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Mortal Kombat has been compared to other fighting games, most often Street Fighter. The original 5 games, Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II, Mortal Kombat 3, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat Trilogy were styled in a 2-D fighting fashion with gameplay consisting of five buttons that were high punch, low punch, high kick, low kick, and block. Reviewers have stated that because of this the characters are only differentiated by their special moves. In fact, some reviewers have criticized that the "bewildering array" of special moves in comparison to other fighting games has resulted in too little focus on regular moves. The series is especially noted for its realistic digitized sprites (which differentiated it from its contemporaries' hand-drawn sprites), and its high levels of blood and gore, including, most notably, its graphic Fatalities-finishing moves, requiring a sequence of buttons to perform, which, in part, led to the creation of the ESRB. The series itself is also known for using the letter "K" in place of "C" for the hard C sound, thus intentionally misspelling the word "combat," as well as other words with the hard C sound within later games in the series. Early games in the series were infamous for the prominent use of palette swapping to create new character sprites. |