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

Mortal Kombat retains many hidden mysteries and the capacity to surprise, more than 30 years after its initial debut in gaming halls. A new collection covering the series' initial period, comprising a quartet of arcade releases, several home system versions, and spinoffs, goes beyond simply a faithfully reproduced series of classics along with lesser-known entries — it additionally serves as a rich documentary about the making of the legendary series.

As a dedicated devotee of the franchise who has paid close attention its origins and transformation, there was much to discover for me to discover and admire about the series.

What Defines the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like other vintage game anthologies from developer Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, section playable historical record. The anthology contains emulated versions of the first arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, including television and mobile versions of some of those games. The collection even includes the series' ventures at derivative games, like action-oriented titles Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — two of the franchise's worst entries.

The Legacy Kollection thus isn't a greatest hits compilation, but an exploration into the franchise's initial era, when developer Midway and brand founders Ed Boon and John Tobias were figuring out how to create a combat title, digitized from footage of actual people, through experimentation. Observing the archival material — that features historical videos, recent conversations, and digital copies of vintage posters, comics, and even interoffice faxes — it's incredible to witness how the series transformed from simple starts to a international craze. It's truly remarkable to observe several pioneering developers, operating with virtually no plan or oversight, channel their pop-culture interests into creating a legendary video game series.

Documentary Portion

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of the fighting series and the developers' professional journeys at the currently closed Midway. It further illustrates how these identical developers reckoned with how to routinely one-up themselves, facing no small amount of pressure to repeat their success. It serves as a compelling period piece composed of analog films and traditional photos and hand-drawn illustrations, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of the series' creation process and how personal recommendations helped disseminate its secrets and secrets of MK in its peak period in gaming halls. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's thoroughly enjoyable series of documentary shorts that covers video games, graphic novels, movies and even the silly live-action tour. The collection additionally features some unused moves and character sprites among its previously unreleased material.

Playable Component

Placed within the five-segment historical film's chronology are prompts to play the original releases. During specific moments, viewers can hop into a combat game session or a console adaptation to rediscover its combat system and visual presentation, emulated nearly perfectly on modern hardware.

I allocated the majority of my time playing the arcade classics, especially Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Many of the games here stand the test of time, notably with direct competitive sessions. Yet competing with the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a demonstration of how basic and unjust the coding existed in the series' initial installments. Computer-directed fighters clearly employ dishonest tactics or are alternatively incredibly stupid. Lacking someone to play against — network gaming is included in most titles in the collection, but somewhat limited in options — the experience will be incomplete.

Technical Presentation

The two dozen available combat games in the compilation, a combination of coin-op, home system, and portable titles, are precisely simulated, though I have noticed a couple minor issues — primarily delayed responses and the occasional bug, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are mostly shown in their original form, the development team has added several intelligent user experience improvements and display customization choices. For instance, users can elect to reveal combatant-unique actions during gameplay and select to activate endless periods to complete lethal techniques. Additionally available are settings for unlocking secret characters, eliminating the need to execute some esoteric trick to access them.

Visually, the games can be played with a variety of filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection includes remarkably accurate filters that mimic the traditional television screens of coin-op establishments or home televisions, or the monochrome green display of a Game Boy. A particularly nice touch is the choice to enable arcade-like bezels encircling the display, with the specific combat game you're playing precisely and gently mirroring against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's very artistically charming.

Bonus Elements

The collection includes numerous appreciated elements beyond the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, containing a soundtrack mode that allows users to rediscover the soundtracks of different Mortal Kombat games without the din of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. Also present are character profiles that feature histories and multiple story elements displayed via the idle displays of gaming hall releases and final sequences.

Lost Media Recovery

One of the biggest highlights for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the opportunity to play a piece of "lost media" in the guise 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 arcades. The Wavenet Edition of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but featured the capability to battle network competitors and featured various slight glitch repairs and refinements. However, this network version didn't find widespread adoption, in part