Download Game
Killer Instinct

Game Mechanics

Killer Instinct's biggest innovation is undoubtedly about his game system. The wealth of blows was impressive for the time (as opposed to hit Street Fighter 2). Indeed, a number of "Conventions" specific to the combat game could have been set up by Capcom (rounds, key combinations...). For Killer Instinct, the developers deleted the rounds in order to make the fights smoother, the player simply having a double life bar. Currently, Killer Instinct is the only combat video game that does not rest on wins per round. Clashes are boosted by a combos system which is also extremely innovative for this type of game. If several combinations of keys are always necessary to handle the characters, the sequence of several combinations allow the appearance of new movements.

The combos system allows several dozens of strokes on its opponent. To go back in more detail, a combo is formed by a series of special shots each including several unitary shots.

For example, the character Jago can blow his foot horizontally [1 shot] followed by a circular sword stroke [1 shot], finished with a uppercut [4 shots] (as in Street Fighter and King Of Fighter).

Special blows can be classified into several types:

• Opening cuts (required for the realization of a combo)
• Transitions
• Breakdowns
• Closure cuts
• Combo-Breaker (count-attack)

The realization of a combo thus observes a recurring form:

Opening / Transition / Chain / Transition / Closure

It is possible to link the first four special shots until the enemy is fainted. The only restriction is to start with an opening. The Combo-Breaker is more special, there is the only way to interrupt the opponent's combo and can thus act as an opening.

Let's take the example of Jago who must jump on his opponent, give a sword shot followed by a uppercut. He makes a 9-stroke combo, while only a few button pressures have been needed.

There are transitions, openings, closures and chains that allow for more or less blows. Also several of these types of shots are available per person. So much to say that the diversity of combos is enormous. It seems, however, that it is not possible to achieve a combo greater than 48 strokes, theUltra Combo. However, the more blows are, the less they hurt the opponent and the greater the risk of suffering a Combo-Breaker.

Killer Instinct makes it possible to inflict fatalities, concept developed by Midway on the series Mortal Kombat, which consists in completing his opponent at the end of the fight. The game's innovation is about how, bloody or fun, to finish its enemy:

• Basic fatalities help to kill his opponent in a way often horrible and gore.
• Special fatalities, featuring a particular character:
  • Orchid : shows her breasts or turns the opponent into a toad and pedestal
  • Glacius: liquefie then absorbs the opponent
  • Riptor: devour the enemy
  • Sabrewulf: fatally lacking the opponent
• Humiliations allow us to hypnotize and dance the opponent on ridiculous music.

The realization of impressive combos has the effect of completing the opponent at the end of his two life bars (the player must wait for the opponent to be almost dead, that is, his gauge flashes):

• TheUltra Combo. You have to hire a combo followed by the manipulation corresponding to the Ultra Combo character. A combination of about twenty shots in addition to the shots at the start are linked without the player having to retouch the controller.
• TheUltimate Combo ends the opponent with a combo ending with a "fatality".