The Legacy Kollection of Mortal Kombat: A Near-Flawless Victory for the Combat Series Franchise

The Mortal Kombat series continues to hold many hidden mysteries and the ability to amaze, over three decades after its original launch in arcades. The recent anthology spanning the series' initial period, featuring four arcade games, several home system versions, and derivative games, is more than only a accurately simulated collection of iconic titles and not-so-classics — it functions as a comprehensive historical account about the making of the legendary series.

Even as a lifelong Mortal Kombat fan who has paid close attention its development and progression, there was much to discover for me to understand and value about the series.

What Constitutes the Historical Compilation

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to other retro collections from the development team Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, portion interactive museum. The collection includes digitally recreated editions 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 collection even includes the brand's experiments at spinoffs, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — two of the franchise's most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a highlight reel anthology, but an exploration into Mortal Kombat's early days, when developer Midway and franchise originators Ed Boon and John Tobias were figuring out how to create a combat title, digitized from footage of live performers, through experimentation. Observing the archival material — containing vintage recordings, new interviews, and reproductions of classic advertisements, comics, and even interoffice faxes — it's incredible to witness how the franchise evolved from simple starts to a worldwide phenomenon. It's genuinely amazing to watch a handful of pioneering developers, working with minimal planning or supervision, channel their pop-culture interests into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Documentary Portion

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection documents the ascent of the fighting series and the developers' professional journeys at the currently closed Midway. It subsequently demonstrates how those same creators contended with how to consistently surpass their achievements, encountering significant demand to replicate their achievements. It represents an intriguing historical record composed of video recordings and analog photographs and manual drawings, which reveal the self-made character of the series' creation process and how word of mouth helped spread its rumors and undisclosed elements of the series in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Presented in manageable segments, it's highly engaging set of brief historical films that includes titles, illustrated stories, cinematic adaptations and even the comical physical events. The collection additionally features some unreleased actions and character sprites among its cutting-room-floor content.

Interactive Experience

Interspersed along the five-segment historical film's chronology are prompts to play the actual titles. During specific moments, users can directly access a Mortal Kombat title or a console adaptation to revisit its gameplay and graphics, simulated with remarkable precision on current technology.

I dedicated most of my time experiencing the original arcade titles, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here stand the test of time, particularly during one-on-one local play. However, facing the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a testament to how primitive and unjust the development approached in the series' initial installments. CPU-controlled opponents obviously use unfair advantages or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. If you don't have a human opponent — internet multiplayer exists in most titles in the collection, but too light on features — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Display Features

The two dozen available combat games in the compilation, a mix of arcade, console, and handheld games, are faithfully recreated, though I have noticed a few small quirks — mostly input lag and sporadic glitches, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are largely presented as-is, the creators has added several intelligent user experience improvements and display customization choices. For example, players have the option to show each character's special moves during gameplay and choose to enable endless periods to perform a Fatality. There are also options for accessing hidden fighters, removing the requirement to complete obscure techniques to access them.

Graphically, the titles can be played with a variety of graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic effects that reproduce the traditional television screens of arcades or domestic TVs, or the monochrome green display of a Nintendo handheld. An especially welcome feature is the setting to activate coin-op-inspired frames framing the gameplay, with the specific combat game you're playing accurately and softly reflecting against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's quite aesthetically pleasing.

Extra Content

The collection includes numerous welcome features besides the educational material and simulated classic games, containing a soundtrack mode that enables players to reexperience the soundtracks of different combat titles without the din of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. There are also combatant descriptions that include bios and multiple story elements shown through the idle displays of gaming hall releases and final sequences.

Historical Preservation

One of the biggest highlights for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the ability to access a piece of "lost media" in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This specific release, a slightly updated version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an early attempt by Midway at one-on-one internet-based play in coin-op establishments. The Wavenet Edition of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but featured the capability to challenge online opponents and included some minor bug fixes and balance. However, this network version failed to achieve popularity, in part