There was indeed a past debate about it, but there actually is an objectively right answer. Mortal Kombat 4 is not a 3D era game. It is a 3D game in the sense that it uses a 3D engine, but not a part of the 3D era of Mortal Kombat. Boon himself groups it in with the arcade era.
All of the NetherRealm Studios Mortal Kombat games are 3D games, using 3D graphics engines, but are not 3D era.
That’s not what a 3D fighting game means. A 3D fighting game is one where you can virtually move in 3 dimensions, aka basically in
all directions. You cannot do that in any NRS games. NRS games are more like 2.5 D fighting games, but play more traditionally like 2D fighters and are considered as such.
Anyway, the reason Boon likely says that is because all they did with MK4 is essentially put MK3/UMK3/MKT’s base gameplay inside a 3D engine (and even that was done poorly). Like there’s even still RJ’s, KJ’s and even GJ’s in MK4 (iirc). They didn’t really know what they were doing and everything about it was much different than what they had been doing for the past 5-7 years or so. So anyway, MK4 was definitely a “3D fighting game”, even if it was a poorly designed one. Also, one of the defining factors of a fighting game being “3D” is the side step, and this was definitely present in MK4. But again, even that was poorly executed.
Basically, since with MK4 they didn’t really know what they were doing and a lot of it was poorly executed, so much so that it doesn’t feel like any of the MK games that came before it, or any of the ones that came after it, it’s typically regarded as its own thing (along with MKG which is intrinsically the same game). But with that said, that still doesn’t mean it wasn’t a “3D fighting game”. The only argument is whether or not it was a 3D
era MK game. And that’s what people disagree on. Some say it was an arcade era game, some say it was a 3D era game, some say it falls into both categories, and some say it doesn’t really fall into either category and it’s its own thing entirely. Me personally, I don’t really care. It doesn’t really matter and doesn’t change whether or not it was a 3D fighting game or not.
Also, what Boon has to say about the technical side of things, and honestly, really what he has to say in general about his games, should be taken with a grain of salt. Most people know this by now, lol. I mean, he had no idea (and likely still doesn’t know) that Kara Jabs and GJ’s were in every main numbered MK game up until Deadly Alliance. Which to be fair he wasn’t the only one. But there’s plenty of examples of Boon not being the most reliable person when it comes to explaining, or understanding, his own games which is incredibly confusing since he’s the fkn co-creator of Mortal Kombat.
But anyway, hope that helps clear things up!
