10 Mortal Kombat Rip-Offs You Won't Believe Got Made

3. Survival Arts - Sammy (1993)

mortal kombat ripoff
Tammy

In 1993, arcades got one of the earlier Mortal Kombat clones in Survival Arts. It was, of course, a near copy of MK with the addition of another character on the roster (eight in total) and the ability to grab and use weapons for additional gore.

As far as stories go, this one just may be the most generic and thoughtless to date: "The birthplace of the powerful physical martial arts called "Survival Arts" and how they were earned became mysterious for quite some time. However, eight warriors spreading over different countries have learned some of the most important skills of the Survival Arts, while they continue learning more about them. Each one qualified for the Survival Arts tournament to see which survivor will win and obtain all the secrets of the Arts."

One gets the feeling either a young child was brought in to flesh out the backstory for this one or the English translation might be missing some critical pieces.

Taking the award for most unintentional hilarity is a Will Farrell wannabe in a bad wig that serves as the game's big boss - Dantel, organizer of the Survival Arts tournament whose motivation is to, and we're not making this up, eat the flesh of the fallen opponents to remain immortal.

We're not trying to suggest this one was forgettable but do remember that in 1994 the fighting game craze on the home consoles was at an absolute fever pitch. Even still the SNES and Sega Genesis ports of Survival Rights were canned shortly after announcement. Ouch!

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Contributor

Jason Russell has been working in video game journalism since the early 1990s before the internet existed, the term "fanzine" had meaning and sailors still debated as to whether or not the earth was flat. The first time. More recently he has been the guy responsible for the Retrospective column for Old School Gamer Magazine, pens up a Game Skinny column on a plethora of video game topics. He's somehow managed to author nine novels, writes and runs the blog CG Movie Review, is co-founder of the science fiction publishing house Starry Eyed Press, and sometimes, when the planets align and the caffeine has fully left his system, it's rumored he sleeps.