Retro (TimeExtension) ‘The making of: Killer Instinct, Nintendo’s Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat killer’

[PixelKnight]

The Making Of: Killer Instinct, Nintendo's Street Fighter And Mortal Kombat Killer

"My first ever job was modelling a haunted house for a werewolf"

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The technological sands may have been shifting dramatically back in 1994, but the ripples from the groundbreaking impact of Capcom’s Street Fighter IIwere still being felt in the games industry. While the 32-bit era was looming and sophisticated new games machines were introducing players to the immersive thrills of 3D worlds, the humble 2D one-on-one fighter was still a big draw in both arcades and at home – so when Nintendo announced that it was producing its own take on the genre via the Rare-made Killer Instinct, it understandably caught the attention of the entire industry.

"This is the beginnings of Killer Instinct," says Lobb. "The Dragon character and Kim Kaphwan doing that move, [this] started me thinking about the idea [that] you should be able to do longer combos in a fight. What I didn't like about any game where you were getting hit more than three or four times was [that], as a player, I felt like, 'you're hitting me, I'm gonna watch, gee thanks.' That's where the Combo Breaker came from."

All of this foundational thinking came during Lobb's time at Namco. He conceived a weapons-based brawler under the codename 'Melee' alongside former Capcom staffer James Goddard, but he left to join Nintendo before any more work took place, and Goddard – with fellow ex-Capcom employee Dave Winstead – would go on to create 1995's SNES and Mega Drive fighter Weaponlord. However, Lobb kept that idea in the back of his head. One of his early tasks at Nintendo was to aid Rare with the development of Donkey Kong Country and help decide the level of investment required on Nintendo's part to produce it. Nintendo baulked at the cost initially, leading to the suggestion that perhaps Rare could produce more than just one game.

Given Nintendo’s family-friendly stance, the decision to create a one-on-one fighter was seen by some as an odd one; while arcade behemoth Williams – which owned Midway – was involved from a distribution perspective (the deal between Nintendo, Rare and Williams also included the much-maligned Cruis'n USA), there were some who doubted that a Nintendo game released post-Mortal Kombat would deliver the goods in terms of old-fashioned violence, prompting Nintendo's director of marketing George Harrison to publicly assure fans that no limitations would be placed on the developers in terms of content. "Williams would not have entered into this deal if they thought their hands would be tied," Harrison told GamePro in 1994. "We won't restrict them in any way."

Spicy title feels a bit odd, the piece isn’t really about the need to kill the big hitters, more about the genre influences and the upcoming home console generational leap. There’s loads more at the link. It’s an interesting article as it touches on Rare’s relationship with Nintendo, the arcade scene, fighting games of the time, and prep for promoting the N64 before the hardware existed.

I remember it all being a huge story at the time, I was big into fighting games and the arcades and soaked up every scrap of info I could find.

Here’s SNESDrunk’s take on the topic



I didn’t ever get to play the SNES game (released in 1995 here). I picked up the confusingly-titled Killer Instinct Gold on N64, which is a port from KI2 in the arcade, a couple years later instead and found it a bit disappointing, but all that of anticipation didn’t really help. I found the analogue stick a bit rubbish and imprecise compared to the dpad, and went back to the SNES for fighting games, and then onto the PlayStation for arcade ports shortly afterwards.

 

[Suswave]

my SNES was the Killer Instinct bundle and I loved the soundtrack that came with

mostly for the song where the pirate skeleton laughed and it just sounded like farting

I swear to god it was real

 

[PixelKnight]

my SNES was the Killer Instinct bundle and I loved the soundtrack that came with

mostly for the song where the pirate skeleton laughed and it just sounded like farting

I swear to god it was real

Lol. A friend of mine had made a cassette recording of garbled voice samples from various games, and we’d sit and listen to them on a Walkman on the bus, coming up with the most toilet-humour-based interpretations. Good times

 

[PixelKnight]

They just added another article on KI, adding some more context about the SNES version. I didn’t realise it shifted 3.2m copies!

To continue this trend, we're now gazing longingly at the SNES port of Killer Instinct, which – despite being massively scaled-down when compared to its arcade counterpart – managed to shift 3.2 million copies worldwide.

To give some context to the SNES port, it's worth noting that, when Killer Instinct hit arcades in 1994, its 'attract' sequence mentioned that the game would be playable in the home in 1995, "only on the Nintendo Ultra 64". Things didn't go exactly according to plan; the Ultra 64 (later renamed Nintendo 64) was delayed, and instead, Nintendo and Rare decided to convert the game to the incumbent Super Nintendo in 1995.

CIBSunday: Killer Instinct (SNES)

Fight on

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