Yeah,I've also been wondering about that... The first two MK games have been released in Japan (the second one even had a badass subtitle - Kyuukyoku Shinken),but I haven't really seen any reviews or opinions from Japanese players. Now,I don't know about Japan,but I can definitely tell you that MK is adored in Russia. Pretty much everyone was into it at some point.
MK is pretty much the only non-Japanese fighter on the market right now,which is intimidating from Midway's point of view,but they are doing a great job. The best part of MK's gameplay system is how fresh and unique it is,as opposed to Japanese 3D fighters,which are basically Virtua Figher clones as far as gameplay is concerned,and even 2D fighters,which are SF ripoffs. Really,SFII invented pretty much every single technique and feature used in modern fighting systems. Sometimes,I get an impression that on the grand scale of things,the only thing fighting games did to improve upon SFII was the introduction of dash (WHOAMG NO WAY PLZ!11). The MK Team,however,had the balls to do something unlike every other fighting game out there. It may not be the best engine ever created,but at least it's something original. Props to them. However,even if the approach to gameplay is fundamentally different,the Japanese players should appreciate the atmosphere,design and storyline,which,in my opinion,kick the shit out of the best Japanese fighters.
Personally,I would love to see what would happen if the MK universe was given to Japanese developers. Imagine the possibilities... One thing they would definitely do is hire seiyuus to give each character his own unique voice. That's something Midway,unfortunately,can't be arsed to do. Another potential change would be anime-inspired redesigns,which would be completely awesome. Hell,we might even get to see a 2D MK game with SF3-style graphics. Don't get me wrong,I love MK as it is,but I wouldn't mind seeing a fundamentally different revision just for a change.

shut up and go play tekken then son, your posts speak for you that you know nothing about mk competetive scene, take care ;

There are a ton of reasons why MK was not popular in Japan. Saying its because it was not competitive is pretty limited and ignorant.

The MK team marketted MK like nobody's business. They marketted fantastically, for the US audience. In the US and in countries that don't have a cultural-level love affair with arcade games, MK was appealing. But, in Japan, it's not the same thing when you try to bust into the arcade market. And, on top of that, I don't see the eastern influence of the MK games as a bonus for trying to break into a place like Japan. Americans interpretting eastern symbolism usually leads to funny if not insulting results. MK is the Sodom of fighting game franchises.

Also, there is the content. People got pissed in the US that there was no blood in MK1 for SNES. In MK2 for SNES in Japan, all blood is green, the word "Fatality" is green. When you do a fatality, the screen goes to black and white. Its pretty censored overall and, based on the rules around whats allowed in anime, its probably because of strange rules about publishing content ( A cartoon could show a naked person, but could not show pubic hair, weird shit like that).

And then there's the home console aspect of it. The MK games have bad home ports. I know a lot of people swear by them, but that doesn't change the fact that they are bad. Every MK game for Genesis looks and sounds terrible. Every MK game for Genesis and SNES plays terrible. MK3 for PSX is bad. UMK3 for Saturn is heinous. All versions of trilogy have game breaking problems or characters.

UMK3 is the only really competitive MK game, and there is, so far, still no good way to play it at home.

Then, there is the competitive aspect of it. To an extent I do agree that the high level play of MK as a series is practically nonexistant. UMK3 is a truly great competitive MK game, but how would someone know when they got so sick of MK1 and MK2 their its focus on blood, gore, and shock value, and very limited gameplay. To a serious fighting game fan, MK1 and MK2 were a joke. So who would ever guess that UMK3 was actually balanced?

[WARNING! INCOMING RANT! FLAME SHIELD DEFENSE SYSTEM ACTIVATED! ]
For the record,Genesis MK games wipe the floor with SNES versions in terms of sound. Yeah,okay,so some of the voice samples are missing,boo fucking hoo. However,most of the MK music for the Genesis was carefully resynthesized by Matt Furniss,a truly brilliant composer who had a ton of experience working with chiptunes. The music in SNES versions is nothing but a shitty,half-assed set of samples that sounds almost nothing like the arcade. See,it's not enough to just have a supposedly superior sound chip; it also has to be utilized to its full extent by someone who knows what the hell they are doing. Another victim of this inexcusable laziness was Ninja Gaiden Trilogy. The repugnant sample sets sequenced by some hacks (ironically,coming out of a console that's supposed to be superior to NES on every level imaginable) are like rugburn for the eardrums of anyone who had the pleasure of listening to the original NES sound.


While we are on it,would you please go into more detail as far as bad ports are concerned? Exactly what's so bad about them? I'm really curious.

