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No other fighter comes close.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 10
Date: June 20, 2004
Author: Amazon User

First of all, I mean no other fighting game matches this one in replay value, due to insane combos (of which there are many different variations), great "No Mercy" (finishing) moves and a great cast of characters. I was a fan from the moment I played it for the first time, and 10 years later it is still without a doubt my favorite game of all-time. Do not be mistaken though, I am not saying all of the other fighters out there are bad(Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat are also 5 star fighters), but when Killer Instinct hit the arcades there was nothing like it, at least in my opinion. The graphics were beautiful, the combos were amazing and it seemed like an all around original game.

Other reviewers might have you believe this game rips off the others, but nothing could be further from the truth. Sure, they all share similarities, but Killer Instinct was the first to develop this complex combo system, consisting of linkers, auto-doubles and enders, not to mention the ULTRA combo. To me the ULTRA is the greatest concept of all-time as far as fighting games are concerned. It is a move performed at the end of a combo that adds many more hits to give a great-looking combo to finish off your opponent. There are also combo breakers to stop your opponent from performing a combo on you. So by now you should be able to understand that this game takes a LOT of practice to get good at. Learning the combo theory, mastering each character's moves and getting comfortable with each character's style is hard work, but with enough practice will be rewarding once you know your stuff. There are 8 great characters to choose from, each with their own background level, and depending on the location you can knock your opponent off of buildings. It has pretty decent music to boot, giving a great game experience--in my opinion one of the best games you could own for the Super NES. So if you are a fan of fighting games or own a Super NES, try this one out. You can find it for very cheap these days, so it is definately worth picking up if you see it around. You will either hate this game and never want to play it again, or you will be hooked instantly and develop an addiction to the style this game presents.

Sigh...Need To Bump This Back Up

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: February 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

It's official, Der Kommisar is an idiot. The reviewer before me tore apart his pitiful argument piece by piece before shoving it into his bladder. It was rather amusing.

Anybody who does not hail Killer Instinct to be the holy grail of video games should just give up and go back to the basics of how to jump with Super Mario.

15 Reviews and 4 and a half stars is unacceptable. Any respectable gamer who was around in the mid Nineties should know just how exactly revolutionary and important this game was to the genre of versus fighters. KI players, I know you're out there. Show your appreciation.

Rebuttal

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: December 03, 2004
Author: Amazon User

The following will be some counters used against some points made by previous reviewers who either are obviously uninformed or unfortunately hopelessly ignorant.

Originality:
The main concern regarding Killer Instinct is apparently that it is unoriginal. One reviewer suggested that it has a six button fighting scheme ripped off from Street Fighter. First of all, KI and SF are apples and oranges. When Super Street Fighter II Turbo came out in 1994, it introduced a system where the character would execute a combination of combos by building a separate energy bar and then releasing it at will. The combo system in KI is not only completely different, but it innovated the industry by bringing fighters altogether to a new level. Never before has a fighting game possess combos as high as 50 hits. The arcade version even allows infinite juggling! No other game has anything distantly similar to KI's exceptional combo system of openers, autoseconds, linkers and endings. No other game has the patented "combo breaker" that allows players to end their opponent's assault right in the middle of their combo. Thus, the argument that KI ripped off SF's fighting style is quite absurd. You're better off comparing SF to Fatal Fury or King of Fighters in the SNK Company. Or better yet, you might even find more similarities between SF and Marvel because KI is in a completely different league.

If anything, KI is more similar to Mortal Kombat in its game design. Even so, MK has utterly nothing on KI when it solely comes down to gameplay. KI not only has the uniqueness of MK's special moves for each character, it also has a much superior combo system and overall a better flow in the game. Although it is somewhat true that the "no mercy" finishers in KI are in the same vein as the "Fatalities" of MK, KI was still able to innovate this further by the creation of the Ultimate Combo, allowing players to perform finishers in the middle of a combo. MK also wished it came up with the genius of the Ultra Combo, hands down the greatest feature ever made for a video game.

Weak Controls:
How exactly does Killer Instinct possess "weak controls"? It combines the style of controls for special moves in traditional Street Fighter (such as the basic D,DF,F+P) with the ones introduced by Mortal Kombat (such as F,F+P). Therefore, how can it possibly do any wrong? For characters such as Cinder, KI's controls allow you to use both styles! A lot of the more complex combos are very difficult to perform, but that's the deal with any game. Practice makes perfect.

Life Bars:
The life bars do not regenerate between rounds in Killer Instinct because the game happens to be cumulative. Do not approach a fight with an expectation of two rounds but rather one. Comebacks may be tough, but it is definitely not impossible. I've seen situations where players are in the "last breath" stage where the announcer says "danger", randomly push the pad and buttons rapidly, escape and win. Why? Because you do over twice your normal damage in the "last breath" stage! There are always opportunities to make comebacks but this is more issues concerning the gamer, than the actual game.

