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

Mortal Kombat retains many hidden mysteries and the capacity to surprise, over three decades after its original launch in coin-op establishments. This latest compilation including the franchise's earliest days, comprising four arcade games, multiple console adaptations, and derivative games, transcends only a accurately simulated series of classics and not-so-classics — it additionally serves as a comprehensive historical account about the making of the legendary series.

Being a long-time Mortal Kombat fan who has carefully followed its development and progression, there was much to discover for me to understand and value about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to previous classic compilations from developer Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, portion interactive museum. The anthology contains emulated versions of the first arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, plus console and handheld ports of certain releases. The collection even includes the franchise's attempts at derivative games, like action games Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — some of the brand's worst entries.

The Legacy Kollection consequently doesn't represent a highlight reel anthology, but a study of the series' formative period, when developer Midway and series co-creators the creative duo behind the series were figuring out how to develop a battle series, digitized from footage of real actors, through experimentation. Viewing the historical footage — that features historical videos, new interviews, and scans of old flyers, illustrated stories, and even interoffice faxes — it's astonishing to observe how Mortal Kombat went from simple starts to a global sensation. It's frankly astounding to watch a handful of young game developers, developing without clear direction or guidance, direct their entertainment passions into establishing an enduring gaming brand.

Documentary Portion

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of Mortal Kombat and the developers' professional journeys at the now-defunct Midway. It then goes on to show how these identical developers reckoned with how to routinely one-up themselves, experiencing considerable stress to duplicate their achievements. It serves as a compelling period piece composed of VHS tapes and film-based pictures and pencil sketches, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of the series' creation process and how oral tradition helped disseminate its secrets and secrets of MK in its arcade heyday. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's thoroughly enjoyable set of brief historical films that covers video games, graphic novels, movies and even the silly live-action tour. It also includes some never-implemented techniques and character sprites among its previously unreleased material.

Playable Component

Distributed throughout the five-part documentary's timeline are invitations to experience the actual titles. During specific moments, users can directly access a combat game session or a home system version to revisit its gameplay and visual presentation, emulated nearly perfectly on contemporary systems.

I allocated the majority of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, specifically Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here hold up, particularly during one-on-one local play. However, facing the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a demonstration of how basic and unjust the programming was in early Mortal Kombat games. Computer-directed fighters clearly employ dishonest tactics or are alternatively incredibly stupid. If you don't have a human opponent — internet multiplayer exists in numerous anthology releases, but somewhat limited in options — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Display Features

The two dozen available combat games in the collection, a combination of coin-op, home system, and portable titles, are faithfully recreated, though I detected a handful slight anomalies — mostly input lag and intermittent errors, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. Even though the releases are mostly shown in their original form, developer Digital Eclipse has included some smart user experience improvements and graphical adjustment settings. As an illustration, users can elect to display fighter-specific techniques on the display and opt to have infinite time to perform a Fatality. Additionally available are settings for accessing hidden fighters, eliminating the need to execute obscure techniques to obtain 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 coin-op establishments or domestic TVs, or the limited color monitor of a portable gaming device. An especially welcome feature is the setting to activate gaming hall-style borders framing the gameplay, with the MK game of your choice accurately and softly reflecting against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's quite aesthetically pleasing.

Extra Content

Players will discover multiple appreciated elements beyond the educational material and simulated classic games, featuring an audio component that allows users to rediscover the soundtracks of different Mortal Kombat games absent the noise of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. There are also combatant descriptions that feature histories and multiple story elements displayed via the idle displays of gaming hall releases and final sequences.

Lost Media Recovery

One of the biggest highlights for dedicated series enthusiasts is the chance to experience a piece of "lost media" in the format of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This version of the game, a moderately improved edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an pioneering effort from the developer at head-to-head network battles in gaming halls. The Wavenet Edition of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but provided the ability to battle network competitors and contained several small error corrections and adjustments. Yet this online edition failed to achieve popularity, in part