Well for starters the souond I know a lot of people have an emotional attachment to Genesis MK music, but it is a tinny mess. You can make SNES sound like that, there are codes to cut quality down. I call that the Garbalizer. And then there are the atari sound effects they stuck in to Genesis MK3....shutter.

First the graphics. With a few exceptions they are bad. MK3 for DOS was great, and MK1 for DOS was respectable. MK2 for DOS was bleh.

SNES did a decent job of the graphics for their games, but Genesis was terrible.

PSX MK3 and Saturn UMK3 were developed together. THey have the same graphics, and those are pretty bad (the energy bars are nearly 1/4 of the screen's height away from the top to try and make the characters not look so tiny on the screen). Then you get stuff like all of the insane game breaks in UMK3 for Saturn. You can juggle off of standing HK's in the corner and other crazy stuff like that. MKT for N64 you can juggle almost anywhere with almost any character by mashing D+HK. Its a corner inf. MK3/UMK3 for Genesis you can infinitely juggle HP - air Freeze with Sub Zero. MK3/UMK3 for SNES they make the already easy Kung Lao infs easier by taking away all limits on the spin. MK3/UMK3 SNES they did some crazy stuff to I guess try to limit corner infs by making it so you can't juggle hits within like 1/2 a screen of the corner, but they still managed to create many infinites with it. Recovery times for moves in MK2 SNES/Genesis are shortened and limits are removed all over the place so you end up with a whole library of big damage combos created by the fact that these ports are bad.

There are really a million little problems with each port. If there were only a few, it'd be understandable because its expected that the port will be different. But overall, each port ends up being a completely different, and far more abuseable game.

The closest thing to a good port is MKT for PSX/PC. If they didn't have the bosses, Noob, and Rain, it would only take a handful of fixes to make the game great. They limited Kung Lao's spin, they improved the quality of some characters by adding new moves, its close to a truly great thing. But Noob and Rain are broken messes. And MK2 Kung Lao is kind of a mess as well. He can do so many hits, they do MK2 level damage, he has mid screen inf juggles that take out huge chunks of life. It's just ridiculous.

The list of problems could continue. But there's no point.

UMK3 arcade is the best MK game, gameplay wise. And personally I like the graphics and look of the game as well but that's just me. MKT for PSX/PC is the next best thing gameplay wise. Its graphics are decent. Its sounds are good. Loading is unfortunate but not a big deal. It just needs to be balanced more.

It's not as much a matter of affection as it is a matter of fact. =) I reiterate - simply having theoretically superior audio capabilities doesn't mean ANYTHING if they aren't utilized. The composer's/sequencer's talent is what brings out those capabilities. The Genesis versions were given to Matt Furniss,who had both talent and experience. Furniss ended up doing what the Genesis sound chip did best - synthesize. However,the SNES versions were given to some nameless hacks who had no fucking clue how to handle the power they were given and therefore,weren't able to capitalize on SNES's strengths. From the technical standpoint,the SNES sound chip,if used to its fullest potential,could produce music pretty much equal in quality to that of the arcade version,as it owned the hell out of Genesis in terms of producing quality digital music. The thing is,all that potential was wasted when instead of resequencing the music using the capabilities of the SNES sound chip (which takes time,effort and fair amount of musical talent),the heathens who did the port decided to take an easy way out. So what they ended up doing was simply picking some random samples the chip offered,throwing them together to produce absolutely appaling pieces of garbage and calling it a day. The tunes from the arcade are barely recognizable. They don't sound gritty,dark and badass anymore.

Hey,but at least the sound is clearer (ZOMG). I guess that's something.

Also,as far as gameplay is concerned,I just have one statement to make:
6-button Genesis controller >>> SNES controller.

Oh,and thanks for that port explanation.

I competely forgot about the existence of this page:
http://www.geocities.jp/midwood2004/
This fellow is Japanese,and,apparently,he's a big fan. He's also an amazing artist,though his style is somewhat unusual. Check out his gallery,it's truly awe-inspiring:
http://www.geocities.co.jp/Playtown-Queen/3558/gallerroom.htm

Mk-Krazy is correct MK fails,, tournaments don't mean shitt,, mk3 is broken as hell and is still in tournaments WAKE UP people..

They are the confusing Japan and the confusing Orient. Raiden, Kintaro, Chinese Ninjas, they are very strange. Raiden's clothes are weird. The monster's name "Kintaro" is also weird. There are no ninjas in China. Ninjas were only in pre-modern Japan. Many Japanese do not like it. But westerners want peace of mind. Many Japanese do not offend the ignorance of Westerners. We do not protest "culture plagiarism" or "insults". We just laugh at them.

I think they like, but they prefer animes instead.

in mk2 in japan all the blood is green and all the fatalities are grey!!!!