All right it’s time for a fighting game! Those are always fun to look at. This one is definitely really old of course so it’s certainly not going to compete with some of the newer titles but it’s still pretty solid. It definitely feels like an old Mortal Kombat even though I haven’t played through that series. It just has the vibe you would expect from it. The edge is almost a bit funny with how old the graphics are.

So there’s no story mode or anything like that here. This is all about the fighting gameplay and in a way that’s really what you’re hoping for here. That’s why you are playing after all. The core gameplay is good and at the end of the day that’s why this game is pretty good. It’s got infinite replay value and the character roster may not be very large but all of the characters are quite distinct. My favorite character to play as was easily the guy made out of fire. He reminded me of the Human Torch and was really solid.

The gameplay does take a lot of getting used to in terms of using the combos though. For example, the quarter circle moves I mastered for Street Fighter don’t work here at all. I was able to button mash myself to a few reliable combos that would work but that was really it. Otherwise I just had to hope for the best. It reminds me of Tekken a little bit as well with how one hit can lead to an absolutely devastating combo. I make one mistake and the opponent would immediately counter by taking out half of my health bar. It’s definitely impressive but also rather scary. I imagine that tournament battles for this game would really end very quickly.

After all, a pro player could probably get even more leverage out of that initial hit than a computer would. I could be overestimating the depth of the game and maybe that wouldn’t happen but for now I would bet on losing 70-80% of my health after the hit. So make sure you guard and approach really carefully! That said, it’s a game that I know I would never be an expert at since it’s not like I would have played it much so I would just hold the L there. I didn’t really experiment with the other characters but I’m sure all of the movesets are fairly good.

While there is no story, I should say that the characters do get a quick ending writeup which was nice to see. It reminds me of the classic arcade endings from games like this. The graphics are fairly good. They may be a bit blocky but the designs are all distinct so I do think that the game did a good job in the end. The soundtrack is also decent. Not amazing or anything but I thought the variety was good considering that this kind of game could have easily just had like 4-5 tracks or something like that.

Naturally the replay value really depends on how much you like the gameplay. It’s pretty much infinite as I always say for fighting games since the experience will always be different but by the same token, that means it has to completely compete with other fighting games. A story based game has its own unique scenarios so it doesn’t run into that problem. I suppose you could say it’s one of those things where there are pros and cons to each genre. In the end though the common element is that each game must succeed on its own merits. In the end I would say this one does a good job so it gets the passing grade.

Overall, Killer Instinct is a pretty good game. The combat is really on point and while there is not a lot of different modes for combat, it is fine. The game is 100% focused on being a solid brawler and succeeds in that respect. There’s no story, nothing like that but you know that you can boot this up at any time and really enjoy a solid amount of martial arts. I would definitely recommend checking this one out. It’s a pretty fun blast through history, particularly since I was never really familiar with the Killer Instinct series all that well.

Overall 7/10