Mortal Kombat really changed the game, huh?

Sure, the game’s hand at unintentionally leading the charge for the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) has been covered to death in the decades since the ultra-bloody fighter first hit the scene. But beyond the widespread controversy caused by the game’s audacity at suggesting that a ninja can exhale fire balls to disintegrate another ninja into sawdust, what Mortal Kombat brought to the fighting game scene was the inspiration to continuously push the boundaries on what was acceptable to portray in a video game.

But for a series that is so intertwined with its own controversy, MK took time to reinvent itself, showing just how much mileage the blood-drenched game of fisticuffs could have even in the modern day. The games have dabbled in the third dimension, developed a story that is just engaging enough to keep us glued to the non-fighting scenes, and tweaked their gameplay dynamics to fit into the professional fighting game scene.

On the flipside, the 90s was also home to “Mortal Kombat-likes”: fighting games that intended to capitalize on the success Mortal Kombat found with its gory and at-the-time transgressive content. Games such as Kasumi Ninja, War Gods, Cosmic Carnage, and oh so many more spawned from this 90s movement. If MK was able to break through the mainstream, then it stood to reason that developers would try their hand at breaking through with their own brand of edginess.

But what many of these games didn’t realize was how limited the appeal of gore baths and snarky humor was, especially when that was all that was offered. All the carnage and jokes in the world couldn’t mask how blatant the inspiration was and how little they learned from MK’s gradual evolvement that started even in the 90s. These games, varied in concepts but identical in execution, could do nothing except flounder in the shadow of the Midway titan.

In this sea of MK-likes, Mace: The Dark Age stood out as different from the bunch. Released by Atari Games in 1997, Mace would not go the way of the usual 2D gore fests that were already suffering from a mixed-to-negative reception in comparison to MK. That isn’t to say that Mace wasn’t another MK clone – the game’s heavy emphasis on fatal finishing moves (you know, fatalities) was reason enough to lump it with the MK-likes and the game itself isn’t shy about wearing its influences on its sleeve.

But there’s a retro finesse to Mace: The Dark Age that mere words can’t do justice, try as I may. A visual splendor for the time, Mace had a leg up on the competition largely due to its confident presentation. Set in medieval times, the story concerns the Mace of Tanis, a powerful weapon imbued with necropotic energy that grants its holder unimaginable power. In the hands of an all-powerful tyrant named Asmodeus, nations spread throughout Europe and Asia send their fiercest fighters to get ahold of the mace, either for more power or to stop the current reign of terror.

With a backstory that is just detailed enough for players to be subconsciously aware of in the background, Mace takes the stakes of its story and the motivations behind the roster of characters incredibly serious. A ragtag roster of warriors fighting for power is a simple hook for the eventual fighting, almost too simple of a hook, and yet Mace commits to the boundaries and lore of its own universe to keep us engaged.

An in-game universe that is touted as being a brutal, war-torn hellscape of death and suffering is just a natural fit for the Mortal Kombat aesthetics and Mace stands as an example of a game giving exactly what it advertises. Characters range from monks and samurais to a masked executioner that is literally only called The Executioner in-game because yeah, that’s what he is. In an era where MK-likes – and video games in general, were getting comfortable with calling themselves out on their own perceived flaws, Mace’s appeal largely relied on catering to our braindead desires to witness video game violence to get a reaction.

And that it did in the arcades. Initially sold to arcades before its N64 port later in the year, Mace: The Dark Age became a commercial hit amidst the sea of MK clones that had crashed and burned up to that point. Mace’s trump card to success was the cutting-edge graphics that attracted more and more people to the arcades. Running on a 3Dfx Voodoo graphics card, Mace stood out as one of the earlier instances of fighting games being given the benefits of the third dimension to add a new depth to the fighting system. Movement in 3D was obviously limited, but players were still rewarded with the option to move and sway in a manner that more closely resembled real life than most games at the time.

While 3D gaming was already revitalizing video games as a whole by 1997, Mace was still seen as a step-up in terms of its admittedly glitzy presentation. Virtua Fighter had already made waves with its 3D fighting engine 4 years prior, but Mace’s massive graphical upgrade caught people’s eye in the way that VF and the previous year’s Dead or Alive could only manage. Tekken 3 and Mortal Kombat 4 hadn’t been released to the entire world yet, so Mace was able to get its time in the sun as a result.

Of course Mace is not a hidden masterpiece floating around in purgatory waiting for a resurgence in popularity. For as groundbreaking as it may have been from a graphical standpoint, the game still suffered from many of the same issues that its predecessors had come across. A distinct lack of variety beyond the violence, fun yet gimmicky characters with a short shelf life, and clunky movement that wasn’t as refined as what we would see with Tekken 3 the following year.

Mace avoided the trappings of some Mortal Kombat stereotypes, but it had came in a time of change for the video game industry. Between the aforementioned Tekken and similar games like Soul Edge (what would later become Soulcalibur) and DOA joining the likes of Mario, Resident Evil, and Doom in helping to incorporate larger uses of 3D in their respective formats, Mace was ultimately a victim of circumstance.

One could argue that the game itself was not memorable enough to survive, but Mace’s presentation drips untapped potential, especially in the world of fighting games. There is a visceral level of fun to be had in trying your hand at Mace’s various characters, each wielding their respective weapons and swinging them with ferocity. The fight announcer sounding like a wrestler cutting a monster heel promo only adds to the game’s barbaric charm.

But it was a charm that quickly faded as the video game industry moved on. Mace was an arcade hit, but its port to the N64 was less favorable, only standing out for being the best of a thin N64 bunch at the time. Beyond its mixed switch to consoles, Tekken 3 and Mortal Kombat 4 were waiting in the wings and by the time the new millennia rolled around and console games started to take mainstream precedence over the arcade, Mace became relegated to the world of video game and movie shops, which is ironically the manner in which I personally discovered the game.

My parents would rent the game for me because, like so many others, a game that appeared this violent quickly brought forth memories of Mortal Kombat, which they remember me enjoying and raging over. I, like the industry as a whole, had my fun with the game before moving on and with consoles now being the main way to scratch our video game itch, a lone N64 port of an oft-forgotten fighting game didn’t have a chance in hell at surviving the times.

Fighting games have evolved beyond what we ever thought was possible and I am stoked to see the FGC alive and well in this day and age. Tekken, Street Fighter, King of Fighters, Guilty Gear, Smash Bros, and of course Mortal Kombat have weathered their respective storms to become the cream of the crop for the eternally expanding world of fighting games, but looking back at what could have been isn’t always a bad thing in my eyes.

Mace: The Dark Age was an admirable attempt to craft a hard-hitting whopper of a fighting game and the fact that it had any success at all is a testament to its qualities. Sure, it was a Mortal Kombat clone in its DNA, but Mace had the good thought to try and improve on MK’s appeal rather than just ape the formula. It may not have broken through at the end of the day, but Mace’s personality and presentation make it an endearing what-if in the world of fighting games. What if Mace: The Dark Age became one of the landmarks of fighting games?

We’ll never know, but with the fighting game world in the midst of another golden age, maybe we can finally pull Mace out of the dark ages.