Street Fighter 2 popularized and pretty much set to stone what a tournament fighter game should be. Mortal Kombat came first, but its single-player progression was this weird "tower" with some gimmick fights thrown in, like you vs 2.

Thinking about it, I'd say Mortal Kombat popularized the "REALLY fucking cheap sub boss/final boss" that many other fighting games have (looking at you, SNK) - I mean, good luck getting close to Goro in the first place.

I wonder which korean mmo could be considered as the one that de facto popularized pay-to-win as an integral mechanic.

Diablo hands down popularized not only the action RPG genre, but also having enemies as loot mystery boxes. One lucky kill and you could get your hands on a really great piece of equipment. The amount of clones speaks for itself.

I think Gran Turismo popularized the "carreer mode" of racing games.

[–] ampersandrew@lemmy.world 11 points 4 weeks ago

Mortal Kombat did not come first. It was quite openly inspired by Street Fighter II.

[–] tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 4 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

M Bison cheated a lot in sf2

[–] Ragnarok314159@sopuli.xyz 3 points 4 weeks ago

Being able to instantly use moves that required the player to charge was bullshit.

[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 2 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

He was a cheap motherfucker, but nowhere as much as Goro, who had unblockable moves and could interrupt your hits and combos

[–] tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 2 points 4 weeks ago

Yeah Goro was probably cheaper overall, but the CPU in general in SF had unblockable moves and invincibility that they used to interrupt your attack. Of course, input reading goes on in a lot of games and MKI was I'm sure no exception (found this MKII video about it). I think it just got ramped up even more for M Bison, so he ended up being pretty comparable to the MK bosses as well.

[–] Sylvartas@lemmy.world 3 points 4 weeks ago

Dude, I have not played mortal kombat in ages but I still seethe at the mere mention of Goro