Killer Instinct 2

Killer Instinct 2 is a fighting video game developed by Rare and manufactured by Midway for arcades in 1996 as a sequel to Killer Instinct (1994). A modified version of Killer Instinct 2, licensed by Nintendo, was published for the Nintendo 64 as Killer Instinct Gold that same year. A Super Nintendo Entertainment System version of Killer Instinct 2 was developed and completed, but never released. A digital port of the game for Xbox One is bundled with the second season of Killer Instinct (2013) under the title Killer Instinct 2 Classic.

Gameplay
As with most fighting games and indeed its predecessor, two characters square off with the goal of depleting the opponent's life bar. As with the original Killer Instinct, when a player's original life bar is fully depleted, he or she will fall to the ground, and immediately begin on his or her second lifebar.

As with the first game, Killer Instinct 2 relies on an automatic combo subsystem in its matches. The matches, as with Killer Instinct, revolve around a three strength system (Quick, Medium and Fierce). However, normal moves have lost a lot of their priority and range, as well as gaining extra recovery time. Throws have been added into the game to deal with blocking characters (as opposed to the top attack in Killer Instinct). Additionally, characters can be knocked down much easier with normal moves than in the first game, ending the possibility of opening with a 'glitch' combo and also weakening the effectiveness of normal moves. Normal special moves no longer are judged on priority, but instead follow a three tiered 'rock, paper, scissors' system, in which a certain special move will always break another certain special move (similar to the three tiered system in Soulcalibur).

Additionally, a Super bar has been added to the game (similar to Street Fighter Alpha or The King of Fighters series). This super bar fills as a fighter takes damage or executes an attack that is blocked by the opponent. After the bar reaches a certain point, the player can use a multi-hit Super Move which is usually an extended version of a normal special move.

The combo system has its roots in the original Killer Instinct. By pressing a certain strength button after an opener move, a player will launch an auto-double and initiate the combo system of the game. However, unlike the first game, players can now open up combos with new and much less risky moves than before (most notable a close Fierce punch or close Fierce kick). Additionally, Super Moves can be placed into combos, greatly increasing their damage and potency as well as being unbreakable. Additionally combos can be extended using throws, super linkers, manual-doubles, and super end specials. As a result of the weakened normal moves and other changes to the system, combos have now become more devastating in Killer Instinct 2. In an apparent effort to help ease this dominance, combo breakers are now easier to perform. Unlike combo breakers in the first game, which also required a three tiered 'rock, paper, scissors' system based on strength to break, combos are now broken depending on the type of attack. Punches break kick doubles, and kicks will break punch doubles.

Parry, an advanced new addition, allow an open counter-attack after a successful parry block. A player can assume a standing defensive position and cause the attacker to temporarily freeze if the parry is successful, and from there either perform a special stunning technique or a 3-hit variant of a Special Move.

The finishing moves have also been reworked. Now each character can only execute these attacks when the opponent's second life bar flashes red (unlike the first Killer Instinct the opponents falls when he or she loses all of his or her energy bars). Each characters has two Ultimate combo moves (one of them can be executed without executing a combo), the Humiliation sequences were dropped, and the Ultra combo feature is still intact. Unlike the Mortal Kombat Fatalities, however, the Killer Instinct 2's finishing moves do not feature brutality or dismemberment.

Plot
Killer Instinct 2 follows on where the first installment left off. Eyedol's death at the hands of Black Orchid accidentally sets off a time warp, transporting some of the combatants back in time and allowing the Demon Lord Gargos (Eyedol's opponent) to escape from Limbo.

Now, trapped 2000 years in the past, the warriors that survived Killer Instinct, along with several new faces, fight for the right to face Gargos in combat. Each character that survived the journey from the first game have corresponding backstories, while new characters in this installment are native inhabitants of this past time period. Some fighters, like returning fighter T.J. Combo, just want to get home. Others, like new character Tusk, want to bring an end to Gargos and his reign of evil. This time there is no tournament or prize money, just a fight to the finish with the fate of the future hanging in the balance.

Characters
The game features a total roster of 11 characters. Black Orchid, Fulgore, Glacius, Jago, Sabrewulf, Spinal and T.J. Combo return from the previous title. Eyedol, Chief Thunder, Cinder and Riptor were omitted from the roster; in their place, Gargos, Kim Wu, Maya and Tusk were introduced.