Balance:
Contrary to some false accusations, Killer Instinct is actually perfectly balanced. Just because some characters are easier to learn than others does not make them superior. This is actually part of what makes the game so appealing, the learning process of each character's advantages and disadvantages. Whether it's Cinder's air priority, Orchid's ground edge or Thunder's chipping technique, it all eventually evens out. Spinal, the hardest character to learn is unstoppable if a player can master his specialities. Riptor's amazingly fast transition between moves makes him a dominant force as well as Sabrewulf's ability to manually power up through his howl. Even Eyedol, KI's best character has lag time, just like everyone else. If the computer takes advantage of an initial mistake, combo break him. Again, this is concerning more of the game's strategy than game design.

Honestly, there are no flaws in this game. If so, they are so trival and miniscule, it's not even worth mentionning. Killer Instinct is undeniably a video game classic, period.

Other games could not copy KI

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: October 18, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Killer Instinct was a really good game. The home version was a pretty good translation of the Arcade smash and the game didn't get old as quickly as other fighting games.

This game took the bar up to 10. After KI, almost every other fighting game came up with some sort of combo system. Some not as impressive as KI but still, the combo system was adopted and to this day, very used by most games because let's face it, the combos add another dimension to the game. Instead of a whalloping one-hit move that hurt like hell, you could unleash vicious combos that, if done properly could wipe your opponent across the screen.

I think one of the only problems with KI on the home system was the same problem with the Arcade version. It was to complicated for a lot of gamers. A lot of people could not get the combo system down and I will admit certain characters had some difficult ones. You really had to know the combo system to win at KI.

But once you got decent (you didn't have to be stand up good all the time, trust me I got lazy in a lot of matches), it was one of the most fun games you had played. I believe this was on of the first games that you could play on the short lived SNES modem hook up. With the modem hook up, you could play with your friends on the other side of the country. But now we have the internet so it's not that big of a deal.

KI is a keeper. I'd get it while you can. If it's still not for you, than maybe the Street Fighter ot MK series is for you.

WHAT A THRILL RIDE

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: August 17, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game had more combos then Mortal Kombat it should have been remember now. I wish they were still making games of this on PS2. You can make the fighters fight faster by holding down all the buttons when you pick your fighter and when they have on the screen your fighter vs the computer to tell that it worked it will make a punching sound. The computer always tell you how many combos you made in other words how many hits. The most hit is the altra which has 24 hits, thats the finishing one. My favorite fighters are Spinal, Fulgore, B. Orchid, Jago, Combo, Thunder, Saberwolf, Raptor, Cinder. This game makes the Street Fighter games on Super NES look like a pre school game.

Killer Kings...MEEEE!!!!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: January 10, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Well, i know that i am not a boy, but i am a tomboy, and this game is the best one that ive got. i cant wait to get home from school every day just so that i can play Killer Instinct. My boyfriend gave this game to me only a week ago, but the 1st time that i played it, i just got attached. so he gave the game to me, and i still havent tired of playing it, and usually im tired of a game after like, 3 days. the game is very interesting, and im learning new combos every day. this is the kind of game that just does not get old!!! the game is very challenging, and it is very cool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

KI is great

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: February 15, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This game started the world of fighting games, and is known as one of the classics. If you didn't have this game and still don't, buy it, and you won't regret. Lasts for hours and has many playable characters. One of my favorite games of all time!!

Great game it should be ported to GBA

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: June 20, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This is one of the greatest fighting games ever. It has been a while since i have played it but I have it on my snes emulator. I hope Nintendo re releases this masterpiece of a game to the game boy advanced.Soon im getting a game boy advanced and it would be cool to play Killer Instinct werever I go, whenever I want. If you have not played this game I urge you to play it its a classic......Remember mister or misses I work for nintendo and Im reading this please put this on Game Boy Advanced.

One of the Best SNES Games

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: August 27, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This game was awesome for it's time. It was visually amazing, the sounds were sharp and realistic, and everyone was unique. If you used the cheat, you could unlock the two headed boss, Eyedol. That made the game experience even more fun. The CD it came with has awesome tracks to play as well if you manage to find one with it.

Kick Azz

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: September 26, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This game overall is still one of the best fighting games out there, and definitely one of the best Super NES games as well. Of course the arcade version is so much better than this one but for the SNES it's very impressive. It also comes with a music cd of the soundtrack inside the game, and that is very enjoyable as well. I really have no gripes with this game other than I wish you could knock people off the bridge in the Chief Thunder stage (you can't knock them off in the arcade version either, weird) but other than that this game is awesome. My favorite player is Cinder, it's too bad they took him out of KI:GOLD (along with Chief Thunder and Riptor). BUY THIS GAME NOW!!!

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