Mortal Kombat Gold

Mortal Kombat Gold (MKG) is a 1999 fighting game in the Mortal Kombat series that was released exclusively on the Sega Dreamcast as a launch title. It is an updated version of 1997's Mortal Kombat 4 and was the first game to appear on a sixth-generation platform as well as the only Mortal Kombat game to be released for the Dreamcast console. Critical reaction was mostly average due to the graphics being inferior to the arcade version, the weapons deemed boring or useless, and game-breaking bugs and glitches.

Gameplay
Mortal Kombat Gold's gameplay is largely based on that of Mortal Kombat 4 and includes several additional characters and stages not seen in Mortal Kombat 4, as well as a new weapon selection mechanism. A second revision of the game, Hot New, was released about a month after the initial release, intending to address some of the major issues in it.[1][2] This version fixed the most severe bugs and glitches in the game and added the VMU memory card support, which allowed the save feature to function properly.[3]

Kombatants
Mortal Kombat Gold features the same character roster as Mortal Kombat 4, which includes Liu Kang, Jax Briggs, Sonya Blade, Johnny Cage, Sub-Zero, Reiko, Jarek, Raiden, Tanya, Scorpion, Kai, Reptile, Fujin, Shinnok, Quan Chi, sub-boss Goro, and the secret characters Noob Saibotand Meat. In addition, Gold also features six additional characters, Kitana, Mileena, Cyrax, Kung Lao, Baraka and secret character Sektor, who were not featured in any version of Mortal Kombat 4 but had been featured in previous installments of the franchise.

Although the game's storyline is identical to that of Mortal Kombat 4, the official strategy guide for the game misprinted unused bios for the six new returning characters, causing some confusion among fans.[4] Among these were:
 * Baraka dying at the hands of Kung Lao and being revived, hence the scar and metal staples on his body. This was retconned as his surviving Kung Lao's attack, as stated in an unlockable photo of his and Mileena's Mortal Kombat Gold character renders in Mortal Kombat: Deception.[5]
 * Kitana being the only survivor after Shinnok's invasion of her homeworld slaughtered the rest of her family, including Sindel.
 * Mileena coming out of hiding during Shinnok's invasion and using it as her chance to take revenge on Kitana.
 * Cyrax being rescued by Special Forces agents Jax and Sonya and reprogrammed to fight against Shinnok. Cyrax's story in Mortal Kombat Gold described him as being recovered by the Lin Kuei from the desert,[6] but then later seeking out the help of the Outer World Investigation Agency with the intention of restoring his humanity. However, the Konquest mode of Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance retcons this, foregoing the Lin Kuei completely and simply having the Outer World Investigation Agency recover Cyrax from the desert.[7]

Arenas

 * Elder Gods
 * Goro's Lair - When an opponent is defeated on this stage, he/she can be uppercutted into the spikes on the ceiling. Goro is fought here.
 * Ice Pit
 * Living Forest
 * Reptile's Lair
 * Shaolin Temple
 * The Prison - When an opponent is defeated on this stage, he can be tossed into the large metal fan, which proceeded to chop them into bits.
 * The Tomb
 * Fire Well
 * Wind World
 * The Church
 * Netherrealm
 * Soul Chamber
 * Ladder? - This stage can only be played in VS mode via Kombat Kode.

== Development and release == Belokk was a character thought to have been in the game and accessible by cheat code, but was actually omitted from the finished version.[8][9] However, the developer of the game, Eurocom, accidentally sent information about the game with Belokk in it to Game Informer, and as a result, six screenshots of him were leaked to the public. Ed Boon stated that the character did not make it into the final game because the developers did not have time to finish him.[10] Boon did actually consider Mortal Kombat Gold also for the PlayStation, Nintendo 64, Game Boy Color, and PC, but there was not enough time for this.[11] The revised version was released on a disc tinted red, as opposed to the original's gold tint, with a green sticker saying "Hot! New!" placed on the instruction manual cover.[3]

Reception
Mortal Kombat Gold received an averaged review score of only 54.97% at GameRankings.[12] Despite having the graphics that were the most faithful to the arcade version of all the home versions of Mortal Kombat 4, Game Revolution rated it a D and commented that "the graphics are inexcusably horrible" and "it's quite a depressing let-down on Sega's 128-bit masterpiece, especially when compared to Soulcalibur." The weapons that characters can use during the game were called "dull and uninteresting", often having little relation to the characters, and being "either a sword, axe, or club".[13] IGN was less negative toward the game, awarding it a 6.3 out of 10, but was particularly critical regarding the weapon system: "Readying your weapon is a slow process in which one can be hit any number of times during the attempt". Although IGN commented on the improvements from previous Mortal Kombat games, the lack of depth was considered inexcusable.[14] Jeff Gerstmann of GameSpot, who gave the game a score of 5.0/10, wrote that "sitting down and playing MK Gold almost feels like a retrogamingexperience - you really feel as though you've pulled out some old game that you haven't played in years - and it hasn't aged gracefully."[15] According to a retrospective by IGN, "the same publications that had once praised it on Nintendo 64 were happy to thrash it as a shallow and campy relic of a past age. Releasing beside Soulcalibur certainly didn't help."[16]

Trivia

 * Mortal Kombat Gold received two seperate printings. The first version of the game has a gold tinted disc, and has many game-breaking bugs and glitches, texture issues, crashing and many other issues. Such errors include texture loading errors upon start up, often loading up mix-matched textures, character and arena alike. The results of such glitches are often randomized. The game's music often changes during gameplay without warning, and does not change to the proper Fatality music when Fatalities were performed. The second printing of the game fixed most (if not all) of the bugs, and had a red-tinted disc as well as a case with a green sticker with "Hot! New!" stuck to it.
 * Although Mortal Kombat Gold brought back several new characters, they were largely made up of moves, poses and Fatalities from existing characters. While Mileena received a completely new design, Baraka's redesign was based off of Reptile's MK4 design, while Cyrax, Sektor and Kung Lao reused their designs straight from MK3. Although Kitana returns in her UMK3 outfit, she lacks her mask. The weapons used by these new characters are also re-skinned versions of existing weapons from Mortal Kombat 4. Most conspicuously, Sektor's "Compactor" Fatality re-uses the sprites featured in the same Fatality from previous games, poorly mixing two-dimensional sprites with three-dimensional models.
 * Although Kitana already had a pre-existing model in Mortal Kombat 4 featured in Liu Kang's ending (a gameplay model featured in the arcade and N64 versions, and a cinematic model in other versions), her UMK3 design was remade in playable form for Mortal Kombat Gold, including a new voice actress. Liu Kang's ending was not altered to accommodate for this however, causing the game to show two drastically different designs and voices for Kitana within the same setting.
 * During its release, Mortal Kombat Gold gained recognition as one of the worst launch titles of the Sega Dreamcast's library.
 * Cyrax, Mileena and Kung Lao will not appear in Demo Mode.
 * Rarely, during demo mode, the initials of the player with the most wins will be shown and announced as "MK5." However, once the screen with the top 15 most wins appears, the top player's initials will return to normal. This is also the case with MK4. Whether this is an easter egg or a glitch is unknown.