Each character in the game has two or four different endings. Which ending the player gets depends whether or not the player kills (by using a finishing move instead of simply depleting their health) one or more certain character(s) during the course of the game. For example, Jago's endings both involve Fulgore and B. Orchid (if Fulgore does not kill Jago and B. Orchid, they team up and destroy him). Thus, killing or not killing them over the course of the game alters the outcomes of his endings:
 * If he kills both of them, he relishes his victory over Fulgore, but feels an inexplicable emptiness in his heart.
 * If he kills Orchid but doesn't destroy Fulgore, the cyborg will eventually make a lethal attack on him after he wins the tournament, and fulfills Ultratech's original purposes by seizing control of the world.
 * If he kills Fulgore but spares Orchid, his enjoyment of his enemy's demises is only sweetened by the discovery that Orchid is his older sister.
 * If he spares both their lives, he makes that discovery when Orchid saves him from Fulgore's attack.

Development and release
According to designer Ken Lobb, eliminating excessive defense play "was the absolute highest priority. I felt that this was not a problem for experts, but it hurt beginners. We now reward the aggressor big time."

Killer Instinct Gold
Killer Instinct Gold is an upgraded version of Killer Instinct 2 that was released for the Nintendo 64 shortly after the launch of the console. The game suffered some graphical downgrades and the endings for each character do not change (as they would in the Arcade version) due to the memory limitations of the Nintendo 64 cartridge. Other than that, Killer Instinct Gold remains faithful to the original Killer Instinct 2.

The new features include:
 * Team Battles, in which one can fight with up to 11 characters.
 * Team Elimination Battles, in which one has to finish his or her opponents off with Finishing Moves (finishing moves similar to Mortal Kombat's Fatalities, which can be executed immediately) instead of simply depleting their life bar with normal moves, or they will simply return later on in the match (however as the computer player will sometimes use Gargos as the last opponent, victims can be removed from play anyway as he lacks a finishing move).
 * Training and Advanced Training, in which the player can learn the moves of the character they have chosen as well as the correct execution of combos, doubles, auto-doubles link moves, etc.
 * Options menu, which allows the player to modify certain data, such as the speed of the game, the color of the blood, button configuration, sound and manage Controller Pak data.
 * Unlockable content, such as alternate colors for characters and scenarios, and faster degrees of speed for the game.
 * The game's final boss Gargos is playable with a code.

Killer Instinct Gold is compatible with the Nintendo 64's Controller Pak to save options and high scores, though the cartridge also includes battery save. Due to cartridge size limitations, several frames of character animation and the FMVs were removed, the later being replaced with 2d animations. Each characters multiple endings were also reduced to one ending a character; these new endings sometimes combining elements from more than one of a characters arcade endings.

The stages were re-created in full 3D, as opposed to the scaling and distorting FMVs used for the stage backgrounds in the arcade version, allowing more dynamic camera takes at the beginning of the battle, while using less memory consumption.

Killer Instinct Gold was later included as part of the Rare Replay compilation.

Killer Instinct 2 Classic
A digital port of the game's arcade version, titled Killer Instinct 2 Classic, was released as part of the "Season 2 Ultra Edition" of Killer Instinct for the Xbox One. The digital version of the game supports online multiplayer via Xbox Live.

Soundtrack
Killer Instinct Gold also released its original soundtrack, as the first Killer Instinct under Rare Label, titled Killer Instinct Gold Cuts. It is a 16-track-audio-CD, which includes original tracks from the Arcade versions plus two remixes and the Training Mode track. The soundtrack, along with several unreleased KI2 demo tracks, was included as part of the Killer Instinct Season 2 double-album set released on August 4, 2015.

Reception
A reviewer for Next Generation commented that while the game includes new fighting elements such as a super bar, the essence of the original game is essentially recycled. He also criticized that while the characters are larger and more detailed, this is at the cost of slower game speed and a choppier frame rate. Summarizing that "if you like the style of fighting that relies more on memorizing combos than hand-eye coordination and, in a way, skill, Killer Instinct II is full of that same fighting style", he scored it 3 out of 5 stars.

In 2013, Rich Knight and Gus Turner of Complex included it on their list of 25 best 2D fighting games of all time, stating that "not quite as good as the first, Killer Instinct 2's greatest strength and weakness were one and the same: it played too much like Killer Instinct. ... A solid game, but not enough so to overshadow its predecessor."