🔗 Share this article

Mortal Kombat continues to hold its share of secrets and the ability to amaze, over three decades after its first appearance in arcades. The recent anthology covering the franchise's earliest days, which includes four original arcade titles, several home system versions, and derivative games, transcends just a well-emulated series of classics and not-so-classics — it's also a rich documentary about the development of the iconic franchise.

Being a long-time Mortal Kombat fan who has carefully followed its creation and evolution, there was much to discover for me to understand and value about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to previous classic compilations from developer Digital Eclipse, part documentary, section playable historical record. This compilation features digitally recreated editions of the original arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, including television and mobile versions of several of these titles. This compilation also features the series' ventures at derivative games, like action games Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a highlight reel anthology, but an exploration into the franchise's initial era, when the creators at Midway and brand founders Ed Boon and John Tobias were discovering methods to develop a battle series, produced using film material of live performers, through experimentation. Watching the documentary — which includes historical videos, recent conversations, and reproductions of classic advertisements, comics, and even interoffice faxes — it's remarkable to see how Mortal Kombat went from humble beginnings to a international craze. It's truly remarkable to see a group of young game developers, operating with virtually no plan or supervision, focus their cultural enthusiasms into establishing an enduring gaming brand.

Historical Section

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of Mortal Kombat and the developers' professional journeys at the currently closed Midway. It further illustrates how these identical developers contended with how to consistently surpass their achievements, encountering significant stress to duplicate their success. It's a fascinating time capsule made from VHS tapes and film-based pictures and hand-drawn illustrations, which showcase the DIY nature of Mortal Kombat's development and how oral tradition helped disseminate its secrets and undisclosed elements of the series in its peak period in gaming halls. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's highly engaging set of brief historical films that spans games, comics, films and even the silly live-action tour. The compilation also contains some unused moves and character sprites among its cutting-room-floor content.

Interactive Experience

Distributed throughout the five-part documentary's timeline are opportunities to engage with the actual titles. During specific moments, viewers can hop into a game of Mortal Kombat or a home system version to reexperience its mechanics and visual presentation, emulated nearly perfectly on modern hardware.

I dedicated most of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here remain enjoyable, particularly during one-on-one local play. However, facing the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a reminder of how crude and unbalanced the programming was in early Mortal Kombat games. Computer-directed fighters obviously use unfair advantages or are otherwise dumb as rocks. If you don't have a human opponent — internet multiplayer exists in numerous anthology releases, but rather basic in functionality — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Technical Presentation

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the anthology, a mix of arcade, console, and handheld games, are precisely simulated, though I've observed a couple minor issues — mostly input lag and the occasional bug, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are largely presented as-is, the creators has incorporated various clever convenience enhancements and visual presentation options. For example, players have the option to display fighter-specific techniques on-screen and opt to have endless periods to complete lethal techniques. There are also options for revealing concealed combatants, without having to perform obscure techniques to obtain them.

Artistically, the releases can be played with a variety of graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection includes remarkably accurate filters that mimic the cathode-ray tube displays of arcades or household displays, or the greenscale screen of a Game Boy. An especially welcome feature is the setting to activate coin-op-inspired frames surrounding the screen, with the specific combat game you're playing precisely and gently mirroring against the faux black plastic borders. It's very artistically charming.

Additional Features

Players will discover multiple welcome features besides the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, including a music player that lets you revisit the music from multiple combat titles without the din of combatants violently defeating each other. Additionally included are character profiles that contain backgrounds and numerous narrative components presented by arcade games' attract mode screens and final sequences.

Lost Media Recovery

One of the biggest highlights for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the ability to access a piece of "lost media" in the form of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This specific release, a somewhat revised iteration of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an early attempt by Midway at one-on-one internet-based play in coin-op establishments. 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