🔗 Share this article

This iconic fighting game still possesses its share of secrets and the ability to amaze, over three decades after its original launch in gaming halls. This latest compilation including the series' initial period, which includes a quartet of arcade releases, various home ports, and related titles, goes beyond only a accurately simulated series of classics including less celebrated releases — it's also a comprehensive historical account about the development of the iconic franchise.

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

What Makes the Historical Compilation

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to previous classic compilations from developer Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, part playable archive. This compilation features simulated releases of the original arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, including television and mobile versions of certain releases. The anthology additionally contains the series' ventures at derivative games, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' least successful installments.

The Legacy Kollection thus isn't a “best of” collection, but a study of the franchise's initial era, when developer Midway and brand founders the creative duo behind the series were discovering methods to create a combat title, produced using film material of live performers, through experimentation. Observing the archival material — that features archival footage, recent conversations, and reproductions of classic advertisements, illustrated stories, and even company memos — it's incredible to witness how the series transformed from modest origins to a international craze. It's frankly astounding to observe several early video game creators, working with minimal planning or oversight, focus their cultural enthusiasms into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Documentary Portion

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of the combat franchise and its creators' careers at the currently closed Midway. It then goes on to show how these identical developers contended with how to regularly outdo their previous work, experiencing considerable demand to replicate their triumphs. It represents an intriguing historical record constructed using VHS tapes and analog photographs and pencil sketches, which showcase the DIY nature of the series' creation process and how personal recommendations helped circulate its mysteries and secrets of MK in its arcade heyday. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's an eminently watchable set of brief historical films that spans games, comics, films and including the humorous real-world tour. The compilation also contains some never-implemented techniques and game character images among its cutting-room-floor content.

Playable Component

Placed within the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are invitations to experience the actual titles. During specific moments, viewers can hop into a game of Mortal Kombat or a console adaptation to reexperience its mechanics and artistic style, recreated with impressive accuracy on contemporary systems.

I dedicated most 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, especially in one-on-one local play. Yet competing with the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a testament to how primitive and unbalanced the coding existed in the series' initial installments. Computer-directed fighters obviously use unfair advantages or are alternatively incredibly stupid. Lacking someone to play against — internet multiplayer exists in most titles in the collection, but too light on features — you'll be missing out.

Technical Presentation

The twenty-three accessible Mortal Kombat titles in the collection, a blend of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are precisely simulated, though I've observed a couple minor issues — mainly control latency and the occasional bug, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. Even though the releases are largely presented as-is, the creators has included some smart convenience enhancements and graphical adjustment settings. For example, players have the option to show each character's special moves on the display and choose to enable infinite time to execute finishing moves. Also included are choices for accessing hidden fighters, eliminating the need to execute obscure techniques to unlock them.

Visually, the games can be experienced with numerous graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic options that simulate the CRT monitors of arcades or domestic TVs, or the monochrome green display of a Nintendo handheld. An especially welcome feature is the setting to activate gaming hall-style borders encircling the display, with your selected Mortal Kombat title faithfully and subtly duplicating against the faux black plastic borders. It's very artistically charming.

Additional Features

Players will discover multiple welcome features besides the educational material and simulated classic games, including a music player that allows users to rediscover the tunes of various fighting releases absent the noise of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. Additionally included are fighter biographies that include bios and multiple story elements presented by the idle displays of gaming hall releases and final sequences.

Archival Discovery

A particularly notable inclusion for committed franchise followers is the chance to experience a piece of "lost media" in the form 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 one-on-one internet-based play in coin-op establishments. The online-enabled release of the game is virtually identical to UMK3, but provided the ability to battle network competitors and contained several small error corrections and adjustments. But the Wavenet update failed to achieve popularity, in part