Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection: A Near-Flawless Victory for the Fighting Game Franchise

This iconic fighting game still possesses many hidden mysteries and the capacity to surprise, well past its 30th anniversary after its original launch in gaming halls. This latest compilation including the franchise's earliest days, featuring four original arcade titles, several home system versions, and derivative games, transcends simply a faithfully reproduced set of legendary games and not-so-classics — it's also a comprehensive historical account about the creation of the renowned brand.

As a dedicated devotee of the franchise who has carefully followed its origins and transformation, there was much to discover for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Defines the Historical Compilation

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to other retro collections from developer Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, part playable archive. The anthology contains emulated versions 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. This compilation also features the franchise's attempts at derivative games, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — some of the brand's worst entries.

The Legacy Kollection thus isn't a “best of” collection, but an examination of the series' formative period, when developer Midway and brand founders the creative duo behind the series were figuring out how to create a combat title, produced using film material of real actors, on the fly. Viewing the historical footage — which includes vintage recordings, recent conversations, and reproductions of classic advertisements, graphic novels, and including internal communications — it's incredible to witness how Mortal Kombat went from simple starts to a international craze. It's genuinely amazing to see a group of pioneering developers, operating with virtually no plan or guidance, channel their pop-culture interests into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Historical Section

The documentary portion of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection documents the ascent of the fighting series and the founders' vocational paths at the no-longer-operating Midway. It subsequently demonstrates how those same creators addressed how to consistently surpass their achievements, experiencing considerable demand to replicate their achievements. It represents an intriguing historical record composed of video recordings and traditional photos and hand-drawn illustrations, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of the series' creation process and how oral tradition helped disseminate its secrets and undisclosed elements of the series in its arcade heyday. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's highly engaging set of brief historical films that includes titles, illustrated stories, cinematic adaptations and even the silly live-action tour. The compilation also contains some unused moves and game character images among its cutting-room-floor content.

Interactive Gaming

Interspersed along the five-segment historical film's chronology are prompts to play the actual titles. At certain intervals, users can directly access a Mortal Kombat title or a console adaptation to revisit its gameplay and artistic style, recreated with impressive accuracy on modern hardware.

I dedicated most of my time playing the arcade classics, especially Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here hold up, notably with direct competitive sessions. However, facing the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a demonstration of how basic and unbalanced the development approached in the series' initial installments. CPU-controlled opponents obviously use unfair advantages or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. Lacking someone to play against — online play is available in numerous anthology releases, but somewhat limited in options — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Visual Options

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat 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, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are largely presented as-is, developer Digital Eclipse has incorporated various clever user experience improvements and visual presentation options. For instance, players have the option to display fighter-specific techniques on-screen and opt to have infinite time to perform a Fatality. Additionally available are settings for unlocking secret characters, removing the requirement to complete some esoteric trick to unlock them.

Visually, the games can be played with a variety of graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic options that simulate the CRT monitors of arcades or domestic TVs, or the monochrome green display of a Game Boy. A notably appreciated element is the setting to activate 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

The collection includes numerous welcome features besides the documentary and emulated arcade classics, including a music player that lets you revisit the music from multiple combat titles absent the noise of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. There are also combatant descriptions that feature histories and the various bits of lore displayed via the demo sequences of coin-op titles and endings.

Historical Preservation

One of the biggest highlights for committed franchise followers is the ability to access a example of historically missing material 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 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 included the option to challenge online opponents and featured various slight glitch repairs and refinements. But the Wavenet update never gained traction, in part