KI had a pretty kickin soundtrack. I remember how awesome it was when they packed-in that "Killer Cuts" CD with the SNES version of Killer Instinct. I expected it to be the shitty MIDI songs from that version, but lo and behold, when you played it it was actually fucking great quality versions of the original arcade soundtrack.
Old E3 was such a glorious, spectacular waste of money.
I remember this game being nowhere near as good as Mortal Kombat. Or Street Fighter. Or Primal Rage. Or King of Fighters. Or Darkstalkers. Or the Marvel fighting games. Or Samurai Showdown.
Killer Instinct really was the most disappointing fighting game. There were far worse titles, but I don't think there was years of hype for Rise of the Robots. It also didn't help that its big draw of MAXIMUM COMBOS was invalidated by the fact that turtling pretty much was the only strategy to victory.