When it comes to fighting games, I consider myself an experienced rookie. I know how to play them, but I never strive for mastery. I'd rather have fun being decent with a lot of characters across multiple games than being super-good at just one game I have to obsess over. It's that mentality that makes it fun to pick up older fighting games. You won't see the original Killer Instinct at EVO, but it's an awesome game to revisit at your leisure.
I won't spill too many words about the story. It's a fighting game port on the SNES, you shouldn't expect much. There's a big, evil conglomerate who have organized a fighting tournament attended by all manner of freaks. There's regular dudes like the boxer TJ Combo or the native American Chief Thunder, but also fighters such as the lycan Sabrewolf or the undead warrior Spinal. Each has their motivation for joining the tournament, but that begins and ends with a single text screen at the end.
At its surface, the controls are easy to understand. D-pad to move around and every other button performs some kick or jab. Despite these simple controls, Killer Instinct boasts a remarkably high skill floor. I could eventually bumble my way through the first match with jumps, kicks, and swipes. The second match though? Forget about it.
Chief Thunder completely overwhelmed me. He dodged around my every attack and converted his skilled blocks straight into combos. He'd dash in and chain together a 5-hit combo, knock me back, and then immediately follow up with another combo. I saw my entire health bar vanish in literal seconds. This was round 2. Of the default difficulty setting. Holy shit Rare.
Killer Instinct is very technical and heavy on the combos. Each fighter has their regular strong moves like projectiles or extra powerful strikes. Moves that involve double-tapping directions or half-circle inputs on the D-pad; tricky but manageable. They also have moves that involve suddenly launching forward. These open a combo that you can then supplement with regular attacks, or follow up with combo linkers and enders. At the same time, there are combo breakers that can disrupt an ongoing combo and which have their own follow-ups.
The inputs for these combos are a fair bit harder to pull off. Often involving a vague system called charging where you hold a button down for around 2 seconds and then do the next inputs. Where this gets interesting is that you can buffer these inputs while other things are happening. Sabrewulf's combo openers all involve charging a direction on the D-pad, then suddenly tapping the other direction and performing an attack. You can charge backward to block an enemy attack, then suddenly tap forward and bite to roll under their next strike and initiate your own combo. Pulling off a turnabout like that always feels incredible.
In many games, tricky combo inputs like this would be toys for the no-lifers to flex with. In Killer Instinct, this is the baseline. You have to learn how to do these combo inputs or you're just not going to make it past the first few battles. From about the midway point onward, it wasn't unusual to see the AI chain together 20-hit ultra combos out of nowhere. How the hell are you going to deal with that if you haven't mastered combo breakers?
If that's a challenge you're willing to commit to, then Killer Instinct has a lot to offer. Each character is so cool, both in design, lore, and moveset. Many of them reuse inputs to some extent, but I don't feel like any of them are too similar. The action is cathartic and—as to be expected from Rareware—animated gorgeously. Though sacrifices of course had to be made when converting the arcade original to the Super Nintendo.
Revisiting a game like this isn't for everyone. It's a demanding game and it can feel wasteful to pour so much time into learning a game that nobody is really interested in anymore. Still, I don't regret doing so myself. Even if the unreasonably hard boss fight at the end had me pulling my hairs out in frustration.
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