🔗 Share this article

The Mortal Kombat series retains many hidden mysteries and the ability to amaze, over three decades after its initial debut in coin-op establishments. This latest compilation spanning the brand's formative years, comprising four original arcade titles, several home system versions, and related titles, goes beyond just a well-emulated series of classics including less celebrated releases — it's also a rich documentary about the making of the legendary series.

As a dedicated enthusiast of the series who has paid close attention its development and progression, there was numerous fresh aspects for me to discover and admire about the series.

What Defines the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to previous classic compilations from developer Digital Eclipse, part documentary, section playable historical record. This compilation features digitally recreated editions of the first arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, plus console and handheld ports of certain releases. This compilation also features the brand's experiments at spinoffs, like action-oriented titles Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — two of the franchise's least successful installments.

The Legacy Kollection consequently doesn't represent a greatest hits compilation, but an examination of the series' formative period, when developer Midway and series co-creators the visionary developers were determining how to develop a battle series, created from video recordings of live performers, as they went along. Viewing the historical footage — containing archival footage, new interviews, and reproductions of classic advertisements, comics, and even interoffice faxes — it's incredible to witness how Mortal Kombat went from modest origins to a worldwide phenomenon. It's genuinely amazing to watch a handful of pioneering developers, operating with virtually no plan or oversight, focus their cultural enthusiasms into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Documentary Portion

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection documents the ascent of the combat franchise and the founders' vocational paths at the currently closed Midway. It then goes on to show how those same creators reckoned with how to consistently surpass their achievements, encountering significant stress to duplicate their success. It serves as a compelling period piece constructed using video recordings and analog photographs and pencil sketches, which reveal the self-made character of Mortal Kombat's development and how personal recommendations helped disseminate its secrets and undisclosed elements of the series in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's thoroughly enjoyable collection of mini-documentaries that covers video games, graphic novels, movies and even the comical physical events. The compilation also contains some unreleased actions and digital fighter representations among its archived development assets.

Playable Component

Distributed throughout the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are prompts to play the actual titles. At various points, viewers can hop into a game of Mortal Kombat or a home system version to revisit its gameplay and artistic style, emulated nearly perfectly 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 remain enjoyable, particularly during one-on-one local play. Yet competing with the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a reminder of how crude and unbalanced the programming was in early Mortal Kombat games. CPU-controlled opponents clearly employ dishonest tactics or are alternatively incredibly stupid. Without having another person to compete with — online play is available in numerous anthology releases, but somewhat limited in options — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Display Features

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the collection, a combination of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are precisely simulated, though I have noticed a handful slight anomalies — mainly control latency and intermittent errors, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are primarily displayed authentically, the development team has incorporated various clever convenience enhancements and visual presentation options. As an illustration, you can choose to reveal combatant-unique actions on the display and opt to have endless periods to execute finishing moves. There are also options for unlocking secret characters, eliminating the need to execute some esoteric trick to access them.

Graphically, the titles can be played with a variety of filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic effects that reproduce the traditional television screens of coin-op establishments or home televisions, or the monochrome green display of a Game Boy. A notably appreciated element is the choice to enable coin-op-inspired frames framing the gameplay, with your selected Mortal Kombat title accurately and softly reflecting against the faux black plastic borders. It's quite aesthetically pleasing.

Bonus Elements

Players will discover multiple welcome features besides the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, including a music player that lets you revisit the music from multiple Mortal Kombat games excluding the sounds of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. Additionally included are combatant descriptions that include bios and the various bits of lore displayed via arcade games' attract mode screens and final sequences.

Lost Media Recovery

One of the biggest highlights for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the opportunity to play a segment of previously unavailable content in the format of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This version of the game, a somewhat revised iteration of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an initial venture by the company at one-on-one internet-based play in arcades. The online-enabled release of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but included the option to compete against internet adversaries and contained several small glitch repairs and refinements. However, this network version never gained traction, in part