The Legacy Kollection of Mortal Kombat: A Near-Flawless Victory for the Fighting Game Series

The Mortal Kombat series retains many hidden mysteries and the capacity to surprise, over three decades after its first appearance in coin-op establishments. A new collection spanning the brand's formative years, featuring four arcade games, various home ports, and derivative games, transcends simply a faithfully reproduced collection of iconic titles along with lesser-known entries — it's also a comprehensive historical account about the creation of the legendary series.

Being a long-time enthusiast of the series who has carefully followed its development and progression, there was much to discover for me to discover and admire about the series.

What Constitutes the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to other vintage game anthologies from the development team Digital Eclipse, part documentary, section playable historical record. The collection includes simulated releases of the pioneering arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, plus console and handheld ports of several of these titles. The anthology additionally contains the series' ventures at spinoffs, like action games Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — some of the brand's least successful installments.

The Legacy Kollection thus isn't a greatest hits compilation, but an exploration into Mortal Kombat's early days, when developer Midway and brand founders the creative duo behind the series were discovering methods to make a fighting game, created from video recordings of real actors, through experimentation. Viewing the historical footage — containing vintage recordings, contemporary discussions, and scans of old flyers, comics, and even interoffice faxes — it's astonishing to observe how Mortal Kombat went from humble beginnings to a international craze. It's frankly astounding to see a group of pioneering developers, operating with virtually no plan or guidance, direct their entertainment passions into creating a legendary video game series.

Historical Section

The documentary portion of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of Mortal Kombat and the founders' vocational paths at the now-defunct Midway. It then goes on to show how those same creators contended with how to routinely one-up themselves, experiencing considerable stress to duplicate their achievements. It serves as a compelling period piece made from analog films and film-based pictures and pencil sketches, which showcase the DIY nature of the series' creation process and how personal recommendations helped spread its rumors and undisclosed elements of the series in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's highly engaging series of documentary shorts that covers video games, graphic novels, movies and even the silly live-action tour. It also includes some unused moves and character sprites among its cutting-room-floor content.

Interactive Experience

Placed within the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are opportunities to engage with the original releases. During specific moments, viewers can hop into a game of Mortal Kombat or a home system version to rediscover its combat system and artistic style, emulated nearly perfectly on modern hardware.

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. Several releases here stand the test of time, especially in one-on-one local play. Yet competing with the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a demonstration of how basic and unfair the development approached in the series' initial installments. Computer-directed fighters blatantly cheat to win or are alternatively incredibly stupid. Without having another person to compete with — internet multiplayer exists in the majority of included games, but somewhat limited in options — the experience will be incomplete.

Visual Options

The twenty-three accessible Mortal Kombat titles in the anthology, a combination of arcade, console, and handheld games, are faithfully recreated, though I've observed a couple minor issues — mostly input lag and sporadic glitches, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are primarily displayed authentically, the creators has included some smart user experience improvements and visual presentation options. For example, players have the option to display fighter-specific techniques on-screen and opt to have unlimited duration to execute finishing moves. Also included are choices for revealing concealed combatants, eliminating the need to execute some esoteric trick to unlock them.

Artistically, the releases can be played with a variety of graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic options that simulate the traditional television screens of arcades or household displays, or the greenscale screen of a Game Boy. A notably appreciated element is the choice to enable gaming hall-style borders surrounding the screen, with the specific combat game you're playing accurately and softly reflecting against the faux black plastic borders. It's quite aesthetically pleasing.

Bonus Elements

There are plenty of nice touches beyond the educational material and simulated classic games, including a music player that allows users to rediscover the soundtracks of different fighting releases without the din of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. Also present are fighter biographies that contain backgrounds and numerous narrative components shown through the demo sequences of coin-op titles and final sequences.

Archival Discovery

Among the most significant features for committed franchise followers is the chance to experience a segment of previously unavailable content in the form of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This specific release, 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 virtually identical to UMK3, but provided the ability to battle network competitors and included some minor bug fixes and balance. However, this network version didn't find widespread adoption, in part