Killer Instinct Gold

Killer Instinct Gold is a port of the arcade fighting game Killer Instinct 2 . Like other entries in the Killer Instinct series, two characters controlled by humans or artificial intelligence fight in one-on-one matches to deplete their opponent's health meter . While the characters move and attack on a 2D plane, the background is depicted in pre-rendered 3D and gives the appearance of depth . Players fight with a six-button setup: three punch buttons and three kick buttons, similar to the controls in Street Fighter II .

Players can chain together a series of hits into " combos " for increased damage, with some special combos requiring specific, memorized sequences of button presses. Multiple hit combos lead to stronger attacks and brutal, stylistic finisher moves, or " Fatalities ". Characters on the receiving end of a combo can interrupt the sequence with a "combo breaker" move. " Gold features arcade, team, and tournament gameplay modes.

The game's new "practice mode" lets players rehearse their skills and follow tutorials. In the new knockout tournament mode, players cycle through a preselected team of characters when their current character is eliminated. Gold features the same characters, combos, and environments available in the arcade Killer Instinct 2 . Players can unlock new character appearances, gameplay difficulty levels , and an additional playable character.

Gold and Killer Instinct 2 ' s shared roster contains eleven characters in total: four new additions and seven returning from the previous title . Characters include a gargoyle, a ninja, and a femme fatale . Fights are set in spaceship, jungle, and castle settings, among others, and some backgrounds are interactive. Gold features new camera functions that automatically zoom to better frame the fight.

The release also includes enhancements to the 3D backgrounds and an upgraded soundtrack, but excludes the full-motion video sequences and some voice-overs from the arcade release due to the Nintendo 64's cartridge media data storage restrictions. While Gold ' s backgrounds are fluidly animated in 60 frames per second , its character animations have fewer frames than its arcade equivalent.