We take for granted how far things have progressed in relatively short years. How sounds, images, and graphics that would have taken hundreds of computers countless hours to produce can be made by our phones in record time. Playing with your friends is more of an issue of logistics than capability. Forgetting all the gradual steps made along the way. In 2001, fans of the Mortal Kombat franchise got to finally play Mortal Kombat 3, whenever and wherever they chose, with Mortal Kombat Advance.

Mortal Kombat Advance finally gives players the chance to play through Mortal Kombat 3 on the go. Now, on the portable comfort of the Game Boy Advance, players can rise through the titular tournament, beating foes in far-off realms. Mastering impressive combos against relentless opponents. The controls have been refined somewhat to feel at home on the simplified controls space of the Game Boy Advance, but even then, the classic spectacle of Mortal Kombat remains.

Advance starts on a good base, adapting Mortal Kombat 3’s Ultimate variation. Most of the recognisable characters are here, although Raiden isn’t here; the Game Boy Advance probably couldn’t handle the power of Christopher Lambert, nor could it handle Johnny Cage. You have a few towers of difficulty, with the harder towers having more foes. More characters can be played if you beat certain towers, which can be easier said than done. There’s also a multiplayer mode for friends who have a link cable and spare copies of the game, but the A.I. gives players enough challenge regardless.

Even though my skills at these types of fighting games mean that professional players don’t have much to worry about anytime soon. Even on the easiest setting, this game gave me a tough time. So pulling off fatalities now is even more out of the question than it was back then, but every character has at least one, and a friendship for extra humiliation. If you want to challenge younger players, considering the target demographics for the Game Boy Advance, you can disable both blood and fatalities in the options menu. No need for any blood code or anything like that.

While playing through Mortal Kombat on the go is a trivial exercise in the year 2025, for the year 2001, that might have sounded more like a tantalising proposition. Looking pretty close to what it looked like on arcade machines six years prior, Advance gives players a similar feel to the arcade machine, until the technology caught up with them. Fans might have some thoughts about how well this port captures the feel of the games, others just might find the idea of spamming attacks as Sonia Blade pretty tosty.

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