Back in the day Nintendo had this weird knack for censoring games. On the 8-Bit Nintendo Entertainment System this was not all that much of a problem. Sure, we had a few questionable games slip through Nintendo’s weird censoring program, such as Monster Party which featured bleeding skulls and other imagery that NES games were not known for. For the most part though, on the NES, Nintendo censorship was uniform. On the Super Nintendo is where things got weird. Particularly with a title called Mortal Kombat. Maybe you have heard of this one.

Basically, Mortal Kombat could not appear on the Super Nintendo intact. The pugilistic action was allowed, odd you can beat the hell out of another person but not see them bleed. Hitting women was allowed as well (Sonya Blade in Mortal Kombat, Chun Li in Street Fighter II but no to Roxy and Poison in Final Fight).

Nintendo censorship was weird during the 16-Bit era, more so than the 8-Bit days.

Monster Party for the NES.

Mortal Kombat came to the Super Nintendo with more than a few major changes. Most of the fatalities had to be changed. Sub Zero no longer decapitated his opponent, ripping their spine out. Nope. Now he just froze them and busted their crystallized bodies. So much better than decapitation.

Nintendo censorship was weird.

Blood is another thing that had to go with Mortal Kombat. All the blood was changed to grey sweat. Yeah, fighters sweat that much. At least they did on Super Nintendo.

No matter how much we adjusted the color settings on our televisions, blood was not going to show up in the Super Nintendo version of Mortal Kombat.

That brings us to a fan edit of the classic Acclaim game.

Can you see what I see?

A fan has recently adjusted the game code to make the grey sweat red. Not quite as good as the Sega Genesis version which was closer to the arcade game, once you input the code (who remembers that code?). Still, this is better than grey sweat in my opinion.

Grab the hack at ROMHacking.net and get to bleeding. It has been far too long. Want a copy of Mortal Kombat? Hit eBay or Amazon.

Carl Williams

It is time gaming journalism takes its rightful place as proper sources and not fanboys giving free advertising. If you wish to support writers like Carl please use the links below. https://www.paypal.me/WCW https://www.patreon.com/CarlWilliams