UMK3 TAG v0.4 preview (2026-11-01)
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Rain, the way Midway finished him
- Lightning (Down+Back+HP): Rain throws his fist up and Midway's own
  lightning strikes the opponent: the bolt Nightwolf's B,B,D,HP fatality
  calls down, straight from the stock graphics ROMs. It launches on hit.
  In v0.3 nothing was drawn.
- Mind Control Orb (Down+Forward+LP): a water orb (Reptile's forceball
  sprite, recolored) crosses the screen, bursts on contact and floats the
  opponent so you can follow up. In v0.3 nothing was drawn. Hold a
  direction while they float and you steer them (Left/Right 3 px a frame,
  Up 2, Down 3), as in Trilogy and the 16-bit UMK3.
- Lightning fatality (Down+Forward+HP at FINISH HIM, from about half a
  screen): Trilogy's "lightning strikes until they explode" finisher, with
  the same stock bolt. v0.3 ran the brutality instead.
- Deadly Uppercut (Down+Forward+HP at FINISH HIM, up close): Trilogy's other
  Rain fatality. He uppercuts the opponent off the top of the screen and they
  come back down in pieces. Trilogy drops the body in reordered slices; that
  art isn't in the arcade ROMs, so the pieces are the stock body-chunk burst.
- The effects draw under the HUD text like the stock fatality bolt. (The
  first v0.4 preview drew the bolt and orb as flat rectangles.)
- "RAIN WINS": the arcade ROM has carried this unused line since 1995 (byte
  offset $33E2A in the program image). It prints now. Chameleon and Khameleon
  get their own win lines too, instead of the base ninja's.
- Round intro: names, colors and the four bars are right before FIGHT, so the
  intro no longer flashes SCORPION/REPTILE for the secret ninjas.

Fixes from the v0.3 report
- Forward Kameo with Sub-Zero drops the Ice Shower on the opponent. In v0.3
  forward and back were swapped, so it landed on your own side.
- Kung Lao's Kameo forward throw uses his Teleport.
- The brutality's combo readout says 11 HITS.
- After the round ends, a secret ninja's bar shows no name instead of the
  base ninja's.

Requested by players
- Kombo limit under tournament rules (Block+Up on the VS screen): no hit
  connects once one fighter has taken 12 hits in a combo without recovering.
  Aimed at the known infinites (Kabal, Stryker, Shang, Kano, Reptile, Sub-Zero
  on Sheeva and the robots, Sindel, Cyrax, the corner crouch loop); not yet
  replayed against each one, and relaunch tricks that reset the game's own hit
  count are not covered. Off by default. Committed finishers are exempt.
- Babality for the hidden fighters, using the stock Babality routine:
  Ermac, Classic Sub-Zero, Human Smoke, Noob Saibot, Rain, Chameleon and
  Khameleon. Down+Back+LK at FINISH HIM.
- Training mode is gone (it was Block+Down on the VS screen). This is an
  arcade game.

Timing
- The team HUD is drawn while fighting and during the round intro. Outside
  that it follows the v0.3 rule again: drawing it through KO and Mercy slowed
  those native sequences down (7 frames a round, 15 on Mercy). Measured cost
  against v0.3 now: 1 to 2 frames per round transition, 1 frame on Mercy.

Not done yet
- VS screen and HUD portraits for Rain, Chameleon and Khameleon are the base
  ninja's art. Rain still has Scorpion's chain kombos, not his Trilogy ones,
  and no Animality or Friendship (no art for them in the arcade ROMs).
- Native Windows PowerShell 5.1, physical controllers, Wolf Unit hardware and
  matched online play are not verified.
