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

Mortal Kombat still possesses numerous undisclosed elements and the power to astonish, over three decades after its original launch in gaming halls. The recent anthology including the franchise's earliest days, featuring four original arcade titles, several home system versions, and derivative games, transcends just a well-emulated collection of iconic titles and not-so-classics — it's also a comprehensive historical account about the making of the iconic franchise.

Even as a lifelong enthusiast of the series who has carefully followed its development and progression, there was much to discover for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Constitutes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like other retro collections from the creators at Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, part playable archive. The anthology contains digitally recreated editions of the original arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, plus console and handheld ports of several of these titles. This compilation also features the brand's experiments at derivative games, like action-oriented titles Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' worst entries.

The Legacy Kollection consequently doesn't represent a highlight reel anthology, but a study of the franchise's initial era, when the creators at Midway and brand founders the visionary developers were discovering methods to make a fighting game, digitized from footage of real actors, as they went along. Observing the archival material — containing historical videos, contemporary discussions, and reproductions of classic advertisements, illustrated stories, and even interoffice faxes — it's astonishing to observe how Mortal Kombat went from simple starts to a international craze. It's frankly astounding to see a group of pioneering developers, developing without clear direction or guidance, focus their cultural enthusiasms into establishing an enduring gaming brand.

Documentary Portion

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth 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 addressed how to regularly outdo their previous work, encountering significant pressure to repeat their triumphs. It represents an intriguing historical record made from analog films and analog photographs and manual drawings, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of the franchise's production method and how personal recommendations helped circulate its mysteries and undisclosed elements of the series in its arcade heyday. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's thoroughly enjoyable series of documentary shorts that includes titles, illustrated stories, cinematic adaptations and even the comical physical events. The compilation also contains some never-implemented techniques and digital fighter representations among its archived development assets.

Interactive Experience

Placed within the five-part documentary's timeline are prompts to play the actual titles. During specific moments, users can directly access a game of Mortal Kombat or a home system version to reexperience its mechanics and artistic style, emulated nearly perfectly on contemporary systems.

I dedicated most of my time playing the arcade classics, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here remain enjoyable, especially in direct competitive sessions. However, facing the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a reminder of how crude and unbalanced the coding existed in early Mortal Kombat games. AI-managed characters clearly employ dishonest tactics or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. Without having another person to compete with — online play is available in numerous anthology releases, but too light on features — you'll be missing out.

Display Features

The two dozen available combat games in the anthology, a mix of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are accurately emulated, though I have noticed a handful slight anomalies — mostly input lag and intermittent errors, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. Even though the releases are largely presented as-is, the development team has incorporated various clever convenience enhancements and display customization choices. For example, players have the option to display fighter-specific techniques on the display and choose to enable unlimited duration to execute finishing moves. Additionally available are settings for revealing concealed combatants, eliminating the need to execute obscure techniques to obtain them.

Graphically, the titles can be experienced with numerous visual enhancements and presentation styles. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic filters that mimic the cathode-ray tube displays of gaming halls or domestic TVs, or the greenscale screen of a Nintendo handheld. A notably appreciated element is the choice to enable coin-op-inspired frames framing the gameplay, with the MK game of your choice faithfully and subtly duplicating against the faux black plastic borders. It's quite aesthetically pleasing.

Extra Content

The collection includes numerous welcome features besides the documentary and emulated arcade classics, including a music player that enables players to reexperience the music from multiple fighting releases excluding the sounds of combatants violently defeating each other. Also present are fighter biographies that contain backgrounds and numerous narrative components displayed via the demo sequences of coin-op titles and final sequences.

Historical Preservation

Among the most significant features for dedicated series enthusiasts is the ability to access a piece of "lost media" in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This specific release, a slightly updated version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an pioneering effort from the developer at head-to-head network battles in arcades. The online-enabled release of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but featured the capability to battle network competitors and included some minor glitch repairs and refinements. But the Wavenet update never gained traction, in part