The Legacy Kollection of Mortal Kombat: An Almost Perfect Triumph for the Combat Series Brand

Mortal Kombat continues to hold numerous undisclosed elements and the ability to amaze, more than 30 years after its initial debut in coin-op establishments. The recent anthology covering the franchise's earliest days, comprising four original arcade titles, several home system versions, and derivative games, is more than simply a faithfully reproduced series of classics including less celebrated releases — it's also a detailed chronicle about the development of the legendary series.

Being a long-time enthusiast of the series who has paid close attention its development and progression, there was much to discover for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Constitutes the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like other retro collections from the creators at Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, portion interactive museum. The collection includes emulated versions of the original arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, including television and mobile versions of some of those games. The collection even includes the franchise's attempts at spin-off titles, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — two of the franchise's least successful installments.

The Legacy Kollection consequently doesn't represent a highlight reel anthology, but a study of the franchise's initial era, when the development team Midway and brand founders Ed Boon and John Tobias were determining how to make a fighting game, produced using film material of live performers, on the fly. Watching the documentary — containing historical videos, new interviews, and scans of old flyers, comics, and including internal communications — it's astonishing to observe how Mortal Kombat went from humble beginnings to a worldwide phenomenon. It's truly remarkable to see a group of young game developers, working with minimal planning or oversight, direct their entertainment passions into creating a legendary video game series.

Historical Section

The documentary portion of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of the fighting series and the founders' vocational paths at the currently closed Midway. It further illustrates how those same creators contended with how to regularly outdo their previous work, encountering significant pressure to repeat their success. It represents an intriguing historical record constructed using VHS tapes and film-based pictures and pencil sketches, which showcase the DIY nature of Mortal Kombat's development and how word of mouth helped circulate its mysteries and undisclosed elements of the series in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's an eminently watchable set of brief historical films that spans games, comics, films and including the humorous real-world tour. The compilation also contains some never-implemented techniques and game character images among its cutting-room-floor content.

Playable Component

Interspersed along the five-segment historical film's chronology are opportunities to engage with the original releases. During specific moments, viewers can hop into a combat game session or a home system version to revisit its gameplay and visual presentation, emulated nearly perfectly on modern hardware.

I allocated the majority of my time playing the arcade classics, especially Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Many of the games here remain enjoyable, particularly during direct competitive sessions. However, facing the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a reminder of how crude and unjust the coding existed in the franchise's pioneering releases. Computer-directed fighters blatantly cheat to win or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. Without having another person to compete with — online play is available in the majority of included games, but too light on features — the experience will be incomplete.

Visual Options

The twenty-three accessible Mortal Kombat titles in the compilation, a mix of arcade, console, and handheld games, are faithfully recreated, though I detected a couple minor issues — mainly control latency and sporadic glitches, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are largely presented as-is, the development team has included some smart convenience enhancements and display customization choices. For instance, you can choose to show each character's special moves on-screen and choose to enable endless periods to perform a Fatality. Also included are choices for revealing concealed combatants, eliminating the need to execute some esoteric trick to unlock them.

Artistically, the releases can be played with a variety of filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic filters that mimic the cathode-ray tube displays of arcades or domestic TVs, or the limited color monitor of a portable gaming device. An especially welcome feature is the choice to enable coin-op-inspired frames 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 nice touches beyond the documentary and emulated arcade classics, featuring an audio component that allows users to rediscover the tunes of various fighting releases absent the noise of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. There are also character profiles that contain backgrounds and multiple story elements 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 piece of "lost media" in the format of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This specific release, a slightly updated version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an early attempt by Midway at direct online competitive gaming in gaming halls. The Wavenet Edition of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but featured the capability to battle network competitors and included some minor error corrections and adjustments. However, this network version didn't find widespread adoption, in part