🔗 Share this article

The Mortal Kombat series still possesses many hidden mysteries and the ability to amaze, over three decades after its first appearance in arcades. A new collection covering the series' initial period, featuring four arcade games, multiple console adaptations, and derivative games, is more than only a accurately simulated series of classics along with lesser-known entries — it functions as a detailed chronicle about the creation of the renowned brand.

Being a long-time Mortal Kombat fan who has carefully followed its development and progression, there was plenty new for me to understand and value about the series.

What Constitutes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to previous classic compilations from the development team Digital Eclipse, part documentary, section playable historical record. The anthology contains 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 certain releases. This compilation also features the series' ventures at spinoffs, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — some of the brand's worst entries.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a “best of” collection, but an examination of the franchise's initial era, when developer Midway and series co-creators Ed Boon and John Tobias were determining how to make a fighting game, digitized from footage of live performers, through experimentation. Watching the documentary — that features archival footage, new interviews, and reproductions of classic advertisements, comics, and even interoffice faxes — it's remarkable to see how the series transformed from modest origins to a global sensation. It's truly remarkable to see a group of early video game creators, working with minimal planning or oversight, direct their entertainment passions into establishing an enduring gaming brand.

Educational Component

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection documents the ascent of Mortal Kombat and the developers' professional journeys at the no-longer-operating Midway. It then goes on to show how the very same individuals contended with how to routinely one-up themselves, facing no small amount of demand to replicate their achievements. It represents an intriguing historical record constructed using video recordings and analog photographs and hand-drawn illustrations, which reveal the self-made character of the franchise's production method and how personal recommendations helped circulate its mysteries and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its arcade heyday. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's thoroughly enjoyable series of documentary shorts that spans games, comics, films and even the silly live-action tour. The compilation also contains some unreleased actions and character sprites among its previously unreleased material.

Interactive Experience

Placed within the five-part documentary's timeline are opportunities to engage with the original releases. At certain intervals, viewers can hop into a combat game session or a home system version to rediscover its combat system and visual presentation, emulated nearly perfectly 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. Numerous titles here stand the test of time, especially in local multiplayer matches. However, facing the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a demonstration of how basic and unfair the coding existed in early Mortal Kombat games. Computer-directed fighters obviously use unfair advantages or are alternatively incredibly stupid. Lacking someone to play against — online play is available in the majority of included games, but somewhat limited in options — the experience will be incomplete.

Display Features

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the anthology, a combination of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are faithfully recreated, though I have noticed a couple minor issues — mainly control latency and sporadic glitches, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. Even though the releases are largely presented as-is, the creators has added several intelligent convenience enhancements and display customization choices. For instance, players have the option to display fighter-specific techniques on-screen and opt to have infinite time to complete lethal techniques. Additionally available are settings for unlocking secret characters, removing the requirement to complete obscure techniques to obtain them.

Visually, the games can be played with a variety of graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic effects that reproduce the traditional television screens of arcades or household displays, or the limited color monitor of a Nintendo handheld. An especially welcome feature is the setting to activate arcade-like bezels encircling the display, with your selected Mortal Kombat title accurately and softly reflecting against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's very artistically charming.

Bonus Elements

The collection includes numerous welcome features besides the educational material and simulated classic games, featuring an audio component that lets you revisit the tunes of various fighting releases without the din of combatants violently defeating each other. Also present are fighter biographies that include bios and numerous narrative components presented by the demo sequences of coin-op titles and endings.

Archival Discovery

A particularly notable inclusion for committed franchise followers is the opportunity to play a piece of "lost media" in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This specific release, a somewhat revised iteration of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an initial venture by the company at head-to-head network battles in arcades. The Wavenet Edition of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but included the option to compete against internet adversaries and featured various slight bug fixes and balance. But the Wavenet update failed to achieve popularity, in part