🔗 Share this article

The Mortal Kombat series still possesses many hidden mysteries and the ability to amaze, well past its 30th anniversary after its initial debut in coin-op establishments. The recent anthology including the brand's formative years, comprising four arcade games, multiple console adaptations, and spinoffs, is more than only a accurately simulated collection of iconic titles and not-so-classics — it additionally serves as a comprehensive historical account about the making of the iconic franchise.

Even as a lifelong devotee of the franchise who has carefully followed its creation and evolution, there was much to discover for me to discover and admire about the series.

What Defines the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to other vintage game anthologies from the creators at Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, part playable archive. The collection includes emulated versions of the pioneering arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, along with home system and portable adaptations of some of those games. The collection even includes the series' ventures at derivative games, like action-oriented titles Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — two of the franchise's most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection thus isn't a highlight reel anthology, but an exploration into the franchise's initial era, when the creators at Midway and series co-creators the creative duo behind the series were figuring out how to create a combat title, created from video recordings of real actors, on the fly. Watching the documentary — that features vintage recordings, new interviews, and reproductions of classic advertisements, illustrated stories, and even company memos — it's astonishing to observe how the series transformed from simple starts to a worldwide phenomenon. It's genuinely amazing to watch a handful of pioneering developers, developing without clear direction or guidance, focus their cultural enthusiasms into creating a legendary video game series.

Historical Section

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of Mortal Kombat and its creators' careers at the now-defunct Midway. It subsequently demonstrates how those same creators addressed how to routinely one-up themselves, facing no small amount of stress to duplicate their success. It represents an intriguing historical record composed of video recordings and analog photographs and manual drawings, which reveal the self-made character of the franchise's production method and how personal recommendations helped disseminate its secrets and undisclosed elements of the series in its peak period in gaming halls. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's thoroughly enjoyable series of documentary shorts that includes titles, illustrated stories, cinematic adaptations and even the comical physical events. It also includes some unused moves and character sprites among its cutting-room-floor content.

Interactive Gaming

Distributed throughout the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are invitations to experience the actual titles. During specific moments, users can directly access a combat game session or a home system version to reexperience its mechanics and graphics, emulated nearly perfectly on modern hardware.

I spent the bulk of my time experiencing the original arcade titles, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here hold up, especially in local multiplayer matches. Yet competing with the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a testament to how primitive and unjust the coding existed in the franchise's pioneering releases. CPU-controlled opponents blatantly cheat to win or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. Lacking another person to compete with — internet multiplayer exists in the majority of included games, but too light on features — the experience will be incomplete.

Display Features

The two dozen available combat games in the anthology, a combination of arcade, console, and handheld games, are precisely simulated, though I have noticed a few small quirks — mostly input lag and intermittent errors, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. Even though the releases are primarily displayed authentically, the creators has added several intelligent user experience improvements and visual presentation options. For example, users can elect to reveal combatant-unique actions on the display and choose to enable unlimited duration to execute finishing moves. Also included are choices for accessing hidden fighters, without having to perform complicated methods to access them.

Visually, the games can be played with a variety of filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic filters that mimic the CRT monitors of arcades or domestic TVs, or the greenscale screen of a Nintendo handheld. A notably appreciated element is the option to have arcade-like bezels surrounding the screen, with the specific combat game you're playing faithfully and subtly duplicating against the faux black plastic borders. It's very artistically charming.

Bonus Elements

Players will discover multiple appreciated elements beyond the educational material and simulated classic games, featuring an audio component that allows users to rediscover the tunes of various fighting releases excluding the sounds of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. Also present are combatant descriptions that include bios and numerous narrative components displayed via the demo sequences of coin-op titles and endings.

Lost Media Recovery

A particularly notable inclusion for committed franchise followers is the opportunity to play a piece of "lost media" in the form of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This specific release, a moderately improved edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an pioneering effort from the developer 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 provided the ability to battle network competitors and featured various slight bug fixes and balance. But the Wavenet update never gained traction, in part