By Joseph Walter
While no one would describe the MK series as "light-hearted," there was always an element of over-the-top antics and a general sense of goofiness... except in MK4, at least for the most part.
The stages, in particular, gave off a weird sense of loneliness, despite the occasional bouts of sinister laughter from the unseen announcer. I found the whole thing to be kind of eerie, honestly.
Spookiness aside, there was no denying the delight of the incredibly dark "Game Over" screen, which is easily one of the most thematically perfect implementations of the concept in existence.
No doubt a reference to the infamous "The Pit" stages from the previous games (all of which end with the victim plummeting to their doom by means of spikes, saw blades or the hard stone floor of a deep canyon), this is easily the most "Mortal Kombat-y" way for the series to handle a continue countdown/Game Over.
To quote my cousin after he beat me in versus and then destroyed me with a Fatality: "delicious."
Empirically so.