Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection: A Stunning Success for the Combat Series Franchise

The Mortal Kombat series continues to hold numerous undisclosed elements and the capacity to surprise, over three decades after its initial debut in arcades. The recent anthology covering the franchise's earliest days, featuring four arcade games, several home system versions, and related titles, transcends just a well-emulated collection of iconic titles including less celebrated releases — it additionally serves 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 Defines the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to previous classic compilations from the development team Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, section playable historical record. This compilation features digitally recreated editions of the first arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, along with home system and portable adaptations of several of these titles. The collection even includes the franchise's attempts at derivative games, 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 thus isn't a greatest hits compilation, but an examination of the series' formative period, when developer Midway and brand founders Ed Boon and John Tobias were figuring out how to develop a battle series, created from video recordings of actual people, on the fly. Viewing the historical footage — containing historical videos, contemporary discussions, and scans of old flyers, graphic novels, and even interoffice faxes — it's incredible to witness how the franchise evolved from modest origins to a worldwide phenomenon. It's truly remarkable to watch a handful of young game developers, developing without clear direction or supervision, direct their entertainment passions into creating a legendary video game series.

Educational Component

The documentary portion of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of the combat franchise and the developers' professional journeys at the currently closed Midway. It further illustrates how these identical developers contended with how to routinely one-up themselves, experiencing considerable demand to replicate their triumphs. It's a fascinating time capsule made from analog films and film-based pictures and manual drawings, which reveal the self-made character of Mortal Kombat's development and how word of mouth helped disseminate its secrets and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its arcade heyday. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's highly engaging set of brief historical films that spans games, comics, films and even the comical physical events. The compilation also contains some unused moves and game character images among its cutting-room-floor content.

Interactive Gaming

Interspersed along the five-segment historical film's chronology are prompts to play the games themselves. During specific moments, viewers can hop into a Mortal Kombat title or a home system version to revisit its gameplay and visual presentation, recreated with impressive accuracy on contemporary systems.

I spent the bulk of my time playing the arcade classics, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Many of the games here remain enjoyable, notably with local multiplayer matches. However, facing the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a reminder of how crude and unjust the development approached in the series' initial installments. AI-managed characters obviously use unfair advantages or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. Without having a human opponent — internet multiplayer exists in the majority of included games, but rather basic in functionality — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Visual Options

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the collection, a combination of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are faithfully recreated, though I have noticed a couple minor issues — mostly input lag and intermittent errors, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are largely presented as-is, developer Digital Eclipse has included some smart quality-of-life features and display customization choices. For example, you can choose to reveal combatant-unique actions during gameplay and choose to enable unlimited duration to complete lethal techniques. Additionally available are settings for revealing concealed combatants, eliminating the need to execute some esoteric trick to unlock them.

Visually, the games can be enjoyed with multiple filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic options that simulate the cathode-ray tube displays of arcades or home televisions, or the greenscale screen of a portable gaming device. A particularly nice touch is the option to have arcade-like bezels surrounding the screen, with the specific combat game you're playing accurately and softly reflecting against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Bonus Elements

There are plenty of nice touches beyond the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, containing a soundtrack mode that allows users to rediscover the music from multiple combat titles without the din of combatants violently defeating each other. There are also character profiles that feature histories and numerous narrative components shown through the demo sequences of coin-op titles and conclusions.

Historical Preservation

Among the most significant features for dedicated series enthusiasts is the ability to access a example of historically missing material in the format of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This particular edition, a moderately improved edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an early attempt by Midway at head-to-head network battles in coin-op establishments. The online-enabled release of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but featured the capability to battle network competitors and contained several small glitch repairs and refinements. But the Wavenet update never gained traction, in part