CIBSunday Killer Instinct (SNES)

We're having something of a Rare love-in on Time Extension right now. We covered the history of the company's Manor Farm HQ a few days ago, and we also recently took a look at the making of Killer Instinct, one of the most iconic one-on-one fighters of the early '90s. To continue this trend, we're now gazing longingly at the SNES port of Killer Instinct, which – despite being massively scaled-down when compared to its arcade counterpart – managed to shift 3.2 million copies worldwide.

To give some context to the SNES port, it's worth noting that, when Killer Instinct hit arcades in 1994, its 'attract' sequence mentioned that the game would be playable in the home in 1995, "only on the Nintendo Ultra 64". Things didn't go exactly according to plan; the Ultra 64 (later renamed Nintendo 64) was delayed, and instead, Nintendo and Rare decided to convert the game to the incumbent Super Nintendo in 1995.

As we've already alluded to, the resultant port was visually a lot less impressive than the original coin-op – but even so, the core gameplay remained more or less intact. Killer Instinct's insane combo system, for example, was carried across without any issues, and this no doubt contributed to the warm critical reception and its commercial success.

The SNES port – which was only released in North America and Europe – also came with a bonus CD called 'Killer Cuts', which featured studio-quality versions of the game's songs. It was also notable for shipping on a black cartridge, rather than the usual grey.