Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection: A Stunning Success for the Fighting Game Brand

This iconic fighting game still possesses its share of secrets and the capacity to surprise, well past its 30th anniversary after its first appearance in coin-op establishments. A new collection covering the franchise's earliest days, comprising four arcade games, several home system versions, and spinoffs, transcends simply a faithfully reproduced collection of iconic titles including less celebrated releases — it's also a detailed chronicle about the development of the iconic franchise.

Being a long-time devotee of the franchise who has closely monitored its development and progression, there was plenty new for me to understand and value about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to previous classic compilations from the development team Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, part playable archive. The anthology contains digitally recreated editions of the original arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, plus console and handheld ports of several of these titles. This compilation also features the series' ventures at spinoffs, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — some of the brand's least successful installments.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a highlight reel anthology, but an exploration into Mortal Kombat's early days, when developer Midway and series co-creators the creative duo behind the series were determining how to develop a battle series, digitized from footage of actual people, on the fly. Observing the archival material — containing historical videos, contemporary discussions, and scans of old flyers, comics, and even company memos — it's incredible to witness how the franchise evolved from simple starts to a international craze. It's frankly astounding to watch a handful of pioneering developers, working with minimal planning or guidance, channel their pop-culture interests into creating a legendary video game series.

Historical Section

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection documents the ascent of Mortal Kombat and the developers' professional journeys at the currently closed Midway. It subsequently demonstrates how those same creators addressed how to regularly outdo their previous work, experiencing considerable demand to replicate their achievements. It's a fascinating time capsule composed of analog films and traditional photos and hand-drawn illustrations, which reveal the self-made character of Mortal Kombat's development and how word of mouth helped spread its rumors and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its arcade heyday. Presented in manageable segments, it's an eminently watchable set of brief historical films that spans games, comics, films and even the silly live-action tour. It also includes some unreleased actions and digital fighter representations among its archived development assets.

Playable Component

Placed within the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are opportunities to engage with the actual titles. At various points, users can directly access a combat game session or a console adaptation to rediscover its combat system and artistic style, recreated with impressive accuracy on current technology.

I spent the bulk of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here remain enjoyable, especially in local multiplayer matches. However, facing the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a reminder of how crude and unbalanced the development approached in the series' initial installments. CPU-controlled opponents blatantly cheat to win or are otherwise dumb as rocks. If you don't have another person to compete with — network gaming is included in most titles in the collection, but somewhat limited in options — you'll be missing out.

Display Features

The twenty-three accessible Mortal Kombat titles in the anthology, a blend of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are accurately emulated, though I have noticed a handful slight anomalies — primarily delayed responses and sporadic glitches, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. Even though the releases are primarily displayed authentically, developer Digital Eclipse has added several intelligent user experience improvements and display customization choices. As an illustration, users can elect to display fighter-specific techniques on the display and select to activate unlimited duration to complete lethal techniques. Also included are choices for accessing hidden fighters, eliminating the need to execute complicated methods to unlock them.

Visually, the games can be enjoyed with multiple filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic options that simulate the cathode-ray tube displays of coin-op establishments or home televisions, or the limited color monitor of a portable gaming device. An especially welcome feature is the option to have gaming hall-style borders encircling the display, with your selected Mortal Kombat title faithfully and subtly duplicating against the artificial ebony plastic frames. It's quite aesthetically pleasing.

Additional Features

The collection includes numerous nice touches beyond the documentary and emulated arcade classics, including a music player that enables players to reexperience the music from multiple fighting releases without the din of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. Also present are combatant descriptions that contain backgrounds and the various bits of lore presented by the idle displays of gaming hall releases and endings.

Archival Discovery

A particularly notable inclusion for committed franchise followers is the ability to access a example of historically missing material in the format of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This particular edition, a moderately improved edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an early attempt by Midway at head-to-head network battles in gaming halls. The Wavenet Edition of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but provided the ability to challenge online opponents and featured various slight bug fixes and balance. However, this network version failed to achieve popularity, in part