Mortal Kombat's Legacy Kollection: A Near-Flawless Victory for the Combat Series Brand

The Mortal Kombat series still possesses its share of secrets and the ability to amaze, well past its 30th anniversary after its original launch in gaming halls. A new collection including the brand's formative years, featuring four arcade games, multiple console adaptations, and derivative games, transcends simply a faithfully reproduced collection of iconic titles and not-so-classics — it's also a detailed chronicle 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 discover and admire about the series.

What Defines the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to other retro collections from the creators at Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, portion interactive museum. The collection includes simulated releases of the pioneering arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, including television and mobile versions of certain releases. The anthology additionally contains the franchise's attempts at spinoffs, like action games Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — two of the franchise's most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection consequently doesn't represent a greatest hits compilation, but an examination of the franchise's initial era, when the creators at Midway and series co-creators the visionary developers were determining how to create a combat title, produced using film material of live performers, on the fly. Observing the archival material — that features archival footage, contemporary discussions, and scans of old flyers, illustrated stories, and even interoffice faxes — it's astonishing to observe how the series transformed from humble beginnings to a international craze. It's truly remarkable to see a group of early video game creators, working with minimal planning or guidance, focus their cultural enthusiasms into creating a legendary video game series.

Documentary Portion

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of the combat franchise and the developers' professional journeys at the now-defunct Midway. It then goes on to show how those same creators contended with how to routinely one-up themselves, encountering significant stress to duplicate their success. It serves as a compelling period piece composed of VHS tapes and traditional photos and hand-drawn illustrations, which showcase the DIY nature of Mortal Kombat's development and how word of mouth helped disseminate its secrets and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's thoroughly enjoyable series of documentary shorts that spans games, comics, films and even the silly live-action tour. The collection additionally features some never-implemented techniques and digital fighter representations among its cutting-room-floor content.

Playable Component

Placed within the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are invitations to experience the games themselves. At various points, users can directly access a combat game session or a console adaptation to rediscover its combat system and graphics, simulated with remarkable precision on modern hardware.

I allocated the majority of my time experiencing the original arcade titles, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Many of the games here hold up, notably with one-on-one local play. But playing against the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a reminder of how crude and unbalanced the development approached in early Mortal Kombat games. CPU-controlled opponents clearly employ dishonest tactics or are otherwise dumb as rocks. Lacking another person to compete with — online play is available in the majority of included games, but rather basic in functionality — you'll be missing out.

Technical Presentation

The twenty-three accessible Mortal Kombat titles in the anthology, a combination of coin-op, home system, and portable titles, are accurately emulated, though I detected a few small quirks — mainly control latency and intermittent errors, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are largely presented as-is, the creators has included some smart convenience enhancements and display customization choices. As an illustration, users can elect to show each character's special moves during gameplay and select to activate endless periods to complete lethal techniques. Additionally available are settings for revealing concealed combatants, without having to perform obscure techniques to access them.

Graphically, the titles can be experienced with numerous graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic effects that reproduce the traditional television screens of arcades or household displays, or the monochrome green display of a Nintendo handheld. A particularly nice touch is the choice to enable gaming hall-style borders encircling the display, with the MK game of your choice precisely and gently mirroring against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Extra Content

The collection includes numerous appreciated elements beyond the documentary and emulated arcade classics, including a music player that enables players to reexperience the tunes of various Mortal Kombat games without the din of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. Additionally included are combatant descriptions that contain backgrounds and numerous narrative components displayed via the idle displays of gaming hall releases and endings.

Archival Discovery

One of the biggest highlights for committed franchise followers is the ability to access a piece of "lost media" in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This particular edition, a moderately improved edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an initial venture by the company at direct online competitive gaming in gaming halls. The online-enabled release of the game is virtually identical to UMK3, but provided the ability to challenge online opponents and included some minor bug fixes and balance. However, this network version failed to achieve popularity, in part