Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection: An Almost Perfect Triumph for the Fighting Game Franchise

Mortal Kombat continues to hold its share of secrets and the power to astonish, well past its 30th anniversary after its first appearance in coin-op establishments. This latest compilation including the series' initial period, comprising four original arcade titles, multiple console adaptations, and derivative games, transcends simply a faithfully reproduced set of legendary games along with lesser-known entries — it's also a detailed chronicle about the making of the renowned brand.

As a dedicated Mortal Kombat fan who has paid close attention its development and progression, there was much to discover for me to discover and admire about the series.

What Defines the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to other retro collections from the creators at Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, part playable archive. The collection includes simulated releases of the pioneering arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, including television and mobile versions of several of these titles. The collection even includes the series' ventures at spin-off titles, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection consequently doesn't represent a highlight reel anthology, but an exploration into the series' formative period, when the development team Midway and brand founders the visionary developers were figuring out how to develop a battle series, produced using film material of live performers, as they went along. Viewing the historical footage — that features archival footage, contemporary discussions, and reproductions of classic advertisements, illustrated stories, and even company memos — it's incredible to witness how Mortal Kombat went from simple starts to a international craze. It's frankly astounding to watch a handful of pioneering developers, operating with virtually no plan or supervision, direct their entertainment passions into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Documentary Portion

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of the combat franchise and the founders' vocational paths at the no-longer-operating Midway. It then goes on to show how those same creators addressed how to consistently surpass their achievements, facing no small amount of pressure to repeat their triumphs. It's a fascinating time capsule made from video recordings and film-based pictures and manual drawings, which reveal the self-made character of the series' creation process and how word of mouth helped circulate its mysteries and undisclosed elements of the series in its peak period in gaming halls. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's an eminently watchable set of brief historical films that includes titles, illustrated stories, cinematic adaptations and even the silly live-action tour. The collection additionally features some unreleased actions and game character images among its archived development assets.

Interactive Gaming

Distributed throughout the five-part documentary's timeline are prompts to play the original releases. At various points, users can directly access a Mortal Kombat title or a console adaptation to revisit its gameplay and visual presentation, recreated with impressive accuracy on modern hardware.

I dedicated most of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, specifically Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here hold up, particularly during direct competitive sessions. However, facing the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a testament to how primitive and unbalanced the development approached in the franchise's pioneering releases. Computer-directed fighters clearly employ dishonest tactics or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. If you don't have someone to play against — network gaming is included in most titles in the collection, but somewhat limited in options — you'll be missing out.

Visual Options

The two dozen available combat games in the collection, a blend of coin-op, home system, and portable titles, are accurately emulated, though I've observed a few small quirks — mainly control latency and intermittent errors, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are primarily displayed authentically, the creators has incorporated various clever convenience enhancements and visual presentation options. As an illustration, you can choose to show each character's special moves on the display and opt to have endless periods to complete lethal techniques. Additionally available are settings for accessing hidden fighters, eliminating the need to execute some esoteric trick to access them.

Artistically, the releases can be enjoyed with multiple visual enhancements and presentation styles. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic options that simulate the traditional television screens of gaming halls or home televisions, or the greenscale screen of a portable gaming device. A notably appreciated element is the option to have coin-op-inspired frames encircling the display, with the specific combat game you're playing faithfully and subtly duplicating against the faux black plastic borders. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Bonus Elements

There are plenty of appreciated elements beyond the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, containing a soundtrack mode that enables players to reexperience the tunes of various fighting releases absent the noise of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. There are also character profiles that include bios and the various bits of lore shown through arcade games' attract mode screens and final sequences.

Lost Media Recovery

One of the biggest highlights for committed franchise followers is the chance to experience a piece of "lost media" in the format 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 coin-op establishments. The online-enabled release of the game is virtually identical to UMK3, but featured the capability to battle network competitors and contained several small error corrections and adjustments. But the Wavenet update failed to achieve popularity, in part