The Legacy Kollection of Mortal Kombat: A Stunning Success for the Combat Series Series

The Mortal Kombat series continues to hold its share of secrets and the ability to amaze, over three decades after its original launch in arcades. A new collection spanning the brand's formative years, which includes four original arcade titles, various home ports, and derivative games, is more than just a well-emulated series of classics and not-so-classics — it additionally serves as a detailed chronicle about the making of the legendary series.

Being a long-time devotee of the franchise 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 Historical Compilation

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to previous classic compilations from developer Digital Eclipse, part documentary, section playable historical record. This compilation features emulated versions of the pioneering arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, including television and mobile versions of certain releases. The collection even includes the brand's experiments at spinoffs, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' 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 development team Midway and franchise originators the visionary developers were figuring out how to develop a battle series, digitized from footage of actual people, on the fly. Viewing the historical footage — that features historical videos, recent conversations, and scans of old flyers, graphic novels, and even company memos — it's incredible to witness how the series transformed from humble beginnings to a global sensation. It's truly remarkable to observe several early video game creators, developing without clear direction or supervision, focus their cultural enthusiasms into establishing an enduring gaming brand.

Educational Component

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of the combat franchise and the developers' professional journeys at the no-longer-operating Midway. It then goes on to show how those same creators reckoned with how to regularly outdo their previous work, facing no small amount of stress to duplicate their achievements. It represents an intriguing historical record constructed using analog films and film-based pictures and hand-drawn illustrations, which reveal the self-made character of the series' creation process and how word of mouth helped spread its rumors and undisclosed elements of the series in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's an eminently watchable collection of mini-documentaries that includes titles, illustrated stories, cinematic adaptations and even the silly live-action tour. The compilation also contains some never-implemented techniques and game character images among its cutting-room-floor content.

Interactive Gaming

Distributed throughout the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are invitations to experience the actual titles. At various points, users can directly access a combat game session or a home system version to revisit its gameplay and graphics, emulated nearly perfectly on modern hardware.

I dedicated most of my time experiencing the original arcade titles, specifically Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Many of the games here stand the test of time, especially in direct competitive sessions. But playing against the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a reminder of how crude and unbalanced the programming was in early Mortal Kombat games. Computer-directed fighters blatantly cheat to win or are otherwise dumb as rocks. If you don't have another person to compete with — online play is available in numerous anthology releases, but somewhat limited in options — the experience will be incomplete.

Technical Presentation

The two dozen available combat games in the compilation, a mix of coin-op, home system, and portable titles, are precisely simulated, though I've observed a handful slight anomalies — primarily delayed responses and intermittent errors, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are primarily displayed authentically, developer Digital Eclipse has included some smart convenience enhancements and visual presentation options. For example, you can choose to reveal combatant-unique actions during gameplay and select to activate unlimited duration to complete lethal techniques. Also included are choices for accessing hidden fighters, eliminating the need to execute some esoteric trick to access them.

Visually, the games can be enjoyed with multiple graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection includes remarkably accurate options that simulate the traditional television screens of coin-op establishments or domestic TVs, or the monochrome green display of a Nintendo handheld. A notably appreciated element is the option to have arcade-like bezels framing the gameplay, with your selected Mortal Kombat title accurately and softly reflecting against the artificial ebony plastic frames. It's very artistically charming.

Bonus Elements

The collection includes numerous nice touches beyond the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, containing a soundtrack mode that enables players to reexperience the music from multiple Mortal Kombat games absent the noise of combatants violently defeating each other. Additionally included are character profiles that feature histories and the various bits of lore presented by the demo sequences of coin-op titles and endings.

Archival Discovery

One of the biggest highlights for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the opportunity to play a example of historically missing material in the form of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This version of the game, a somewhat revised iteration of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an early attempt by Midway at one-on-one internet-based play in gaming halls. The online-enabled release of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but provided the ability to battle network competitors and included some minor glitch repairs and refinements. Yet this online edition failed to achieve popularity, in part