🔗 Share this article

Mortal Kombat continues to hold its share of secrets and the power to astonish, over three decades after its first appearance in arcades. A new collection spanning the brand's formative years, featuring a quartet of arcade releases, multiple console adaptations, and spinoffs, is more than just a well-emulated set of legendary games and not-so-classics — it's also a comprehensive historical account about the development of the iconic franchise.

Being a long-time Mortal Kombat fan who has carefully followed its development and progression, there was much to discover for me to discover and admire about the series.

What Defines the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to previous classic compilations from developer Digital Eclipse, part documentary, section playable historical record. The anthology contains simulated releases of the first arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, along with home system and portable adaptations of several of these titles. The anthology additionally contains the series' ventures at spin-off titles, like action-oriented titles Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — two of the franchise's worst entries.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a greatest hits compilation, but a study of the franchise's initial era, when developer Midway and series co-creators the creative duo behind the series were discovering methods to make a fighting game, produced using film material of actual people, as they went along. Observing the archival material — containing historical videos, new interviews, and reproductions of classic advertisements, comics, and even company memos — it's remarkable to see how the series transformed from modest origins to a global sensation. It's genuinely amazing to observe several pioneering developers, working with minimal planning or supervision, focus their cultural enthusiasms into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Educational Component

The documentary portion of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of Mortal Kombat and its creators' careers at the no-longer-operating Midway. It then goes on to show how those same creators contended with how to consistently surpass their achievements, experiencing considerable pressure to repeat their success. It serves as a compelling period piece composed of VHS tapes and traditional photos and hand-drawn illustrations, which reveal the self-made character of the franchise's production method and how personal recommendations helped spread its rumors and undisclosed elements of the series in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's highly engaging set of brief historical films that covers video games, graphic novels, movies and even the comical physical events. The collection additionally features some unreleased actions and digital fighter representations among its archived development assets.

Interactive Experience

Placed within the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are invitations to experience the original releases. At certain intervals, viewers can hop into a Mortal Kombat title or a console adaptation to rediscover its combat system and graphics, simulated with remarkable precision on modern hardware.

I spent the bulk of my time playing the arcade classics, specifically Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here hold up, especially in local multiplayer matches. But playing against the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a demonstration of how basic and unfair the coding existed in the franchise's pioneering releases. Computer-directed fighters obviously use unfair advantages or are alternatively incredibly stupid. If you don't have another person to compete with — internet multiplayer exists in numerous anthology releases, but too light on features — you'll be missing out.

Technical Presentation

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the compilation, a mix of coin-op, home system, and portable titles, are accurately emulated, though I have noticed a handful slight anomalies — mostly input lag and intermittent errors, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are primarily displayed authentically, the creators has incorporated various clever convenience enhancements and graphical adjustment settings. For instance, you can choose to reveal combatant-unique actions during gameplay and choose to enable unlimited duration to execute finishing moves. Additionally available are settings for unlocking secret characters, eliminating the need to execute obscure techniques to obtain them.

Graphically, the titles can be enjoyed with multiple visual enhancements and presentation styles. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic effects that reproduce the cathode-ray tube displays of coin-op establishments or home televisions, or the greenscale screen of a portable gaming device. A notably appreciated element is the setting to activate coin-op-inspired frames surrounding the screen, with the specific combat game you're playing accurately and softly reflecting against the artificial ebony plastic frames. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Extra Content

There are plenty of nice touches beyond the documentary and emulated arcade classics, containing a soundtrack mode that lets you revisit the tunes of various combat titles without the din of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. There are also character profiles that include bios and multiple story elements presented by the idle displays of gaming hall releases and conclusions.

Lost Media Recovery

One of the biggest highlights for committed franchise followers is the ability to access a example of historically missing material in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This version of the game, a slightly updated version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an initial venture by the company at one-on-one internet-based play in gaming halls. The Wavenet Edition of the game is virtually identical to UMK3, but featured the capability to battle network competitors and contained several small glitch repairs and refinements. However, this network version failed to achieve popularity, in part