The settings for MK3 (and most fighters) is no cont. and a difficulty setting of HARD. In a case there is no score and the game just keeps track of wins, the total number of wins is your final score. I don't know how BBH got a score of 202 when the world record is under 200 and it took the player around 3 hrs to do. There is only 1 way to allow the game to repeat over which is the only way to build your wins up higher then what you would of gotten if you would of beaten the game once. I think you have to select the hardest ladder (one on the right)beat the game and select for your prize the 3rd icon from the left which should be fight noob saibot you have to win one round, let him win the 2nd round and then win the 3rd round and then you must do a fatality if done correctly, the game will restart from the beginning and it will keep track of your wins allowing you to build them up. I'm not 100% if this how you do it cause it's been so long, but it's listed in the TG book how to do it I believe. This is the only way a sort of score should be kept for games like MK2 and MK3.

Regards, Steve Krogman

-- stephen krogman (skrogman@bellsouth.net), August 27, 2000

Answers

Almost. You fight Ermac, actually. Which round you lose is unimportant, but a mercy must be done in the 3rd. Hit him one more time (to trigger the second 'Finish Him!') and let him fall down. The current scores in MK3 for MARP use the wins x 10 - losses formula. If I'm not mistaken, it's actually the third from the right (the reason why you had to pick the hardest difficulty!) And also, doesn't the bonus menu only come up in UMK3? It's been a while.

To throw my two cents in, it's a very brainless effort to play MK3 for hours on end like that. Any halfway decent player with knowledge of the CPU's flaws could only mess up their streak by screwing up the mercy in round 3 against Ermac. I don't think there's any need to change the scoring system at this moment.

Cheers, Brian McLean

-- Brian McLean (bmclean84@hotmail.com), August 27, 2000.

I agree with Brian. And BBH and I actually talked about marathoning MK3 by taking advantage of some bug/feature and we both agreed that it shouldn't be allowed.

The fact that there are TG settings does not mean they have to be used on MARP, and if counting only the number of wins is indeed TG, then I don't think it's the best, and it certainly is not the only, way to keep score. After all, I think that a player who wins against all opponents without losing a single round is better than a player who loses one round against several opponents, but also still finishes. (Note that I am assuming here that the game ends and no advantage is taken of the bug/feature.) Using TG settings, they'd both end up with the same score. I think that the MARP way of scoring is better then, because I think that, given two players winning the same number of rounds, the one who loses the least rounds should be awarded more points.

Cheers, Ben Jos.

-- Ben Jos Walbeehm (walbeehm@walbeehm.com), August 27, 2000.

Geez, where do I begin with this one...

First of all, I claimed a "score" of 198, not 202. The current scoring system being used on MARP is (rounds won x 10) - (rounds lost x 1). Not total number of wins. So to get the highest score, you would need to finish the Master battle plan without losing any rounds (I'm a bit rusty, that's why I've been playing on the easier/shorter ones, heh). This scoring system isn't perfect because we may wind up with ties, but this certainly beats just counting number of wins, so I think we should keep it this way.

Secondly, this was done in MK3. This trick you speak of can only be done in Ultimate MK3. The only way of extending regular MK3 is on the 2.0 romset, you can get a free game on the end credits. (I remember this trick working in the arcade, but I couldn't get it to work last night... probably screwed it up). In all other romsets, once you reach the end, that's it. Same thing for MK2.

Third, I did not claim TG settings in my description. (double-check if you don't believe me.) Personally, I am against using these "marathon" settings on MARP. In the MK's you have to exploit the game's AI and do the same cheezy tricks over and over again. Does anybody really want to watch hours and hours of that? I know I wouldn't.

Finally, "I don't know how BBH got a score of 202"? What's THAT supposed to mean?! ;P

-BBh

-- BBH (lordbbh@aol.com), August 27, 2000.

Now I see. BBH thanks for reminding me of some things like the trick (extra credit) working on only UMK3 and not the original MK# ver. The reason why I said I didn't know how you got that score is because I didn't know MARP came up with that scoring system with # of wins and rounds you win/loose ect. It sounds like a pretty good format and I too wouldn't want to see someone play over and over again for 3 hours beating the game several tmes if the credit trick did work. The ultimate score would be to beat the game on 1 credit, on the hardest ladder. I can't view your inp cause my system isn't fast enough :( but good job at least beating the game on your computer! I always sucked at fighting games on the pc and with a gamepad, but in the arcade I'm hard to keep up with. I know all the tricks, combos and just flat out crazy shit, someday I'll upgrade my system to be able to play these fighters with my Hotrod and upload some cool recordings.

Regards, Steve Krogman

Ps I'm going to ask Walter Day over at Twin Galaxies if he wants to consider this scoreing system for his book when players want to go for recognition. The guy who played for 3.5 hours and had like 178 wins just proved he could marathon the game which isn't too hard believe me, I've done it myself.

-- stephen m krogman (skrogman@bellsouth.net), August 27, 2000.