The Legacy Kollection of Mortal Kombat: An Almost Perfect Triumph for the Fighting Game Series

This iconic fighting game still possesses numerous undisclosed elements and the power to astonish, more than 30 years after its first appearance in coin-op establishments. This latest compilation spanning the brand's formative years, featuring four arcade games, multiple console adaptations, and derivative games, is more than simply a faithfully reproduced series of classics and not-so-classics — it functions as a detailed chronicle about the creation of the renowned brand.

As a dedicated devotee of the franchise who has carefully followed its development and progression, there was numerous fresh aspects for me to understand and value about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like other retro collections from developer Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, portion interactive museum. The collection includes emulated versions of the pioneering arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, along with home system and portable adaptations of some of those games. This compilation also features the franchise's attempts at derivative games, like action games Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' least successful installments.

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 determining how to develop a battle series, created from video recordings of real actors, through experimentation. Viewing the historical footage — containing historical videos, new interviews, and reproductions of classic advertisements, comics, and including internal communications — it's incredible to witness how the franchise evolved from modest origins to a global sensation. It's genuinely amazing to watch a handful of pioneering developers, operating with virtually no plan or supervision, channel their pop-culture interests into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Educational Component

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection documents the ascent of Mortal Kombat and its creators' careers at the no-longer-operating Midway. It subsequently demonstrates how the very same individuals reckoned with how to routinely one-up themselves, facing no small amount of pressure to repeat their success. It serves as a compelling period piece made from analog films and traditional photos and pencil sketches, which showcase the DIY nature of the franchise's production method and how personal recommendations helped disseminate its secrets and undisclosed elements of the series in its peak period in gaming halls. Presented in manageable segments, it's thoroughly enjoyable series of documentary shorts that spans games, comics, films and even the comical physical events. It also includes some unused moves and character sprites among its cutting-room-floor content.

Playable Component

Distributed throughout the five-segment historical film's chronology are prompts to play the original releases. At various points, users can directly access a combat game session or a console adaptation to revisit its gameplay and visual presentation, emulated nearly perfectly on contemporary systems.

I allocated the majority of my time experiencing the original arcade titles, specifically Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here remain enjoyable, particularly during direct competitive sessions. Yet competing with the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a reminder of how crude and unfair the coding existed in early Mortal Kombat games. CPU-controlled opponents blatantly cheat to win or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. Lacking another person to compete with — online play is available in numerous anthology releases, but rather basic in functionality — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Display Features

The two dozen available combat games in the anthology, a mix of coin-op, home system, and portable titles, are faithfully recreated, though I've observed a few small quirks — primarily delayed responses and the occasional bug, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. Even though the releases are primarily displayed authentically, the development team has included some smart user experience improvements and display customization choices. For instance, you can choose to show each character's special moves on the display and opt to have unlimited duration to execute finishing moves. There are also options for accessing hidden fighters, without having to perform some esoteric trick to obtain them.

Graphically, the titles can be enjoyed with multiple visual enhancements and presentation styles. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic filters that mimic the cathode-ray tube displays of gaming halls or domestic TVs, or the greenscale screen of a Nintendo handheld. An especially welcome feature is the option to have 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 quite aesthetically pleasing.

Bonus Elements

Players will discover multiple welcome features besides the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, featuring an audio component that enables players to reexperience the tunes of various combat titles without the din of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. Additionally included are fighter biographies that feature histories and the various bits of lore shown through the idle displays of gaming hall releases and endings.

Archival Discovery

A particularly notable inclusion for committed franchise followers is the ability to access a piece of "lost media" in the form of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This particular edition, a moderately improved edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an early attempt by Midway at direct online competitive gaming in coin-op establishments. This network version of the game is virtually identical to UMK3, but provided the ability to compete against internet adversaries and featured various slight bug fixes and balance. But the Wavenet update never gained traction, in part