Short Thought: Mortal Kombat 1 Switch Port is Unironically Hilarious

My wife likes to send me stuff she finds on X (or Twitter for those who aren't keen on the new name yet) from time to time, and the latest shenanigan she sent my way was a comparison of how the latest entry to the beloved and bloody Mortal Kombat franchise looks on the Nintendo Switch vs newer generation consoles, such as the Xbox Series X. In the short compilation, we get to see everything from the game's combat to cutscenes, and each new example is more surprising than the last.

Although I've seen the Switch performance before, I had never been so taken aback by such a ridiculous difference that it actually made me cackle! Just within the intro that recaps the entire five-minute video, it was jarring how different it looks. The deeper we went, the more the characters looked like models plucked straight out of the early Grand Theft Auto titles,Old School RuneScape, and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion! Blurry textures, comically wide-eyed NPC faces, and character models that look like just a few notches above Muck's designs are just some of the highlights of the video. Although some gamers definitely don't mind retro graphics (like me; I find them quite soothing!), there's a time and place for them, and this is not one of them. It's hard to take anything happening on screen seriously when it looks like that!

I hadn't seen much of Mortal Kombat 1's graphics, design, or gameplay since I don't care for fighting titles or gory games, but I must admit, I was pretty smitten by what I got to see in the short video... yet, unfortunately, what is burnt into my mind's eye is the downright polygonic and blurry look of the world and characters in the Nintendo Switch's laggy performance. Maybe it is time we retire the console; I just can't imagine it ever being worth playing most of today's games in such a butchered state.