🔗 Share this article

The Mortal Kombat series retains numerous undisclosed elements and the power to astonish, well past its 30th anniversary after its initial debut in arcades. This latest compilation covering the franchise's earliest days, comprising four arcade games, several home system versions, and derivative games, goes beyond only a accurately simulated collection of iconic titles including less celebrated releases — it functions as a rich documentary about the creation of the iconic franchise.

Being a long-time enthusiast of the series who has closely monitored its origins and transformation, there was numerous fresh aspects for me to understand and value about the series.

What Constitutes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like previous classic compilations from the creators at Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, part playable archive. The collection includes emulated versions of the pioneering arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, along with home system and portable adaptations of certain releases. The anthology additionally contains the series' ventures at spin-off titles, 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 brand founders the visionary developers were determining how to create a combat title, created from video recordings of actual people, as they went along. Observing the archival material — containing vintage recordings, recent conversations, and scans of old flyers, comics, and even interoffice faxes — it's remarkable to see how the series transformed from modest origins to a global sensation. It's frankly astounding to watch a handful of pioneering developers, working with minimal planning or supervision, channel their pop-culture interests into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Educational Component

The documentary portion of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection documents the ascent of the fighting series and the developers' professional journeys at the no-longer-operating Midway. It then goes on to show how those same creators contended with how to routinely one-up themselves, encountering significant demand to replicate their triumphs. It represents an intriguing historical record made from VHS tapes and analog photographs and hand-drawn illustrations, which showcase the DIY nature of the franchise's production method and how oral tradition helped disseminate its secrets and undisclosed elements of the series in its peak period in gaming halls. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's thoroughly enjoyable collection of mini-documentaries that includes titles, illustrated stories, cinematic adaptations and even the comical physical events. The compilation also contains some unreleased actions and game character images among its previously unreleased material.

Playable Component

Distributed throughout the five-part documentary's timeline are invitations to experience the original releases. At various points, audience members can jump into a game of Mortal Kombat or one of its home console ports to reexperience its mechanics and graphics, emulated nearly perfectly on current technology.

I spent the bulk of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, 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 demonstration of how basic and unjust the coding existed in the franchise's pioneering releases. Computer-directed fighters clearly employ dishonest tactics or are alternatively incredibly stupid. Without having someone to play against — internet multiplayer exists in most titles in the collection, but rather basic in functionality — you'll be missing out.

Visual Options

The two dozen available combat games in the compilation, a mix of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are faithfully recreated, though I've observed a few small quirks — mainly control latency and the occasional bug, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. Even though the releases are primarily displayed authentically, developer Digital Eclipse has included some smart convenience enhancements and graphical adjustment settings. For instance, players have the option to reveal combatant-unique actions on the display and opt to have endless periods to execute finishing moves. Additionally available are settings for accessing hidden fighters, without having to perform some esoteric trick to obtain them.

Visually, the games can be enjoyed with multiple graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic filters that mimic the cathode-ray tube displays of arcades or home televisions, or the greenscale screen of a Nintendo handheld. An especially welcome feature is the setting to activate gaming hall-style borders framing the gameplay, with the specific combat game you're playing faithfully and subtly duplicating against the artificial ebony plastic frames. It's very artistically charming.

Bonus Elements

There are plenty of welcome features besides the educational material and simulated classic games, containing a soundtrack mode that enables players to reexperience the music from multiple fighting releases absent the noise of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. There are also character profiles that feature histories and numerous narrative components shown through the idle displays of gaming hall releases and final sequences.

Historical Preservation

A particularly notable inclusion for dedicated series enthusiasts is the chance to experience a example of historically missing material in the form of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This particular edition, a moderately improved edition 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 virtually identical to UMK3, but provided the ability to challenge online opponents and included some minor bug fixes and balance. However, this network version didn't find widespread adoption, in part