Tools

Display Hitboxes

Setting ram address 1061FB0 to a non-zero value will enable a hidden development tool that was most likely used to help the developers position hitboxes correctly with their corresponding moves. This tool is also hidden within the 32-bit home console ports of the game, where it has been expanded to display damage areas (marked in red) on the opponent in addition to the attack related hitboxes (marked in green).

(Discovery: Abystus)

Red Herrings

Audits

In the test menu there is an audit screen that lists several statistics that the game keeps track of. Some of these don't actually do anything and never go up, being there simply to stir shiz up among the game's fanbase and stir up rumors and hype, something seen in other Mortal Kombat games.

• Shawn Attacks: Who knows? Doesn't seem to be any Shawns listed in the credits.
• Kano Transformations: Kano is present in the game, but solely as a background element. Either this was a scrapped hidden character, a scrapped hidden Shang Tsung fatality (ala the Kintaro one), or it was added solely to mess with people, which is probably is.

Win Text

The following win text is located on ROM chips ug12/uj12 (interleaved) starting at 0x04832. They were most likely put in as a joke. This is the first mention of a character named Tanya, who was eventually seen in Mortal Kombat 4.

KANO WINS
SONYA WINS
TANYA WINS
ERMAC WINS
ED BOON WINS
JOHN TOBIAS WINS
MARK TURMELL WINS
SAL DIVITA WINS

Unused Audits & Debug Text

Text for an inaccessble debug menu begins at 0x480F6:

REVISION 3.1
MORTAL KOMBAT 2 
EJB MENU
HELLO
ENTER INITIALS

CHARACTER ENDINGS
KUNG LAO
LIU KANG
CAGE
BARAKA
KITANA
MILEENA
SHANG TSUNG
RAIDEN
SUB-ZERO
REPTILE
SCORPION
JAX

There are a number of unused audits in the game. Audit text starts at 0x491FC:

SEC CHIP FAILURE
SYSTEM LOCKUPS
ILLEGAL OPCODES
   S TAKEN
DOOR SLAMS

Greetings

A list of greetings to various people can be found at 0x481BE

HELLO TO....

MOM
FRANK
SONIA
MIKE
EIDIE
TANIA
MILAGROS
FIFA
SEAN
JASON
RAMON
CLARA
ALEX

MICHELLE
DAVE
NIGEL
MARTHA
MARY
KENT
CHRIS
MATTHEW
AMY
ALLISON
BRIAN
EMILY
ED

ODILE
NENE
DANIEL
ERIC
ALAN
ODETTE
OLGA
BUELLE
GEORGE
AMANDA

Unused Stage Name Tag

Usually you can only fight in the hidden Goro's Lair stage when fighting against the hidden characters, Jade, Smoke and Noob Saibot. If one uses hacking or cheats to choose the stage in a 2 player game, it will show up on the VS screen as "No Name."

Oddities

Forgotten Logo

Johnny Cage was filmed wearing Otomix brand athletic pants with a very visible logo. Most of the sprites had this edited out, but when doing Shang Tsung's soul steal fatality, it can still be seen briefly before his corpse withers away. Obviously they just forgot to edit this out, as the sprite is only seen in that one specific fatality.