Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection: A Stunning Success for the Combat Series Brand

This iconic fighting game retains its share of secrets and the ability to amaze, more than 30 years after its initial debut in coin-op establishments. A new collection including the franchise's earliest days, which includes four arcade games, various home ports, and spinoffs, is more than only a accurately simulated set of legendary games and not-so-classics — it functions as a detailed chronicle about the creation of the iconic franchise.

Being a long-time enthusiast of the series who has closely monitored its development and progression, there was numerous fresh aspects for me to understand and value about the series.

What Constitutes the Historical Compilation

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to previous classic compilations from developer Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, part playable archive. The anthology contains digitally recreated editions of the pioneering 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. This compilation also features the brand's experiments at derivative games, like action games Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a greatest hits compilation, but an exploration into the series' formative period, when developer Midway and brand founders the creative duo behind the series were figuring out how to develop a battle series, created from video recordings of actual people, as they went along. Observing the archival material — containing archival footage, recent conversations, and reproductions of classic advertisements, comics, and including internal communications — it's incredible to witness how the franchise evolved from humble beginnings to a global sensation. It's genuinely amazing to see a group of young game developers, developing without clear direction or oversight, direct their entertainment passions into creating a legendary video game series.

Educational Component

The documentary portion of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of Mortal Kombat and its creators' careers at the no-longer-operating Midway. It then goes on to show how these identical developers reckoned with how to consistently surpass their achievements, experiencing considerable demand to replicate their triumphs. It serves as a compelling period piece constructed using video recordings and film-based pictures and pencil sketches, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of Mortal Kombat's development and how personal recommendations helped spread its rumors and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its arcade heyday. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's highly engaging series of documentary shorts that covers video games, graphic novels, movies and including the humorous real-world tour. The collection additionally features some unreleased actions and digital fighter representations among its cutting-room-floor content.

Playable Component

Placed within the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are opportunities to engage with the actual titles. At various points, users can directly access a Mortal Kombat title or one of its home console ports to rediscover its combat system and visual presentation, simulated with remarkable precision on modern hardware.

I spent the bulk of my time experiencing the original arcade titles, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here hold up, especially in one-on-one local play. But playing against the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a reminder of how crude and unfair the development approached in early Mortal Kombat games. AI-managed characters obviously use unfair advantages or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. Without having a human opponent — network gaming is included in the majority of included games, but too light on features — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Visual Options

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the anthology, a mix of coin-op, home system, and portable titles, are accurately emulated, though I detected a couple minor issues — mostly input lag and sporadic glitches, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are mostly shown in their original form, developer Digital Eclipse has added several intelligent quality-of-life features and display customization choices. For instance, players have the option to show each character's special moves during gameplay and opt to have infinite time to complete lethal techniques. Also included are choices for revealing concealed combatants, removing the requirement to complete some esoteric trick to obtain them.

Graphically, the titles can be experienced with numerous visual enhancements and presentation styles. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic options that simulate the CRT monitors of arcades or household displays, or the greenscale screen of a Game Boy. An especially welcome feature is the choice to enable coin-op-inspired frames encircling the display, with your selected Mortal Kombat title precisely and gently mirroring against the artificial ebony plastic frames. It's very artistically charming.

Bonus Elements

Players will discover multiple appreciated elements beyond the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, featuring an audio component that lets you revisit the music from multiple combat titles excluding the sounds of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. Also present are character profiles that include bios and numerous narrative components presented by the demo sequences of coin-op titles and endings.

Historical Preservation

A particularly notable inclusion for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the chance to experience a segment of previously unavailable content 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 early attempt by Midway at head-to-head network battles in arcades. This network version of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but included the option to battle network competitors and featured various slight bug fixes and balance. But the Wavenet update failed to achieve popularity, in part