Killer Instinct for the Nintendo Wii Virtual Console

Established fighting franchises are quickly becoming an endangered species, especially on Nintendo consoles. While Sony enjoys Tekken and Microsoft revels in Dead or Alive, Nintendo doesn't have a traditional fighting franchise to call its own - keeping in mind that Super Smash Bros. is far from traditional. This was not always the case.

When the Nintendo brand was reeling back in the mid-90's from the two-front assault by Sega and Sony, developer Rareware helped lead the House That Mario Built back to prominence. Donkey Kong Country single-handedly made Nintendo cool again, but that wasn't all that Rare had in the works. Arcade-goers would definitely agree with that statement.

In 1994, a game called Killer Instinct surfaced in arcades across the country. It was piqued the curiosity of gamers, who were not used to seeing the Nintendo logo on an arcade machine. Once they decided to give the game a try, they were hooked. Killer Instinct easily became one of the best fighting games of this time period and a home console port was only a matter of time. While the arcade used hardware that would later be implemented in the future Nintendo 64, Rare decided to port Killer Instinct over to the Super NES and keep the momentum from Donkey Kong Country going. The results could not be denied - gamers flocked into stores to grab their copy and Nintendo had a new bonafide hit on their hands. But what made this game so great?

The plot is a good place to start looking. A sinister company called Ultratech organizes a fighting tournament known as the Killer Instinct tournament. The purpose is to try out some of their experimental creations. At some point during this tournament, Ultratech perfects a device that enables travel between dimensions, resulting in the release of a two-headed Cyclops known as Eyedol from his prison. Good enough plot, but nothing Capcom couldn't have come up with. What separated Killer Instinct from the pack was its unique style of gameplay.