Fatality (Earth-19999)

In the Mortal Fighter Series of fighting games, a Fatality is a special finishing move that can be used against one's opponent at the end of the final match. When the announcer says "Finish Him" if the opponent is male, or "Finish Her" if the opponent is female, the player can choose to kill him or her through a fatality move. If input correctly, the background will darken, followed by the desired result.

Unlike special moves, a Fatality may require certain distances and quick button sequences in order to achieve the desired result. For example, in Mortal Fighter III, one of Jin Kazama's Fatalities requires that he stands close to the opponent and quickly execute Block, Block, Run, Block, Run. Every character has their own special Fatality that must be performed at a certain distance from the opponent. Characters will always have two fatalities, except for M. Bison and Shujinko in Mortal Fighter: Konquest and Ragnarök who had three.

The Beggining
According to Liam Kiely, "it started with an idea to enable the player to hit a dizzied opponent at the end of the match with a "free hit", and that idea "quickly evolved into something nasty". According to Frank O'Connor: "Our first idea was to use them as a finishing move for the final bosses, Heihachi Mishima and Shang Tsung, who was going to pull out his sword and behead his opponent. Then we thought, What if the player could do that to his opponent?" When we watched players react to the Fatalities, we knew we had no choice but to give them more."

Reaction
Mortal Fighter attracted numerous fans (and haters) because it featured blood and the ability to perform Fatalities. The new feature addition helped make Mortal Fighter a successful game franchise that challenged the supremacy of other games of both the same theme and diverse.

The Fatality concept caused considerable controversy, and many parents disapproved of the violence and the brutal endings of the game, deeming it disturbing.

The newly-founded VGRS gave Mortal Fighter a rating of A (Adult), deeming the game too violent for audiences under the age of 17. It's worth noting that, in the United States, the VGRS has no legal standing to prevent the sale of video games to minors, and therefore many people under the suggested age were able to play the game. Arcade owners were asked to monitor the ages of players, although few did.

Mortal Fighter II added some extras when it came to Fatalities. The characters were given two Fatalities each, and the Fatalities were more violent. Many angry parents and protesters wrote letters and complained about the content of the game, but since the VGRS had already rated the games, nothing came of the protests.

Many parents feared that the introduction of Fatalities would influence children to murder, and to teach them that it was okay to kill their enemies at school if they were threatened or accidental murder.