Mortal Kombat continues to hold its share of secrets and the capacity to surprise, well past its 30th anniversary after its first appearance in coin-op establishments. This latest compilation covering the series' initial period, featuring four arcade games, multiple console adaptations, and related titles, goes beyond only a accurately simulated collection of iconic titles along with lesser-known entries — it's also a detailed chronicle about the making of the renowned brand.
Being a long-time Mortal Kombat fan who has paid close attention its origins and transformation, there was much to discover for me to understand and value about the series.
Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to previous classic compilations from the development team Digital Eclipse, part documentary, section playable historical record. The collection includes simulated releases 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. The anthology additionally contains the franchise's attempts at spin-off titles, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' least successful installments.
The Legacy Kollection consequently doesn't represent a greatest hits compilation, but a study of Mortal Kombat's early days, when developer Midway and brand founders the visionary developers were determining how to make a fighting game, digitized from footage of real actors, as they went along. Observing the archival material — which includes archival footage, new interviews, and scans of old flyers, comics, and even company memos — it's astonishing to observe how Mortal Kombat went from simple starts to a international craze. It's truly remarkable to see a group of pioneering developers, operating with virtually no plan or oversight, channel their pop-culture interests into birthing an iconic game franchise.
The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of Mortal Kombat and the developers' professional journeys at the now-defunct Midway. It then goes on to show how the very same individuals reckoned with how to consistently surpass their achievements, facing no small amount of demand to replicate their success. It represents an intriguing historical record composed of video recordings and film-based pictures and manual drawings, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of the franchise's production method and how oral tradition helped spread its rumors and secrets of MK in its arcade heyday. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's thoroughly enjoyable set of brief historical films that spans games, comics, films and including the humorous real-world tour. The compilation also contains some never-implemented techniques and character sprites among its archived development assets.
Distributed throughout the five-part documentary's timeline are invitations to experience the games themselves. During specific moments, audience members can jump into a combat game session or a home system version to rediscover its combat system and visual presentation, recreated with impressive accuracy on current technology.
I spent the bulk of my time playing the arcade classics, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here remain enjoyable, particularly during direct competitive sessions. Yet competing with the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a testament to how primitive and unjust the coding existed in early Mortal Kombat games. Computer-directed fighters obviously use unfair advantages or are otherwise dumb as rocks. Without having someone to play against — network gaming is included in the majority of included games, but rather basic in functionality — the experience will be incomplete.
The two dozen available combat games in the compilation, a combination of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are faithfully recreated, though I detected a handful slight anomalies — primarily delayed responses and intermittent errors, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. Even though the releases are primarily displayed authentically, developer Digital Eclipse has added several intelligent user experience improvements and visual presentation options. As an illustration, users can elect to show each character's special moves on the display and opt to have endless periods to complete lethal techniques. Also included are choices for accessing hidden fighters, eliminating the need to execute complicated methods to unlock them.
Graphically, the titles can be experienced with numerous filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic effects that reproduce the CRT monitors of gaming halls or home televisions, or the limited color monitor of a Nintendo handheld. A notably appreciated element is the option to have gaming hall-style borders framing the gameplay, with your selected Mortal Kombat title faithfully and subtly duplicating against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's very artistically charming.
The collection includes numerous nice touches beyond the educational material and simulated classic games, featuring an audio component that lets you revisit the tunes of various combat titles absent the noise of combatants violently defeating each other. Also present are fighter biographies that feature histories and the various bits of lore shown through the idle displays of gaming hall releases and conclusions.
A particularly notable inclusion for dedicated series enthusiasts is the opportunity to play 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. This network version of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but included the option to compete against internet adversaries and contained several small glitch repairs and refinements. But the Wavenet update never gained traction, in part
Elena Hartwell is a multidisciplinary artist and educator passionate about fostering creative communities in London.