Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection: A Near-Flawless Victory for the Combat Series Brand

This iconic fighting game continues to hold its share of secrets and the capacity to surprise, more than 30 years after its original launch in gaming halls. This latest compilation covering the series' initial period, comprising four arcade games, various home ports, and derivative games, transcends simply a faithfully reproduced series of classics including less celebrated releases — it functions as a comprehensive historical account about the development of the iconic franchise.

Even as a lifelong enthusiast of the series who has carefully followed its origins and transformation, there was plenty new for me to discover and admire about the series.

What Constitutes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to other vintage game anthologies from developer Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, portion interactive museum. This compilation features simulated releases 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. The anthology additionally contains the franchise's attempts at spinoffs, like action-oriented titles Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — some of the brand's least successful installments.

The Legacy Kollection consequently doesn't represent a highlight reel anthology, but an examination of the franchise's initial era, when the development team Midway and franchise originators the creative duo behind the series were discovering methods to create a combat title, created from video recordings of actual people, through experimentation. Viewing the historical footage — that features archival footage, recent conversations, and scans of old flyers, comics, and even interoffice faxes — it's incredible to witness how the franchise evolved from modest origins to a global sensation. It's genuinely amazing to observe several young game developers, operating with virtually no plan or supervision, direct their entertainment passions into establishing an enduring gaming brand.

Documentary Portion

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of the combat franchise and its creators' careers at the currently closed Midway. It then goes on to show how those same creators contended with how to consistently surpass their achievements, experiencing considerable demand to replicate their success. It's a fascinating time capsule composed of analog films and traditional photos and pencil sketches, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of Mortal Kombat's development and how personal recommendations helped spread its rumors and undisclosed elements of the series in its arcade heyday. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's thoroughly enjoyable collection of mini-documentaries that spans games, comics, films and even the silly live-action tour. The collection additionally features some unused moves and digital fighter representations among its archived development assets.

Interactive Experience

Placed within the five-segment historical film's chronology are opportunities to engage with the actual titles. During specific moments, users can directly access a Mortal Kombat title or a console adaptation to revisit its gameplay and artistic style, recreated with impressive accuracy on contemporary systems.

I dedicated most of my time experiencing the original arcade titles, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here hold up, notably with local multiplayer matches. Yet competing with the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a testament to how primitive and unfair the coding existed in the franchise's pioneering releases. Computer-directed fighters clearly employ dishonest tactics or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. Lacking another person to compete with — network gaming is included in the majority of included games, but rather basic in functionality — the experience will be incomplete.

Technical Presentation

The twenty-three accessible Mortal Kombat titles in the collection, a mix of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are faithfully recreated, though I have noticed a few small quirks — primarily delayed responses and sporadic glitches, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are mostly shown in their original form, the development team has added several intelligent quality-of-life features and graphical adjustment settings. For instance, you can choose to show each character's special moves during gameplay and select to activate unlimited duration to perform a Fatality. Also included are choices for unlocking secret characters, eliminating the need to execute obscure techniques to obtain them.

Artistically, the releases can be enjoyed with multiple graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic effects that reproduce the cathode-ray tube displays of gaming halls or domestic TVs, or the monochrome green display of a Game Boy. A particularly nice touch is the setting to activate gaming hall-style borders framing the gameplay, with your selected Mortal Kombat title accurately and softly reflecting against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's very artistically charming.

Bonus Elements

The collection includes numerous appreciated elements beyond the educational material and simulated classic games, including a music player that lets you revisit the soundtracks of different combat titles excluding the sounds of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. Also present are fighter biographies that include bios and multiple story elements displayed via the demo sequences of coin-op titles and conclusions.

Historical Preservation

Among the most significant features 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 particular edition, a moderately improved edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an pioneering effort from the developer at head-to-head network battles in arcades. This network version of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but provided the ability to battle network competitors and featured various slight bug fixes and balance. But the Wavenet update never gained traction, in part