🔗 Share this article

Mortal Kombat retains its share of secrets and the power to astonish, well past its 30th anniversary after its first appearance in arcades. The recent anthology spanning the series' initial period, comprising four original arcade titles, several home system versions, and spinoffs, goes beyond only a accurately simulated collection of iconic titles along with lesser-known entries — it additionally serves as a detailed chronicle about the making of the legendary series.

Even as a lifelong devotee of the franchise who has carefully followed its origins and transformation, there was plenty new for me to understand and value about the series.

What Constitutes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to other retro collections from the creators at Digital Eclipse, part documentary, part playable archive. The collection includes digitally recreated editions 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 collection even includes the series' ventures at derivative games, like action games Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' least successful installments.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a greatest hits compilation, but a study of Mortal Kombat's early days, when developer Midway and brand founders the creative duo behind the series were figuring out how to make a fighting game, produced using film material of live performers, on the fly. Watching the documentary — which includes historical videos, new interviews, and digital copies of vintage posters, illustrated stories, and even company memos — it's astonishing to observe how the series transformed from humble beginnings to a international craze. It's truly remarkable to watch a handful of young game developers, developing without clear direction or guidance, direct their entertainment passions into creating a legendary video game series.

Documentary Portion

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection documents the ascent of Mortal Kombat and its creators' careers at the now-defunct Midway. It further illustrates how these identical developers addressed how to consistently surpass their achievements, facing no small amount of pressure to repeat their achievements. It's a fascinating time capsule constructed using analog films and traditional photos and manual drawings, which reveal the self-made character of the series' creation process and how word of mouth helped disseminate its secrets and secrets of MK in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's highly engaging set of brief historical films that includes titles, illustrated stories, cinematic adaptations and including the humorous real-world tour. It also includes some never-implemented techniques and character sprites among its previously unreleased material.

Interactive Gaming

Interspersed along the five-segment historical film's chronology are prompts to play the original releases. During specific moments, audience members can jump into a combat game session or one of its home console ports to reexperience its mechanics and graphics, recreated with impressive accuracy on modern hardware.

I dedicated most of my time playing the arcade classics, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here hold up, notably with local multiplayer matches. However, facing the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a testament to how primitive and unjust the development approached in the franchise's pioneering releases. AI-managed characters blatantly cheat to win or are alternatively incredibly stupid. Lacking a human opponent — internet multiplayer exists in numerous anthology releases, but somewhat limited in options — the experience will be incomplete.

Visual Options

The twenty-three accessible Mortal Kombat titles in the collection, a combination of arcade, console, and handheld games, are accurately emulated, though I detected a few small quirks — primarily delayed responses and the occasional bug, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are largely presented as-is, the development team has incorporated various clever convenience enhancements and display customization choices. For example, users can elect to reveal combatant-unique actions on the display and select to activate infinite time to perform a Fatality. Additionally available are settings for unlocking secret characters, without having to perform some esoteric trick to access them.

Visually, the games can be experienced with numerous visual enhancements and presentation styles. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection includes remarkably accurate effects that reproduce the CRT monitors of gaming halls or household displays, or the limited color monitor of a portable gaming device. An especially welcome feature is the setting to activate arcade-like bezels surrounding the screen, with your selected Mortal Kombat title accurately and softly reflecting against the faux black plastic borders. It's quite aesthetically pleasing.

Additional Features

Players will discover multiple welcome features besides the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, containing a soundtrack mode that lets you revisit the soundtracks of different Mortal Kombat games without the din of combatants violently defeating each other. Additionally included are character profiles that contain backgrounds and numerous narrative components presented by arcade games' attract mode screens and final sequences.

Historical Preservation

One of the biggest highlights for dedicated series enthusiasts is the opportunity to play a segment of previously unavailable content 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 direct online competitive gaming in arcades. This network version of the game is virtually identical to UMK3, but included the option to battle network competitors and included some minor error corrections and adjustments. But the Wavenet update didn't find widespread adoption, in part