Killer instinct. No question. It’s not even close.
There’s simply no way to accurately explain the feeling of walking into an arcade and hearing the standard “Ching and bling” soundscape that had permeated arcades for 15 years and then suddenly hearing, seemingly 25% louder than everything else in the room, the iconic and guttural “chug chug chug chug-chug chugga chug” meal riff coming from the distance. It’s not just that the music was good, it’s that it was DIFFERENT than anything you had heard at that time. Most arcade games were Japanese and game sound systems had JUST gotten to the point where videogame music was moving away from “chip tunes” and into more recognizable popular genres.
But the sound didn’t stop there, the metal riff takes off into a iconically melodic riff that sticks in your head. The pop-sensibilities to the soundtrack made the game feel culturally relavent and “glitzy”. As you walked up to the cabinet and heard the announcer talking to you in a game-show style voice about how you could buy the game soon on your “Ultra 64”, the game showcased it’s audio production and it’s ability to make every audio cue sound unique and aurally interesting. From Jago’s “shkyeaaaahhh” shrieks to the announcers legendary “ULTRAAAAAA” voice, every sound was captured adn processed to the point where it sounded like it’s own work of art.
I know this isn’t a question about audio production and rather about soundtrack, specifically. But I think that the KI soundtrack, even on it’s own, stands leaps and bounds above MK.
If you're talking about the original MK soundtrack vs KI, then KI wins hands down. However, MKII and MK3's soundtracks come very close to being just as good as KI. And I agree the SNES port of the KI music was very well done. The game as a whole was a well done port. The SFC-007 sound chip for the SNES was ahead of its time. A good sound chip made by Sony. Though I do agree with Jeff G, these days many of the SNES music sound muffed because of the heavy interpolation that was used to prevent distortion.
It was one of the first games I remember to justify having a soundtrack disc, which got used almost as much as the game itself (the Sabrewulf theme was the go-to soundtrack of Halloween themed decorations for decades)
Mortal Kombat has never had music that i would listen to by itself, i think the best track in the series is Armory from MK2 and i really don't remember any other track in the entire series, they don't use music from the game in their trailers for a reason.
If it was specifically the MK movie soundtrack it would win :P.
Killer Instinct for sure. MK has background music that works well in kontext with the game, but KI has memorable riff that stick with you even when not playing. And the Mick Gordon updates for the last game are badass.
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