Mortal Kombat II - Reception

Reception

The game proved to be an enormous commercial success and even a cultural phenomenon, with the first-week over $50 million sales for cartridge consoles dwarfing even the initial box office of movie blockbusters such as True Lies, The Mask and The Lion King. On the day of the game's release, dubbed "Mortal Friday", an unprecented number of more than 2.5 million copies were shipped to be distributed, with the best opening-week sales in video game history at this point.

Mortal Kombat II received numerous annual awards from various gaming publications. Game Players gave it the titles of "Best Genesis Fighting Game", "Best SNES Fighting Game" and "Best Overall SNES Game" of 1994. Nintendo Power ranked it as the second (SNES) and fifth (Game Boy) "Top Game" of 1994; it was also voted by their readers it to receive the 1995 Nintendo Power Awards for "Best Tournament Fighter" (all Nintendo platforms) and "Best Play Control" (Game Boy), having been nominated by the staff also in the categories "Worst Villain" (in the positive meaning) and "Best Overall". It also received the titles of "Best Fighting Game" of 1994 from VideoGames & Computer Entertainment, "Bloodiest Game" of 1994 from Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM), and "The Best of the Show (Super NES)" for the Summer Consumer Electronics Show '94 from GamePro, among many other awards.

Critical reception of Mortal Kombat II has been overwhelmingly very positive, with Sega Visions describing the way in which the sequel was directed as "sheer brilliance". Regarding the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive version, Computer + Video Games (C+VG), "Probe has done an incredible job with this conversion. Everything is here, and I mean everything," while Sushi-X of EGM called it "a great translation considering its limitations," but Detroit News felt "very disappointed" with this port and recommended the SNES version instead. Nevertheless, in 2010 Complex ranked it as the fourth best game in the history of the Genesis. Regarding the 32X version, IGN Retro stated, "if you do not have a SNES, this is the home version of MKII to get." A reviewer for The Baltimore Sun called the SNES version "the best game I've ever played - a true translation," while C+VG exclaimed, "it's the bloodiest game Nintendo has ever allowed to be released!" Regarding the portable consoles, C+VG stated that "no Game Boy owner should go without this" and called the Game Gear version "still the best handheld beat-'em up" on the market despite all the cuts to this version of the game. Critical reception of the Amiga version was also mostly very favorable; a review in Amiga Power was unusually negative, calling it "a clearly nonsensical title" and advising to "buy Shadow Fighter instead." Next Generation stated about the PC version, "if you like fighting games, this is the best that's available."

Over the following years, multiple gaming publications featured Mortal Kombat II in various lists of the best video games ever (some of them being listed in the reception table on the right). In a 2007 listing of the most important games of all time according to GamePro, Mortal Kombat II ranked at number 38 as "arguably the best Western fighting game to date, and certainly the title that defined Mortal Kombat as a brand, this game launched a thousand imitators en route to becoming one of the most famous -- and infamous -- video games ever made. Its technical and artistic mastery is only matched by its gushing gore."

In 2008, Destructoid called it "the best game to ever grace arcades." As late as 2009, many Mortal Kombat fans still considered MKII to be the best title in entire series. According to PlayStation Universe in 2011, "bigger, bolder and bloodier, the sequel remains a firm fan favourite among MK aficionados." Reviewing the PS3 port, IGN commented, "Mortal Kombat II still manages to stand up almost 15 years later as one of the best arcade fighters around."