🔗 Share this article

The Mortal Kombat series still possesses its share of secrets and the power to astonish, more than 30 years after its original launch in arcades. The recent anthology covering the brand's formative years, which includes a quartet of arcade releases, various home ports, and spinoffs, transcends simply a faithfully reproduced series of classics and not-so-classics — it's also a detailed chronicle about the creation of the renowned brand.

Being a long-time devotee of the franchise who has paid close attention its development and progression, there was plenty new for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Defines the Historical Compilation

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to other retro collections from the development team Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, section playable historical record. The collection includes digitally recreated editions 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 brand's experiments at spin-off titles, like action-oriented titles Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — some of the brand's worst entries.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a greatest hits compilation, but a study of the franchise's initial era, when the creators at Midway and series co-creators the visionary developers were discovering methods to develop a battle series, created from video recordings of actual people, through experimentation. Observing the archival material — that features historical videos, recent conversations, and scans of old flyers, comics, and even interoffice faxes — it's incredible to witness how Mortal Kombat went from modest origins to a international craze. It's frankly astounding to watch a handful of young game developers, developing without clear direction or supervision, direct their entertainment passions into creating a legendary video game series.

Educational Component

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection documents the ascent of the fighting series and the founders' vocational paths at the currently closed Midway. It further illustrates how these identical developers contended with how to regularly outdo their previous work, experiencing considerable stress to duplicate their success. It's a fascinating time capsule made from video recordings and film-based pictures and pencil sketches, which reveal the self-made character of the franchise's production method and how word of mouth helped circulate its mysteries and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its arcade heyday. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's highly engaging collection of mini-documentaries that includes titles, illustrated stories, cinematic adaptations and even the comical physical events. The compilation also contains some unused moves and game character images among its cutting-room-floor content.

Interactive Experience

Placed within the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are prompts to play the actual titles. At various points, audience members can jump into a Mortal Kombat title or a console adaptation to reexperience its mechanics and artistic style, recreated with impressive accuracy on current technology.

I dedicated most of my time experiencing the original arcade titles, specifically Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here remain enjoyable, notably with direct competitive sessions. Yet competing with the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a reminder of how crude and unjust the coding existed in the franchise's pioneering releases. CPU-controlled opponents clearly employ dishonest tactics or are alternatively incredibly stupid. Lacking a human opponent — network gaming is included in numerous anthology releases, but rather basic in functionality — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Technical Presentation

The twenty-three accessible Mortal Kombat titles in the compilation, a blend of coin-op, home system, and portable titles, are precisely simulated, though I detected a few small quirks — mostly input lag and intermittent errors, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. Even though the releases are primarily displayed authentically, the development team has incorporated various clever convenience enhancements and display customization choices. For instance, users can elect to reveal combatant-unique actions on-screen and select to activate unlimited duration to complete lethal techniques. Additionally available are settings for revealing concealed combatants, eliminating the need to execute obscure techniques to unlock them.

Graphically, the titles can be enjoyed with multiple graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic effects that reproduce the traditional television screens of gaming halls or household displays, or the limited color monitor of a Game Boy. A notably appreciated element is the choice to enable gaming hall-style borders surrounding the screen, with the specific combat game you're playing precisely and gently mirroring against the faux black plastic borders. It's very artistically charming.

Extra Content

The collection includes numerous welcome features besides the documentary and emulated arcade classics, including a music player that enables players to reexperience the music from multiple fighting releases without the din of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. There are also fighter biographies that include bios and numerous narrative components displayed via arcade games' attract mode screens and conclusions.

Archival Discovery

A particularly notable inclusion for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the opportunity to play a segment of previously unavailable content in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This specific release, a slightly updated version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an initial venture by the company at head-to-head network battles in coin-op establishments. The online-enabled release of the game is virtually identical to UMK3, but featured the capability to compete against internet adversaries and included some minor error corrections and adjustments. But the Wavenet update failed to achieve popularity, in part