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There’s nothing like a good old virtual pounding from time to time. That's why we are more than happy to welcome two exceptional fighting games, Mortal Kombat 4 and The friends of Ringo Ishikawa, on our DRM-free ring.

Mortal Kombat 4
It was the year 1997 and all game magazines were booming - Mortal Kombat goes 3D! The series created by Ed Boon and John Tobias already had cult status, but everybody was curious if it would survive such a revolution. Abandoning the traditional digitalized 2D graphics known from the previous Mortal Kombat games indeed seemed risky. Eventually, it took Tobias and Boon three years of hard work to create Mortal Kombat 4.

The final result was warmly welcomed by the fans, who liked the turn into the more dark, bloody direction of the Mortal Kombat franchise. For example, creators focused on the brutal Fatality endings to the fight, excluding humoresque elements like Friendship or Babality. Popular characters, like Johnny Cage, Raiden, and Goro, returned after some time of absence, while new fighters - Quan Chi, Shinnok or Tanya - quickly garnered many fans.

Just like its predecessors, Mortal Kombat 4 remains extremely fun to play even after many years since its release. Thanks to GOG.COM you can enjoy this game and its sheer dynamic playability once again.

The friends of Ringo Ishikawa
Remember that magic sound made by the coin inserted into the old arcade machine? Among many cult arcade games, side-scrolling fighting titles were very prominent. The friends of Ringo Ishikawa from yeo is such a game, yet combined with an open world and an engaging coming-of-age story. The main character of this title, a high school gang leader Ringo Ishikawa, has but one goal - to live through his last autumn before graduation.

With best friends by his side, he travels through the city and school grounds engaging in a brutal fight from time to time. As its creator describes it, The friends of Ringo Ishikawa is an existential open world beat ‘em up game with some school sim elements. It gives you quite a lot of freedom in exploring the town which undergoes the day-night cycle and has a lot of NPCs.

Apart from the game's story, elements like the hand-to-hand combat or mini-games (e.g. ping-pong and video-poker) will keep you immersed in The friends of Ringo Ishikawa for long!

As you can see, with two mentioned above releases we are not pulling any punches. It’s up to you to choose your favorite contestant or sidekick and pulverize all enemies standing in your way into smoking dust!
Post edited March 11, 2020 by emter_pl
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Cifer84: Regarding PSX: Better quality movies than PC, are you sure? PC was always more powerful than consoles. And less music, is there music in the PSX version which is not in the PC version? I played the PSX version long ago and as far as I remember, it's idental to PC with slightly weaker graphics.
Movies on PSX don't have this horrible interlace, so they look much better. About the music - this, I haven't verified myself (I only played the PC version), but from what I've heard "the screw" track is actually on the PSX disk. The stage wasn't finished, so it doesn't matter in the game itself but it can be considered a bonus material.

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Cifer84: The N64 version has horrible movies (like arcade), so better lightning or not, MK4 for N64 stinks. For PC, you can change the lightning in the option menu (F2, Graphics).
I don't have the game installed so I can't test right now, but I recall that even at the highest setting the lighting was better on N64 from the gameplay I've seen. The most obvious thing is soft shadows compared to the horrible black blocks on PC. Other than that, some projectiles cast light on characters.
And movies are so bad that I'm not sure this is an advantage :-P.

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Cifer84: I played MK Gold. While I love a few things (like the Baraka ending), it's really a lazy update, they didn't put much effort into that.
I haven't played it, but I'm not sure I would consider 6 new characters and 4 new stages lazy. The main problem from what I recall was that it was buggy and looked really poor next to Soulcalibur.
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Cifer84: Regarding PSX: Better quality movies than PC, are you sure? PC was always more powerful than consoles. And less music, is there music in the PSX version which is not in the PC version? I played the PSX version long ago and as far as I remember, it's idental to PC with slightly weaker graphics.
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Paradoks: Movies on PSX don't have this horrible interlace, so they look much better. About the music - this, I haven't verified myself (I only played the PC version), but from what I've heard "the screw" track is actually on the PSX disk. The stage wasn't finished, so it doesn't matter in the game itself but it can be considered a bonus material.

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Cifer84: The N64 version has horrible movies (like arcade), so better lightning or not, MK4 for N64 stinks. For PC, you can change the lightning in the option menu (F2, Graphics).
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Paradoks: I don't have the game installed so I can't test right now, but I recall that even at the highest setting the lighting was better on N64 from the gameplay I've seen. The most obvious thing is soft shadows compared to the horrible black blocks on PC. Other than that, some projectiles cast light on characters.
And movies are so bad that I'm not sure this is an advantage :-P.

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Cifer84: I played MK Gold. While I love a few things (like the Baraka ending), it's really a lazy update, they didn't put much effort into that.
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Paradoks: I haven't played it, but I'm not sure I would consider 6 new characters and 4 new stages lazy. The main problem from what I recall was that it was buggy and looked really poor next to Soulcalibur.
With interlace you mean these horizontal lines? They really suck. The quality of Youtube videos from the PSX version differs much, so it's difficult for me to judge. If there are no such lines in the videos of the PSX version and gameplay graphics is comparable to PC, you really have a very good point, then the PSX version would be the best one. You should write a review and point this interlace problem out.

For a 1997 game, these movies from the PSX/PC versions are awesome. But the movies in the N64 were already bad back then.

If you like MK4, you should play MK Gold on Dreamcast or an emulator. I said lazy, because not just are there some bugs (one of the fatalities from Baraka looks like a weird bug), but they recycled old stages for MK Gold and they look not as good as in MK3. And it's right what you said, MK Gold was released at about the same time as Soul Calibur (and Dead or Alive 2), which feature much better 3D. For me MK Gold can't substitute MK4, but I do recommend it as an expansion.
Post edited March 15, 2020 by Cifer84
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Cifer84: And it's right what you said, MK Gold was released at about the same time as Soul Calibur (and Dead or Alive 2), which feature much better 3D.
Viewed from 2020; the progression of 3D in the 90s leaves me unimpressed. They're all just versions of polygon origami.
I remember that I cared back then, but I can't recollect the feeling anymore.
I found a great video on Youtube, which compares the PC and Playstation versions of MK4:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhBc5XIffK4

Conclusion:
The Playstation version has longer loading times and worse (more pixelated) gameplay graphics than the PC version. However, the Playstation version indeed has much clearer movies (intro, endings) than the PC version, which is very surprising. The movies of the PC version have these horizontal lines everywhere.

So for gameplay, the PC version is superior. For the movies, the Playstation version is the best.
Post edited March 16, 2020 by Cifer84
And of course gameplay should be more important so PC wins.