10 Mortal Kombat Rip-Offs You Won't Believe Got Made
1. Tattoo Assassins – Data East (1994)
Alas, we come to the creme de la creme spot of Mortal Klonebat, a game so dubious that despite being 100% complete, despite having been manufactured and even released to a few arcade locations, is still considered unreleased: Tattoo Assassins from the pinball division of Data East.
It looked like Mortal Kombat, it played like Mortal Kombat but what MK did with violence and gore, it took and ran with. You had your digitized blood, you had your skull-crushing combos, your ultra-violent finishers, but this remains one of the only MK rips with a woman who lifts her skirt then proceeds to drown her opponent in a storm of diarrhea, or offers the ability to drop the DeLorean from Back to the Future upon a combatant's head.
The game was reputed for boasting 2,196 finishing moves, including some nudity-based ones for the players with the quickest combo inputting. (See photo, unlike MK, these weren't mere rumors).
The fact that word of this game managed to circulate throughout arcades back in the 90s and its allure endures even to this very day suggests that unlike the other entries on this list, Tattoo Assassins may actually have offered enough craziness to gain true MK-like attention.
Sadly what heights (or lows) TA could have brought to the market were never realized when the project was scrapped just as it was about to take off. Its cult status remains and ROMs of the completed game have, thankfully, been released into the wild for those whose curiosity must be satiated.
Bonus Fact: Tatoo Assassins boasts the unimaginable distinction of having been written by Back to the Future's Bob Gale. Great Scott!