Man, Mortal Kombat on the Sega Master System was wild—it’s the same brutal fighter you know, just crammed into 8-bit. The digitized sprites look janky now, but back then, seeing real people (sort of) beating the pixels out of each other blew my mind. Yeah, the gore’s toned down from the arcade, but Sub-Zero still yanks spines like it’s his job. Fatalities are clunky to pull off with the SMS controller, but nailing one feels like a victory in itself.

You’ve got the usual suspects—Scorpion’s spear, Raiden’s lightning—but the timing’s way stricter than you’d expect. Took me forever to stop eating Liu Kang’s bicycle kicks. Still, for a Master System port, it’s shockingly playable. Just don’t expect arcade-perfect anything.