It was the year 2002. I was in second grade, was probably too young to watch R-rated movies, and loved playing video games. At a game store at some mall--I can’t remember which--I recall seeing the most peculiar game I’d ever seen at the time. I’d played things like Super Mario Bros., but I hadn’t quite seen anything like this game.

On the cover was the striking red-and-silver emblem with a dragon in its center. In literally sharp, capital letters at the bottom was the title.

Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance.

The little ESRB rating in the bottom left corner told me I probably wasn’t old enough to play this. When I showed it to my parents, they were understandably worried. Flipping the game over to the back, one could see based on screenshots that not only was this a fighting game--something I hadn’t played before--but it was a gory fighting game. The images of violence and bloodshed on the back could attest to this.

Yeah, I was probably too young for it. But it was totally unlike any game I’d ever seen, and when it came to games, I was hell-bent on trying out new things. So, after a lot of begging and prodding, my parents caved and bought the game.

And I actually had quite a bit of fun with it. It was bloody, gory, disgusting--but fun.

For 25 years, the Mortal Kombat franchise has stood as one of the most recognizable, pioneering, and infamous game series of all time. From its humble origins in the arcades back in October of 1992 to its critically-acclaimed Mortal Kombat X in 2015, the franchise has seen plenty of change and gained more and more loyal fans through the years. Looking at the franchise as a whole, it’s not very hard to see why.

When the original came out, people were blown away by its use of digitized actors, the unique fighting mechanics like uppercuts or the crazy special moves, and of course, the famed Fatalities--grisly finishing moves used to end a match with finesse. Not a whole lot of games at the time had ever had these kinds of features, let alone blood and gore, which was extremely rare and, if present, was never at the level of violence that Mortal Kombat was on. Moreover, there was a whole subculture that arose because of the game, dedicated to cracking the code behind the game’s combos, special moves, Fatalities and secrets--none of which were divulged to gamers unless a special gaming magazine was involved.

Experimentation by the developers and the gamers had become one of Mortal Kombat’s defining characteristics. Today, it continues to be.

The reason why Mortal Kombat as an idea has persisted for so long isn’t just because of the ultra-violence and original concepts and characters. While those are certainly exceptional, the novelty of those things only last for so long. Without change, without refinement, a franchise may as well just stay at one entry and only one entry. Developers Ed Boon, John Tobias and all the fine folks who devised the franchise understand this well, and thus Mortal Kombat is an ever-evolving beast.

To give you some perspective, Mortal Kombat 3 added a new combo system and enhanced graphics. Mortal Kombat 4 took things into the third dimension with fully 3D characters. Deadly Alliance added robust fighting styles for each character and added a Tekken-style third dimension to the fighting. 2011’s Mortal Kombat, the reboot named after the original, takes things back to their roots with a two-dimensional fighting plane, but updates that formula with modern fighting game mechanics like super meters.

No matter how you slice it, there is no doubting that with each successive installment, Mortal Kombat’s innovative creators are constantly thinking about how to take the Kombat formula further and keep it from becoming stale.

While its aesthetic, its style and its story have distinguished it from other games, it is its ingenuity that keeps it relevant even to this day. In a world where fighting games are plentiful, one needs to do something to keep things fresh. From inception to today, Mortal Kombat continues to strengthen itself, improve itself and make itself even better than before.

And it’s crushing skulls, tearing out spines, and eviscerating guts along the way.