🔗 Share this article

This iconic fighting game retains many hidden mysteries and the capacity to surprise, more than 30 years after its first appearance in coin-op establishments. A new collection spanning the series' initial period, featuring four original arcade titles, multiple console adaptations, and derivative games, transcends simply a faithfully reproduced collection of iconic titles along with lesser-known entries — it's also a detailed chronicle about the making of the iconic franchise.

Being a long-time Mortal Kombat fan who has carefully followed its origins and transformation, there was much to discover for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like other vintage game anthologies from the creators at Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, part playable archive. The collection includes simulated releases of the first arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, including television and mobile versions of several of these titles. The anthology additionally contains the series' ventures at spin-off titles, like action games Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — two of the franchise's least successful installments.

The Legacy Kollection consequently doesn't represent a “best of” collection, but a study of the franchise's initial era, when the creators at Midway and series co-creators the visionary developers were discovering methods to make a fighting game, digitized from footage of actual people, on the fly. Observing the archival material — which includes vintage recordings, contemporary discussions, and scans of old flyers, comics, and even company memos — it's incredible to witness how Mortal Kombat went from modest origins to a global sensation. It's truly remarkable to see a group of young game developers, developing without clear direction or supervision, channel their pop-culture interests into creating a legendary video game series.

Documentary Portion

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of the combat franchise and the developers' professional journeys at the now-defunct Midway. It further illustrates how the very same individuals contended with how to regularly outdo their previous work, facing no small amount of stress to duplicate their achievements. It represents an intriguing historical record made from video recordings and analog photographs and pencil sketches, which showcase the DIY nature of the series' creation process and how word of mouth helped spread its rumors and undisclosed elements of the series in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Presented in manageable segments, it's an eminently watchable collection of mini-documentaries that covers video games, graphic novels, movies and even the comical physical events. The compilation also contains some never-implemented techniques and character sprites among its previously unreleased material.

Interactive Experience

Placed within the five-part documentary's timeline are opportunities to engage with the original releases. At various points, audience members can jump into a Mortal Kombat title or a home system version to reexperience its mechanics and graphics, simulated with remarkable precision on current technology.

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 remain enjoyable, notably with one-on-one local play. However, facing the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a testament to how primitive and unjust the development approached in the franchise's pioneering releases. AI-managed characters obviously use unfair advantages or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. If you don't have someone to play against — online play is available in the majority of included games, but somewhat limited in options — you'll be missing out.

Technical Presentation

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the compilation, a combination of coin-op, home system, and portable titles, are accurately emulated, though I've observed a few small quirks — mostly input lag and sporadic glitches, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. Even though the releases are largely presented as-is, the creators has incorporated various clever quality-of-life features and visual presentation options. For example, players have the option to show each character's special moves on-screen and opt to have unlimited duration to execute finishing moves. There are also options for unlocking secret characters, eliminating the need to execute obscure techniques to access them.

Visually, the games can be enjoyed with multiple visual enhancements and presentation styles. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic effects that reproduce the CRT monitors of coin-op establishments or home televisions, or the monochrome green display of a Nintendo handheld. An especially welcome feature is the option to have gaming hall-style borders framing the gameplay, with your selected Mortal Kombat title precisely and gently mirroring against the faux black plastic borders. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Extra Content

There are plenty of appreciated elements beyond the documentary and emulated arcade classics, including a music player that allows users to rediscover the tunes of various fighting releases absent the noise of combatants violently defeating each other. Additionally included are fighter biographies that include bios and multiple story elements presented by the idle displays of gaming hall releases and conclusions.

Archival Discovery

A particularly notable inclusion for dedicated series enthusiasts is the ability to access a piece of "lost media" in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This version of the game, a moderately improved edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an early attempt by Midway at head-to-head network battles in gaming halls. The Wavenet Edition of the game is virtually identical to UMK3, but included the option to battle network competitors and contained several small bug fixes and balance. Yet this online edition failed to achieve popularity, in part