History YMMV / MortalKombat4

** Reiko's ending in the arcade and UsefulNotes/Nintendo64 versions. The camera does a pan-around of his body, a portal materializes, and he walks into it, causing it to close again. [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse That's it.]] They corrected this in the other home ports, tying Reiko to Shao Kahn in the process.

** The UsefulNotes/GameBoyColor version is a cheap and unplayable bastardization because of technical and graphical limitations. The "music" is a complete nightmare and makes music in pirated bootlegs sound ''good'' by comparison. And the fatalities are played out in small, monochrome cutscenes. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWOEBio6cA0 Prepare yourself.]]

** The Dreamcast port, Mortal Kombat Gold very blatantly needed more time to cook than what it got. The game is unstable and prone to glitches that don't exist in any other iteration, the newly introduced characters are hilariously unbalanced and have less polish to their animations compared to the Vanilla cast and the initial run of the game didn't even support ''saving your game to the memory card.'' Midway would eventually issue an UpdatedRerelease [[ExaggeratedTrope of their Updated Re-release]] to fix some of the nastier bugs and implement saving but leave the game largely in the same sorry state it had been in before.

--> '''Jarek:''' Wait! Wait! This is [[PoliceBrutality brutality]]! You can't do it!
--> '''Jax:''' Wrong, Jarek. [[PreMortemOneLiner This is not a brutality! This is a fatality!]]
--> '''Jarek:''' I'M SO GAAAAAAAAAAY!

* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: While not necessarily a fault of the game itself, a big reason for why ''Mortal Kombat 4'' didn't get as much long-lasting buzz as its predecessors was because by 1997, arcades (the primary source of ''Mortal Kombat'''s success) were waning in relevance in America compared to the start of the decade, and combined with advancing technology, arcade cabinets being more expensive to play while the affordability of consoles with decent-quality ports was on the rise. This consequently led to [[BrokenBase a schism among fans of the arcade and console versions]], largely due to controller differences (playing on an [=N64=] controller is an entirely different beast when compared to an an arcade joystick layout), a lasting controversy that stalled out the game's momentum dramatically, leading to it being the final arcade-focused game in the franchise.

* AntiClimaxBoss: Shinnok. He just doesn't have the fear factor other bosses have like Shang Tsung or Shao Kahn, and on lower difficulty levels, he doesn't even use his special moveset changes. This is especially jarring since he, as a fallen Elder God, is supposed to be ''leagues'' above them both yet comes across as a second rate Shang Tsung. Even [[WordOfGod Ed Boon]] admits that Shinnok probably shouldn't have been the FinalBoss of ''Mortal Kombat 4''.

* SugarWiki/AndTheFandomRejoiced: [[AndTheFandomRejoiced/MortalKombat Shares a page with the rest of the franchise]].

See also the franchise-wide pages for:
* [[AndTheFandomRejoiced/MortalKombat And The Fandom Rejoiced]]
* [[Monster/MortalKombat Complete Monster]]
* [[HilariousInHindsight/MortalKombat Hilarious In Hindsight]]
* [[Memes/MortalKombat Memes]]
* [[NauseaFuel/MortalKombat Nausea Fuel]]
* [[TheScrappy/MortalKombat The Scrappy]]
* [[Woobie/MortalKombat The Woobie]]
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* MemeticMutation:
** Every line Jarek says in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbsfJinaZWc the]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GV3CQSuxL50 three]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsvfP5BQxaw endings]] he appears in, particularly "I'M SO GAAAAAAAAAAY!"[[note]]This at least sees a reprise in a MUGEN Game ''MK New Era'' (which brought many Kombatants in one game), where [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yxmtm7rf82U inflicting Jarek to a Fatality that causes him to fall from heights makes him yell that particular memetic scream.]][[/note]] and his weird humming UnevilLaugh.
** Sub-Zero's ending where Quan Chi comes out of nowhere and suddenly whacks him in the head from behind was memed quite a bit. Usually cutting out half of Sub-Zero's yell of pain.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: Kai. Another member of the White Lotus and a Shaolin warrior in training, he has interesting gameplay quirks (his handstand stance and vertical projectiles) and is even given Raiden's blessing and Lightning Staff in his ending, all of which could have potentially led to future appearances starting in ''[[VideoGame/MortalKombatDeadlyAlliance Deadly Alliance]]''. He's instead PutOnABus until ''[[VideoGame/MortalKombatArmageddon Armageddon]]'', as he walks the earth in search of enlightenment.

** The endings and voice acting in general, but special mention goes to any ending that involves [[ FountainOfMemes Jarek]].
* Tearjerker: Sektor's ending, in which he kills Cyrax, Jax and Sonya [[YankTheDogsChain just as Cyrax was about to regain his human memories]]. If you've seen Cyrax's hopeful ending, it's worse because Sektor's has much of the same buildup, only this time it goes horribly wrong.

** The aforementioned endings Jarek appears in due to all the narm that is featured in them.

* AuthorsSavingThrow: Scorpion's fatality where he turned to a giant scorpion seems to be a saving throw for how in [[VideoGame/MortalKombat3 the last game]], this kind of move had already been used for Sheeva's Animality since Scorpion missed out the vanilla version and when he got added in ''Ultimate'', he had to settle with [[{{Narm}} a penguin that lays down an exploding egg]] for his Animality.

* IdiotPlot: In Scorpion's ending, Quan Chi could have just pointed Scorpion at another enemy after Sub-Zero claimed that his family's killer was still out there, but he instead boldly admits that he did it to manipulate Scorpion into killing Sub-Zero before attempts to send him back to the Netherrealm with a spell that, for whatever reason, takes about five seconds to fully activate. Hope you enjoy Scorpion tackling you and dragging you to hell with him Quan Chi.

** Reiko's ending in the arcade and UsefulNotes/Nintendo64 versions. The camera does a pan-around of his body, a portal materializes, and he walks into it, causing it to close again. [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse That's it]]. They corrected this in the other home ports, tying Reiko to Shao Kahn in the process.

* SignatureScene: Jax's ending, particularly the part where Jarek is tossed off the cliff [[SoBadItsGood natch]]:

%%* TierInducedScrappy: Shinnok.

* ItsTheSameNowItSucks: A major complaint with the game is that despite the jump to 3D, the game still plays almost the same as ''VideoGame/MortalKombat3'', which had already suffered from CapcomSequelStagnation thanks to ''Ultimate'' and ''Trilogy''. Not helping is that the much-hyped 3D basically amounts to being able to occasionally sidestep a projectile. While this helped dodge the PolygonCeiling, it still made for a fairly underwhelming game.

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poo3Rux1zg0 Sub-Zero's ending.]] Sub-Zero defeats Scorpion and claims that the latter's quest for vengeance is over. When Scorpion explains that he can't be killed, Quan Chi appears behind Sub-Zero and whacks him in the back of the head, causing him to [[ThePratfall comically fall to the ground]]. The comedic timing is impeccable.