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

The Mortal Kombat series retains its share of secrets and the ability to amaze, over three decades after its original launch in gaming halls. This latest compilation including the series' initial period, featuring four arcade games, multiple console adaptations, and related titles, transcends only a accurately simulated set of legendary games and not-so-classics — it additionally serves as a comprehensive historical account about the development of the renowned brand.

Being a long-time devotee of the franchise who has carefully followed its development and progression, there was numerous fresh aspects for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Constitutes the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like other vintage game anthologies from the creators at Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, section playable historical record. The collection includes emulated versions of the original arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, plus console and handheld ports of certain releases. The anthology additionally contains the franchise's attempts at spinoffs, 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 is therefore not a highlight reel anthology, but a study of the series' formative period, when the creators at Midway and franchise originators the visionary developers were determining how to develop a battle series, produced using film material of live performers, through experimentation. Viewing the historical footage — which includes archival footage, contemporary discussions, and digital copies of vintage posters, illustrated stories, and including internal communications — it's remarkable to see how the franchise evolved from humble beginnings to a global sensation. It's truly remarkable to see a group of early video game creators, working with minimal planning or supervision, direct their entertainment passions 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 its creators' careers at the currently closed Midway. It then goes on to show how the very same individuals addressed how to consistently surpass their achievements, experiencing considerable stress to duplicate their achievements. It represents an intriguing historical record made from video recordings and traditional photos and manual drawings, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of the series' creation process and how personal recommendations helped circulate its mysteries and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Presented in manageable segments, it's an eminently watchable set of brief historical films that covers video games, graphic novels, movies and including the humorous real-world tour. It also includes some never-implemented techniques and game character images among its archived development assets.

Interactive Experience

Placed within the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are opportunities to engage with the games themselves. At certain intervals, users can directly access a game of Mortal Kombat or one of its home console ports to revisit its gameplay and visual presentation, simulated with remarkable precision on modern hardware.

I allocated the majority of my time playing the arcade classics, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here stand the test of time, particularly during one-on-one local play. However, facing the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a reminder of how crude and unjust the coding existed 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 most titles in the collection, but somewhat limited in options — you'll be missing out.

Visual Options

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the collection, a mix of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are faithfully recreated, though I've observed a few small quirks — mostly input lag and intermittent errors, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are primarily displayed authentically, the creators has added several intelligent convenience enhancements and visual presentation options. As an illustration, players have the option to display fighter-specific techniques during gameplay and opt to have infinite time to execute finishing moves. Also included are choices for revealing concealed combatants, without having to perform obscure techniques to access them.

Visually, the games can be played with a variety of graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection includes remarkably accurate filters that mimic the traditional television screens of gaming halls or domestic TVs, or the greenscale screen of a Game Boy. A particularly nice touch is the setting to activate arcade-like bezels surrounding the screen, with your selected Mortal Kombat title precisely and gently mirroring against the faux black plastic borders. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Extra Content

The collection includes numerous nice touches beyond the educational material and simulated classic games, containing a soundtrack mode that allows users to rediscover the soundtracks of different Mortal Kombat games excluding the sounds of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. Also present are fighter biographies that feature histories and numerous narrative components shown through the demo sequences of coin-op titles and conclusions.

Archival Discovery

A particularly notable inclusion for dedicated series enthusiasts is the opportunity to play a piece of "lost media" in the form of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This particular edition, a somewhat revised iteration of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an initial venture by the company at one-on-one internet-based play in coin-op establishments. This network version of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but provided the ability to battle network competitors and contained several small glitch repairs and refinements. However, this network version failed to achieve popularity, in part