Every character has a weapon it can draw and you can pick up stuff that’s on the ground and use that as a weapon as well. It’s a really cool and entirely useless game mechanic.
From Wikipedia :
It is also the first title in the series to use 3D computer graphics, as well as the last in the series to have an arcade release. The game was ported to the PlayStation, Nintendo 64, Microsoft Windows, and Game Boy Color in 1998, followed by an updated version, titled Mortal Kombat Gold, for the Dreamcast in 1999.