#1071

A playthrough of the unused character Noob Saibot in the version 1.0 arcade release of Midway’s/Netherrealm’s Mortal Kombat 4.

Well, here’s something interesting. Abystus, the guy who was able to make the hidden bosses in Mortal Kombat II fully playable, documented a few years back that Noob Saibot was not only included in location tests of Mortal Kombat 4, but actually remained in the game’s data until Revision 2.1. This wouldn’t be the only time this happened to something Mortal Kombat related of course; hidden Mortal Kombat characters were originally included in early versions of NBA Jam Tournament Edition, but were removed in later versions of the game. I did videos on those too, of course, because you have to love oddities like this.

MK4 feels like a game where Midway weren’t really sure what they were doing with it, and the arcade revisions definitely attest to that. While Noob here was in early location tests, he was removed in later revisions and replaced by…Reiko, of all bloody people. We were also originally supposed to have Kitana, but she was replaced by…Tanya. I complained back in my vids on Mortal Kombat Gold that MK4 was basically just them taking classic characters and reworking them into new ones for no discernible reason, but I never quite realised just how right I was.

Noob here is pretty basic, as you’d expect. He has the portrait and model he gains in the ports of MK4, meaning that they literally just reworked him into the game there as a kind of bonus rather than something entirely new. He has a weapon; a club from what I recall, as opposed to his scythe in the ports, though I couldn’t personally access it, and he has his teleport slam move from MK4 (d, u, Block), though no other special moves.

Given that this is one of the earliest revisions of MK4, it’s understandably extremely rough. The AI here definitely feels more like the traditional MK Terminator AI, where they seem to have ludicrous amounts of priority over you even when it doesn’t make any sense, and seem to move-read you most of the time. The game also has some slightly broken mechanics, particularly throws which have behave extremely oddly for the better part. For instance, I’m sometimes able to chain Noob’s LK throw here, which is hilariously broken, but against other opponents I’m instantly countered when I attempt to use a follow-up throw, even those there’s no way the AI should be able to counter that when they’re technically stunned. It feels really clunky and cheap, but this is an arcade MK game, so that’s a bit like saying water is wet.

You’ll also notice a few other differences with this version, such as the three question mark blocks on the character selection screen, as well as different character portraits for some characters such as Sub-Zero having no scar, and Quan-Chi having a different portrait entirely, and a different font for the win text as well. It’s intriguing to see just how similar yet different MK4 was to the final product at this point, but as I’d long suspected it reeks of a game without focus or specific direction, not even having any bosses, and perhaps explaining why they created as hap-dashed a boss as Shinnok to quite literally just fill a gap. I can see even more now why they took such a long time to make MK Deadly Alliance, though that game has its own issues too.
I do wish Noob Saibot had stayed in the main game, though he was eventually added to the ports in a much more complete version so I don’t have much reason to complain. MK4 is a very nostalgic title for me, so doing this vid was really satisfying, but I still recognise that it was pretty flawed and a bit behind the times by 1997, the same year as releases like KOF 97, Tekken 3, Street Fighter III, Marvel vs Street Fighter, and so many others.

Up next, we take one last detour before Deadly Alliance, as we see MKTrilogy like you’ve never seen it before.