Mortal Kombat's Legacy Kollection: A Stunning Success for the Combat Series Franchise

Mortal Kombat retains many hidden mysteries and the capacity to surprise, over three decades after its first appearance in arcades. This latest compilation covering the series' initial period, comprising a quartet of arcade releases, several home system versions, and related titles, is more than simply a faithfully reproduced set of legendary games including less celebrated releases — it's also a comprehensive historical account about the development of the iconic franchise.

Being a long-time enthusiast of the series who has paid close attention its development and progression, there was plenty new for me to understand and value about the series.

What Makes the Historical Compilation

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like other retro collections from developer Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, portion interactive museum. The anthology contains simulated releases 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 franchise's attempts at derivative games, like action-oriented titles Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — some of the brand's least successful installments.

The Legacy Kollection consequently doesn't represent a greatest hits compilation, but an examination of the franchise's initial era, when the creators at Midway and brand founders Ed Boon and John Tobias were determining how to develop a battle series, digitized from footage of actual people, through experimentation. Viewing the historical footage — containing vintage recordings, new interviews, and reproductions of classic advertisements, graphic novels, and even interoffice faxes — it's astonishing to observe how the series transformed from modest origins to a international craze. It's genuinely amazing to see a group of young game developers, developing without clear direction or oversight, direct their entertainment passions into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Historical Section

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection documents the ascent of the combat franchise and its creators' careers at the now-defunct Midway. It then goes on to show how those same creators reckoned with how to routinely one-up themselves, encountering significant pressure to repeat their achievements. It's a fascinating time capsule constructed using analog films and traditional photos and manual drawings, which reveal the self-made character of the franchise's production method and how personal recommendations helped spread its rumors and undisclosed elements of the series in its peak period in gaming halls. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's highly engaging collection of mini-documentaries that covers video games, graphic novels, movies and including the humorous real-world tour. It also includes some unreleased actions and game character images among its previously unreleased material.

Playable Component

Interspersed along the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are opportunities to engage with the actual titles. At certain intervals, viewers can hop into a combat game session or a console adaptation to rediscover its combat system and artistic style, emulated nearly perfectly on contemporary systems.

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, particularly during direct competitive sessions. However, facing the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a testament to how primitive and unfair the programming was in early Mortal Kombat games. CPU-controlled opponents blatantly cheat to win or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. If you don't have a human opponent — internet multiplayer exists in most titles in the collection, but too light on features — you'll be missing out.

Technical Presentation

The two dozen available combat games in the compilation, a mix of arcade, console, and handheld games, are accurately emulated, though I detected a few small quirks — primarily delayed responses and the occasional bug, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are primarily displayed authentically, the development team has incorporated various clever quality-of-life features and graphical adjustment settings. For instance, users can elect to reveal combatant-unique actions during gameplay and choose to enable endless periods to complete lethal techniques. There are also options for revealing concealed combatants, without having to perform some esoteric trick to obtain them.

Graphically, the titles can be experienced with numerous graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic options that simulate the cathode-ray tube displays of coin-op establishments or home televisions, or the limited color monitor of a Nintendo handheld. A particularly nice touch is the choice to enable coin-op-inspired frames encircling the display, with the MK game of your choice precisely and gently mirroring against the faux black plastic borders. It's very artistically charming.

Bonus Elements

The collection includes numerous welcome features besides the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, including a music player that enables players to reexperience the tunes of various Mortal Kombat games without the din of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. Additionally included are character profiles that include bios and the various bits of lore displayed via the idle displays of gaming hall releases and final sequences.

Historical Preservation

A particularly notable inclusion for dedicated series enthusiasts 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 pioneering effort from the developer 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 compete against internet adversaries and featured various slight bug fixes and balance. Yet this online edition didn't find widespread adoption, in part