Mortal Kombat is known for the gore and those nasty uppercuts that drop a gallon of blood from the enemy’s jaw. But at the end of a brutal fight, the game allows you to rip the opponent apart in a style called Fatality. More bloody, causing the worst impact on the enemy’s dead body, here are the best Mortal Kombat Fatality moves from MK1 to, well, MK1.
10. Liu Kang/Kung Lao’s Sai To The Eye
Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks was a bold parentese in between the 1v1 fighting MK releases, and it had some of the best finishers of all time. On the bosses, of course. Now fighting the 3 iconic Outworld assassins was top-level kombat in this game and the cold Fatality on Jade was probably the best end to it. You kill Kitana’s best friend by pushing Mileena’s Sais into her eyes. Not to mention that Jade’s scream of death still haunts me to this day.
9. Shang Tsung’s Minions
Shang Tsung makes you watch your precious favorite character getting ripped apart piece by piece by his minions. There’s just an unsettling feeling to this finisher, revealing the depth of Shang Tsung’s monstrosity. That face scrap in the middle of this Fatality is also one of the many reasons I performed this move after beating sweaty opponents online whenever I used to play as Shang Tsung in MK11.
9. Johnny Cage’s Wealth
Johnny Cage is the fun guy in Mortal Kombat games and so are his finishers, except for this one. The idea of getting stuck in between a car’s door is so unsettling, and Johnny takes that to the ultimate level by crushing the enemy with his fancy car’s scissor door. The door works like a guillotine here, and their gut just falls on the floor as the car drags it. Ouch.
7. Geras’ Time Rip
We never had any creative finishers with the idea of time travel within the Mortal Kombat games, even though the timeline has been reset several times. And that’s until MK1 came along. Geras travels into the future, rips your head off, and gives it to your past self and the cycle goes on. “There are fates worse than death.” Well said Raiden, well said.
6. Kabal’s Tokyo Drift
Getting pulled on hard ground leaves a mark that’ll burn like hell, right? Now imagine Kabal pulling and drifting the enemy on the ground and going super fast until all their skin and flesh are ripped. Oh, that’s not it. He then stays ahead with his hook sword standing to cut the enemy in perfect half; chef’s kiss.
5. Scorpion’s Toasty
Iconic characters have iconic Fatality moves in Mortal Kombat games and Scorpion happens to have one of the bests in the series. Toasty. Yes, the finisher was first introduced in MK1 and then evolved in many different titles because of how clean and cool it was. Scorpion unmasks his skeleton face and breathes fire on the enemy until they’re completely cooked. Simple, memorable, clever.
4. Sub-Zero’s Spine Rip
Sub-Zero taking out the enemy’s spine and head skeleton from their body is just gruesome, so much so that they even censored the finisher in some versions of MK3. But, the finisher has evolved throughout the years, and Bi-Han/Kuai Liang is getting even more innovative with the move. In MK11 for example, Sub-Zero smashes the enemy on an ice spear first and then rips off their spine and head completely. He then plants the head on the same spear in an exact spot where their eye pops out! We’re talking about raising the bar here.
3. Noob Saibot’s Perfect Splitter
Not only Noob Saibot’s character designs is the best in Mortal Kombat 9, but he also happens to have one of the best Fatality moves in the franchise. Bi Han and his shadow each take one of the enemy’s legs and pull them so hard until the final product is 2 pieces of a half-mortal. Simple and super gorey.
2. Quan Chi’s Leg Smash
Mortal Kombat 4 marks the debut of one of the most deceitful characters of all time, Quan Chi. The #2 sorcerer of Outworld rips off the enemy’s leg and just keeps beating them with it. There’s no end to this nightmare! This Fatality is later perfected in MK9 by making Quan Chi’s third hit to smash the enemy’s head.
1. Cyrax’s Earth Shatter
There’s a good reason for having this Fatality move as the best in all Mortal Kombat games and that’s the fact that Cyrax can destroy Earth in a matter of seconds. The finisher belongs to Cyber Smoke, originally, but Cyrax has been the main Cyber Lin Kuei to pull this off in other titles including the current MK1. A number of those bombs and boom, there goes our blue planet and every other kombatant walking on it.
