I remember renting MK1 and MK2 for the Genesis when they came out, and thinking (even back then) that they were horrifically shitty translations of the arcade games - washed out graphics, horrible music, non-existent voice samples, etc.
I picked up MK3 when it came out just hoping that it'd be semi-decent, and I was blown away from the get-go - animation was great, the music was pretty darn good, most of the important voice samples were still in the game. All the fatality stuff, hidden characters, etc. Played the heck out of that back in the day.