Killer Instinct

Rare took a gamble at the arcades with this one.  Although they had impressed everyone with the ACM technique of character modelling on Donkey Kong Country, this was not guaranteed to have same effect in the arcades.

Rare obviously did their research and graphics-wise Killer Instinct looks like a cross between the detailed, smooth cartoony look of the Street-Fighter games and the realistic but choppy animation of Mortal Kombat.

Unfortunately for Rare Killer Instinct did not do as well in the arcades as either of the other two games mentioned here, but it did garner quite a cult following.

Fights are organized into rounds consisting of 100 seconds each. Your goal as a contestant is to eliminate the other fighter’s two life bars by pummelling the fighter senseless. You can jump, duck and block, and you can thrash your opponent with punches, kicks, sweeps, uppercuts and other standard moves. Each standard move has one of three levels of intensity: quick, medium and fierce.
To maximize your score, you should pull off combos and special moves whenever you can. When your opponent is near death, you can pull off a Danger Move or an Ultra Combo. Ultra Combos are sometimes in excess of 20 hits

Consequently when the SNES version was released and was almost arcade perfect, Killer Instinct sold like hotcakes.  After all, it was now the best fighter on the Super NES.  Weighing in a hefty 32 megabits (that’s 4Mb for the PC among you), Killer Instinct was one of the highest memory capacity carts released for the SNES and it was this extra memory which allowed Rare to perform such a faithful conversion.  Characters, combos, speech, animations, finishing moves, the lot!  In fact the only thing missing is the arcade cinemas…

The Blurb:

The King of the Killer Arcades Comes to Super NES!

Don’t wait in endless arcade lines to play – Killer Instinct comes to Super NES with action, graphics and sound that annihilates all other combat games!

Fulgore, Jago, B.Orchid, Spinal and all your favourite warriors contend in the Ultratech KI Tournament.  Each combatant engages in the KI Combo Theory of connected moves and finishing tactics to destroy their opponents.  With incredible displays of eyelasers, ice lances, wind kicks and laser blades, these fearless fighters prove their battle prowess.  But remember, if you lose, it’s hero to zero!

  • The killer arcade classic comes to the Super NES with astounding graphics and incredible sound!

  • The complete cast of famous fighters with all their special combos and finishing moves!

  • Contains a colossal 32 mega-bits of incredible fighting action!

  • Killer Cuts Music CD included inside!  This incredible CD is packed with the Killer Instinct soundtrack and remixed tracks for an added level of entertainment!

    KIller Instinct FAQ Killer Instinct Move List