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  • Anti-Climax Boss: 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 Ed Boon admits that Shinnok probably shouldn't have been the Final Boss of Mortal Kombat 4.
  • Complete Monster: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.
  • Game-Breaker: All the new arrivals in Gold were criticized for being rushed and incredibly busted when compared to the base roster, but by far the worst offender was Sektor, with his Gold incarnation being widely considered the single most busted kombatant in the entire franchise. His missiles (both straight-firing and homing varieties) had ridiculous damage and knockback, could be spammed out with no opportunity for counterplay, and travelled slow enough that he could have multiple on-screen at the same time, turning Mortal Kombat into a Bullet Hell game for his opponent. Not only that, his teleport-punch was so fast that it could be used to lead into an escapable combo were it not for the Max Damage feature, and his weapon was a laser gun, giving him even more projectiles against his already ridiculously loaded kit.
  • Good Bad Bugs: In Gold, using Sektor's guided missile just before performing a Fatality. Your opponent will be hit by both: somehow, your opponent will be crushed by the Compactor even after the missile got them out of its range, and the Flamethrower will make them glitch all over the place. Behold.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.
  • It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: A major complaint with the game is that despite the jump to 3D, the game still plays almost the same as Mortal Kombat 3, which had already suffered from Capcom Sequel Stagnation 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 problems associated with Video Game 3D Leaps, it still made for a fairly underwhelming game.
  • Memetic Mutation: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.
  • Narm:
    • Jarek's ending. After he tosses Sonya off the cliff, he stomps on her radio, which inexplicably makes a bone-crunching sound effect. The scene ends with Jarek doing an Un-Evil Laugh.
    • Jax's ending. After Jarek kills Sonya, Jax gets his revenge by dangling him off the cliff:
      Jarek: Wait! Wait! This is brutality! You can't do it!
      Jarek: I'M SO GAAAAAAAAAAY!
    • Scorpion's ending. Quan Chi informs Scorpion that it was he, not Sub-Zero, who murdered his family, before returning him to the Netherealm one body part at a time, which results in Scorpion appearing as a disembodied groin. Scorpion rushes towards Quan Chi, causing both of them to be taken to the Netherealm. Quan Chi immediately lets out a Big "NO!" and keeps repeating the same movements while Scorpion just stands there next to him, not doing anything.
    • 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 comically fall to the ground. The comedic timing is impeccable. The N64 is even funnier since the scene ends with Sub-Zero whispering "Arrright" which is hilariously casual compared to Scorpion's more eloquent farewell it's said in response to.
    • Reiko's ending in the arcade and Nintendo 64 versions. The camera does a pan-around of his body, a portal materializes, and he walks into it, causing it to close again. That's it. They corrected this in the other home ports, tying Reiko to Shao Kahn in the process.
    • The gibberish featured in the game. Some of the notable examples include Tonya saying, "CAN I TAKE YOUR ORDER?!" during her Neck Twist fatality, Raiden saying, "GUY THAT LOOKS LIKE HIS AUNT!" during his Electric Fly, and Fujin saying, "OH I'M GONNA THROW YOU OVER THERE!" during his throw.
    • The Continue screen is a shot of your character falling deeper and deeper into a pit until they hit a bed of spikes on the bottom. While memorably creepy, the same male scream is used for female characters when they die. Also, when Goro is subject to this he spins around in his idle animation and crashes head-first into the ground, which is just comical.
  • Nausea Fuel: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.
  • Never Live It Down: Jarek will forever be remembered for his Narmtastic screams and laugh in his, Sonya's, and Jax's endings along with being a clone of the much more popular Kano.
  • Obvious Beta: The initial arcade release wasn't technically supposed to get out to the public because it lacked, among other things, endings, the Kombo Limiter system, and certain characters and Fatalities.
  • Porting Disaster:
    • While the PS1 and N64 got relatively solid ports that even retained the arcade's 60-fps frame rate, the Sega Dreamcast's Mortal Kombat Gold port was Christmas Rushed for the launch date and was crippled by bugs and crashes, aided by five returning characters that all used recycled animations and moves that hardly jived with the base game data. It ended up needing a "patch" in the form of an Updated Re-release that ironed out some of the game-breaking problems, identified by a giant "HOT! NEW!" sticker on it. Making it worse was that it was a buggy release of a 2-year-old arcade game in a Dreamcast launch with no shortage of cutting-edge, better-than-arcade-perfect fighters in the form of Soul Calibur, Power Stone, and Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes.
    • The Game Boy Color 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. Prepare yourself.
  • Replacement Scrappy:
    • Jarek was hated by fans who felt that he was nothing but a re-hash of Kano's moves. This is because he was originally supposed to be Kano, but the developers wanted more "new" characters, so they reskinned him. Though many would still prefer Kano, Jarek still has a decent fanbase if only thanks to the Narm he brings which leads to various funny Memetic Mutation, specially his Un-Evil Laugh and "I'M SO GAAAAAAAAAAY!" scream.
    • Tanya and Reiko were this, mainly in the eyes of the fans of Kitana and Noob Saibot, respectively, because they wanted the latter to appear instead of the former.note  Surprisingly enough, it didn't last long and they were Rescued from the Scrappy Heap, becoming fan favorites because of their distinct personalities.note 
  • The Scrappy: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.
  • Signature Scene: Jax's ending, particularly the part where Jarek is tossed off the cliff:
  • So Bad, It's Good:
    • All the N64 endings. Since there was no room for the remade FMV endings of other console ports, they're instead done in-engine, like in the Arcade version with lower quality sound.
    • The endings and voice acting in general, but special mention goes to any ending that involves Jarek.
  • Tear Jerker: Sektor's ending, in which he kills Cyrax, Jax and Sonya 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.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: 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 becoming more expensive to play while the affordability of consoles with decent-quality ports was on the rise. This consequently led to 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.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: 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 Deadly Alliance. He's instead Put on a Bus until Armageddon, as he walks the earth in search of enlightenment. He doesn't even show up in the altered timelines, cameo or otherwise.
  • The Woobie: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.

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