🔗 Share this article

This iconic fighting game continues to hold its share of secrets and the power to astonish, over three decades after its original launch in arcades. This latest compilation covering the franchise's earliest days, comprising a quartet of arcade releases, several home system versions, and spinoffs, goes beyond only a accurately simulated series of classics and not-so-classics — it functions as a comprehensive historical account about the creation of the renowned brand.

Even as a lifelong devotee of the franchise who has closely monitored its development and progression, there was much to discover for me to understand and value about the series.

What Constitutes the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to previous classic compilations from developer Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, portion interactive museum. The collection includes digitally recreated editions of the first arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, plus console and handheld ports of some of those games. The anthology additionally contains the brand's experiments 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 “best of” collection, but an exploration into the franchise's initial era, when developer Midway and franchise originators the creative duo behind the series were figuring out how to make a fighting game, created from video recordings of live performers, through experimentation. Viewing the historical footage — which includes vintage recordings, new interviews, and scans of old flyers, graphic novels, and even interoffice faxes — it's astonishing to observe how the franchise evolved from simple starts to a international craze. It's genuinely amazing to see a group of pioneering developers, developing without clear direction or guidance, channel their pop-culture interests into creating a legendary video game series.

Educational Component

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection documents the ascent of Mortal Kombat and the developers' professional journeys at the no-longer-operating Midway. It subsequently demonstrates how these identical developers addressed how to regularly outdo their previous work, facing no small amount of stress to duplicate their success. It's a fascinating time capsule constructed using analog films and traditional photos and hand-drawn illustrations, which showcase the DIY nature of the series' creation process and how oral tradition helped circulate its mysteries and secrets of MK in its peak period in gaming halls. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's highly engaging collection of mini-documentaries that covers video games, graphic novels, movies and even the silly live-action tour. It also includes some unreleased actions and game character images among its previously unreleased material.

Playable Component

Distributed throughout the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are opportunities to engage with the original releases. At certain intervals, users can directly access a combat game session or a console adaptation to revisit its gameplay and artistic style, emulated nearly perfectly on current technology.

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 hold up, especially in local multiplayer matches. But playing against the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a testament to how primitive and unfair the development approached in the series' initial installments. AI-managed characters blatantly cheat to win or are alternatively incredibly stupid. Without having a human opponent — online play is available in most titles in the collection, but somewhat limited in options — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Technical Presentation

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the compilation, a blend of arcade, console, and handheld games, are accurately emulated, though I have noticed a few small quirks — primarily delayed responses and the occasional bug, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. Even though the releases are mostly shown in their original form, the development team has incorporated various clever convenience enhancements and visual presentation options. For instance, you can choose to show each character's special moves on the display and choose to enable endless periods to execute finishing moves. There are also options for unlocking secret characters, without having to perform obscure techniques to obtain them.

Artistically, the releases can be enjoyed with multiple graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic options that simulate the CRT monitors of arcades or domestic TVs, or the monochrome green display of a portable gaming device. An especially welcome feature is the option to have gaming hall-style borders encircling the display, with the specific combat game you're playing precisely and gently mirroring against the faux black plastic borders. It's quite aesthetically pleasing.

Extra Content

Players will discover multiple welcome features besides the documentary and emulated arcade classics, featuring an audio component that enables players to reexperience the soundtracks of different fighting releases absent the noise of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. There are also character profiles that contain backgrounds and numerous narrative components displayed via the idle displays of gaming hall releases and conclusions.

Historical Preservation

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 somewhat revised iteration 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 practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but included the option to challenge online opponents and contained several small bug fixes and balance. Yet this online edition never gained traction, in part