Mortal Kombat's Legacy Kollection: A Stunning Success for the Fighting Game Franchise

The Mortal Kombat series continues to hold many hidden mysteries and the power to astonish, over three decades after its initial debut in gaming halls. This latest compilation covering the brand's formative years, comprising four original arcade titles, several home system versions, and derivative games, transcends simply a faithfully reproduced set of legendary games including less celebrated releases — it functions as a rich documentary about the development of the iconic franchise.

Even as a lifelong devotee of the franchise who has paid close attention its creation and evolution, there was plenty new for me to understand and value about the series.

What Defines the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to other retro collections from the creators at Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, portion interactive museum. The anthology contains digitally recreated editions of the pioneering 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 derivative games, like action games Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' worst entries.

The Legacy Kollection consequently doesn't represent a “best of” collection, 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 make a fighting game, created from video recordings of actual people, on the fly. Viewing the historical footage — containing vintage recordings, new interviews, and digital copies of vintage posters, comics, and even interoffice faxes — it's incredible to witness how Mortal Kombat went from modest origins to a international craze. It's genuinely amazing to see a group of pioneering developers, developing without clear direction or oversight, focus their cultural enthusiasms into creating a legendary video game series.

Educational Component

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of Mortal Kombat and the founders' vocational paths at the no-longer-operating Midway. It subsequently demonstrates how the very same individuals addressed how to consistently surpass their achievements, facing no small amount of pressure to repeat their triumphs. It serves as a compelling period piece made from VHS tapes and traditional photos and pencil sketches, which reveal the self-made character of the franchise's production method and how word of mouth helped disseminate its secrets and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its peak period in gaming halls. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's an eminently watchable collection of mini-documentaries that covers video games, graphic novels, movies and including the humorous real-world tour. The compilation also contains some unused moves and character sprites among its archived development assets.

Interactive Experience

Distributed throughout 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 rediscover its combat system and artistic style, recreated with impressive accuracy on current technology.

I dedicated most of my time playing the arcade classics, especially Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Many of the games here stand the test of time, especially in one-on-one local play. Yet competing with the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a demonstration of how basic and unjust the development approached in the series' initial installments. Computer-directed fighters clearly employ dishonest tactics or are alternatively incredibly stupid. If you don't have someone to play against — online play is available in most titles in the collection, but too light on features — the experience will be incomplete.

Technical Presentation

The twenty-three accessible Mortal Kombat titles in the compilation, a blend of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are precisely simulated, though I have noticed a couple minor issues — primarily delayed responses and the occasional bug, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are mostly shown in their original form, developer Digital Eclipse has included some smart convenience enhancements and display customization choices. As an illustration, players have the option to show each character's special moves during gameplay and opt to have endless periods to execute finishing moves. Also included are choices for accessing hidden fighters, without having to perform complicated methods to unlock them.

Artistically, the releases 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 coin-op establishments 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 encircling the display, with your selected Mortal Kombat title precisely and gently mirroring against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's very artistically charming.

Additional Features

The collection includes numerous appreciated elements beyond the documentary and emulated arcade classics, containing a soundtrack mode that lets you revisit the music from multiple Mortal Kombat games absent the noise of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. Also present are fighter biographies that feature histories and numerous narrative components presented by the demo sequences of coin-op titles and final sequences.

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 moderately improved edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an pioneering effort from the developer at direct online competitive gaming in arcades. The online-enabled release of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but provided the ability to challenge online opponents and featured various slight error corrections and adjustments. But the Wavenet update failed to achieve popularity, in part