Welcome to the MK4 1 on 1 Kombat budget Speedrun Guide for the N64/PC. This is mostly a commentary over my N64 Run, if you have a general idea about how this game works, watching a run its the same as reading this, it just in text and offers a bit of more info.

The 3 characters you want to know about are Jax - Liu Kang and Shinnok before talking about individual things lets see what the basic strat for this run is all about.

If you see a weird number at the end of a sentence like this (3:23) its the timestamp to my N64 run where you can see what im talking about in action. (too lazy ATM to link individual vids)

Here is a link to the run: https://www.speedrun.com/mk4/run/zxd4p5qy

Bread and Butter

Its all about the HK= High Kick, doing a high kick not close enough so you dont start a combo string ( the knee) hits most of the cast (everyone but, raiden fujin reiko kai tanya jax goro), the AI chooses a sweep to counter but the HK wins in 96% of the cases, the HK animation varies between some characters but thats usually not a problem, it affects the timing and range a bit but its the same deal. Since the trick doesnt work on everyone, most runs spin the final tower to get as many as possible characters that can be cheesed with the HK strat.

Best case scenario you start blocking and the AI will throw a projectile/unsafe attack frame 1, this is perfect because it setups the HK loop and removes the flawless victory (1:14)

Things to consider: -Sub-zero may do a ice clone between kicks and waste you 6 seconds (Pure RNG, nothing to be done here) -Jarek may get a kano ball between kicks just like sub and waste time.

Non Cheeseable enemies with BNB

Unfortunately you will run into the characters that cant be HK cheesed, here is where the character you are playing gets into account, lets start with the Easy one:

-- Jax: his weapon destroys the dudes that you cant HK, there is a loop you can do after knocking them down with a High Punch attack with his weapon, they are sent flying and if you get close to them but not right next, do a crouched low attack( lp,lk) the AI will get up immediately and counter with a Low Kick that you can block and punish with the same attack as before (HP with weapon) thus this creates a loop that you can exploit. (3:25)

Things to consider: its possible to get a Maximum Damage from doing this trick fast enough, to avoid this, delay the crouched attack a bit after landing two loops. The difficult part of this strat is getting the weapon out, you will 99% of the cases pull the weapon out mid combo, if its blocked or it connects it setups the HP loop quite consistently: Blocked?: 1)sometimes they do a weird thing with the block animation and the AI gets stuck, just time the next HP to land as they get out of the block animation. (3:23) 2) If AI just got pushed back usually you can block their next attack and punish with HP, or just gamble all and run close to them and throw a HP Hit?: 1) Just run close to them and block or try to get a HP as soon as you are in range. (3:06 or 3:47) Remember that you drop the weapon by taking a single hit, be super careful. After landing the final hit, do the ground pound or just run to them and crouch LK. (4:17)

-- Liu Kang: Unfortunately his weapon cant do what Jax does here but you may try the HP spam thing that will be explained against Goro down below. If your are not using his sword do:

What you are going to look for is landing the knee into HK combo, and then as soon as possible another standing HK, the AI will eat the last HK for free if done as soon as you can( ONLY IF THE ATTACK HITS, DONT DO ANOTHER HK IF ITS BLOCKED) you can also do the strat fitz1889 does in his run that seems somewhat consistent, there is no consistent way found yet to get rid of the non hk cheeseable chars (with exception of jax trick above)

-- Shinnok: Morph into jax, and do his thing lmao, (Shinnok gets the weapon from the character he mophs/copy into) Jax morph = forward down forward HK, jax Weapon = forward down forward HP, you can do the jax morph and immediately after morphing press HP, it also registers the input to get Jaxs weapon out, mostly useless but knowledge is power they say.

Things to consider: -Jax might start the round with a ground pound, you can react to this jump over and land a combo that ends in the weapon for a quick round. (ground pound is reactable in general, pay attention)

GORO

Get ready for some pain, here is where Liu Kang shines.

-- Jax: Just get the weapon out somehow and do the usual HP loop.

-- Liu Kang: Get the weapon out and spam HP, start spamming outside of combo range to avoid get destroyed by a grab, you want to stop spamming when goro loses close to 40%, at 40% maximum damage will trigger and mess you up so do this: Spamm HP, when goro losses close to 40%, move backwards a single step and spamm away, do this 3 times and goro is done, pray to RNG god, way faster kill than jax trick. (4:30) IF GORO STARTS WITH A TAUNT, PULL HIM a bit FARTHER THAN 50% oF THE SCREEN/STAGE , and spamm away, hopefully he will be in the corner as you get to 40% and can get a super fast kill. (4:30) (notice that i drop the combo in the vid, so it auto resets the maximum damage window )

-- Shinnok: Guess what? morph into Liu Kang and do his thing, this is the advantage of Shinnok, he has the best of both characters. (in the PS version Shinnok eats loadings when morphing so NO good) Liu Kang morph= Back back forward HK, Liu Kang weapon: Back Forward LK, Same deal as before, you can do Back Back Forward HK, LK and do both in one.

Shinnok Final boss.

Just do the good old HK trick, keep in mind that most of the time he will come running at you and grab the first head on the floor, you can predict this and kick right away.

Congrats, you ran this game in 5-7 mins.

PD: Play Jax, best ending when getting a PB.

PD2: Excuse the poor grammar and wording, this is just a quick info dump on a game extremely underdeveloped, having something is better than nothing.