The Legacy Kollection of Mortal Kombat: A Stunning Success for the Fighting Game Franchise

Mortal Kombat continues to hold numerous undisclosed elements and the ability to amaze, more than 30 years after its first appearance in gaming halls. The recent anthology covering the brand's formative years, comprising four original arcade titles, multiple console adaptations, and spinoffs, is more than simply a faithfully reproduced series of classics along with lesser-known entries — it's also a rich documentary about the creation of the legendary series.

Being a long-time enthusiast of the series who has paid close attention its creation and evolution, there was numerous fresh aspects for me to understand and value about the series.

What Defines the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like previous classic compilations from developer Digital Eclipse, part documentary, portion interactive museum. The anthology contains simulated releases of the first arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, plus console and handheld ports of some of those games. The anthology additionally contains the series' ventures at spinoffs, like action-oriented titles Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' worst entries.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a greatest hits compilation, but an examination of Mortal Kombat's early days, when the creators at Midway and franchise originators Ed Boon and John Tobias were discovering methods to make a fighting game, produced using film material of actual people, on the fly. Observing the archival material — containing vintage recordings, contemporary discussions, and scans of old flyers, graphic novels, and even interoffice faxes — it's incredible to witness how Mortal Kombat went from humble beginnings to a international craze. It's frankly astounding to observe several young game developers, working with minimal planning or guidance, 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 fighting series and its creators' careers at the now-defunct Midway. It subsequently demonstrates how those same creators contended with how to consistently surpass their achievements, encountering significant stress to duplicate their success. It represents an intriguing historical record made from VHS tapes and film-based pictures and manual drawings, which showcase the DIY nature of Mortal Kombat's development and how word of mouth helped disseminate its secrets and undisclosed elements of the series in its arcade heyday. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's highly engaging series of documentary shorts that includes titles, illustrated stories, cinematic adaptations and even the silly live-action tour. It also includes some unused moves and game character images among its archived development assets.

Playable Component

Interspersed along the five-segment historical film's chronology are invitations to experience the actual titles. During specific moments, audience members can jump into a Mortal Kombat title or a home system version to reexperience its mechanics and visual presentation, simulated with remarkable precision on contemporary systems.

I dedicated most of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, especially Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here hold up, particularly during direct competitive sessions. But playing against the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a testament to how primitive and unbalanced the coding existed in the series' initial installments. Computer-directed fighters obviously use unfair advantages or are otherwise dumb as rocks. Without having someone to play against — network gaming is included in the majority of included games, but too light on features — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Display Features

The two dozen available combat games in the collection, a combination of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are faithfully recreated, though I detected a few small quirks — mostly input lag and intermittent errors, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are mostly shown in their original form, developer Digital Eclipse has incorporated various clever quality-of-life features and visual presentation options. For example, players have the option to display fighter-specific techniques on the display and choose to enable unlimited duration to execute finishing moves. There are also options for revealing concealed combatants, eliminating the need to execute complicated methods to access them.

Graphically, the titles can be experienced with numerous visual enhancements and presentation styles. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic filters that mimic the cathode-ray tube displays of coin-op establishments or home televisions, or the limited color monitor of a Game Boy. An especially welcome feature is the setting to activate arcade-like bezels encircling the display, with the MK game of your choice precisely and gently mirroring against the faux black plastic borders. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Extra Content

The collection includes numerous welcome features besides the documentary and emulated arcade classics, featuring an audio component that enables players to reexperience the music from multiple fighting releases absent the noise of combatants violently defeating each other. Also present are combatant descriptions that include bios and multiple story elements displayed via the idle displays of gaming hall releases and endings.

Lost Media Recovery

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 particular edition, a slightly updated version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an initial venture by the company at direct online competitive gaming in coin-op establishments. The online-enabled release of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but featured the capability to compete against internet adversaries and featured various slight error corrections and adjustments. But the Wavenet update never gained traction, in part