Mortal Kombat still hides many secrets and can surprise, even though over 30 years have passed since its debut in arcades. Spanning four arcade games, various ports and spin-offs, the novel collection chronicling the series’ origins is more than just a well-imitated series of classics (and not-so-classic ones) – it’s also a luxurious document of the creation of the iconic series.
Even as a long-time Mortal Kombat fan who paid close attention to its creation and evolution, I was able to learn and appreciate a lot novel about the series.
Mortal Kombat: Legacy Collection is, like other retro collections from developer Digital Eclipse, part documentary, part playable archive. The collection includes emulated versions of the original arcade game Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3AND Mortal Kombat 4and console and handheld ports of some of these games. The collection even includes attempts to create spin-offs of the series, for example action games Mortal Kombat mythologies: Sub-Zero AND Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — two of the worst entries in the series.
The Legacy Collection is therefore not a collection of “best of” stuff, but a study of the early days of Mortal Kombat, when developer Midway and series co-creators Ed Boon and John Tobias were figuring out how to create a fighting game on the fly, digitized from footage of real actors. Watching a Documentary – Produced by Area 5 and includes archival footage, novel interviews and scans of ancient flyers, comics, and even inter-office faxes – it’s remarkable to see how Mortal Kombat has gone from humble beginnings to a global phenomenon. Honestly, it’s amazing to watch how a handful of juvenile game developers, operating with virtually no plan or supervision, turn their pop culture interests towards the birth of an iconic game series.
Documentary part titled Mortal Kombat: Legacy Collection presents the development of Mortal Kombat and the career of its creators in the now defunct Midway. It was then shown how these same creators dealt with routine breakthroughs, facing considerable pressure to repeat their success. It’s a fascinating time capsule of VHS tapes, analog photographs and pencil sketches that reveal the DIY nature of Mortal Kombat and how word of mouth helped spread the rumors and secrets of MK in its heyday. Told in bite-sized pieces, this is an extremely watchable series of tiny documentaries covering games, comics, movies, and even silly live concert tours. It also includes several unused moves and character sprites among the editing room content.
The timeline of the five-part documentary includes incentives to play the games themselves. At various times, viewers can jump into Mortal Kombat or one of the home console ports to reacquaint themselves with the gameplay and graphics, emulated almost perfectly on up-to-date hardware.
I spent most of my time playing, especially arcade classics Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2AND Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. A lot of the games hold up here, especially in local one-on-one games. However, playing against AI-controlled opponents in said game is a reminder of how primitive (and unfair) the software was in the early Mortal Kombat games. CPU-controlled opponents either blatantly cheat to win or are stupid as nails. If you don’t have anyone to play with – online play is available in most of the titles in the collection, but has too few features – you’ll miss out.
The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the collection, a mix of arcade, console and handheld games, are closely emulated, although I noticed a few minor quirks – mainly input lag and occasional bugs, especially in Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are largely presented unchanged, developer Digital Eclipse has added some clever quality-of-life features and visual presentation options. For example, you can choose to show each character’s special moves on screen and have infinite time to perform a Fatality (or any other finishing move). There are also options to unlock secret characters like Noob Saibot, Meat, and Rain without having to perform some esoteric trick to gain access to them.
Visually, games can be played using a variety of filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Collection offers very realistic filters imitating CRT monitors of game arcades or home TVs, or the Game Boy screen in shades of green. A particularly nice touch is the ability to place arcade-compatible frames around the screen, so that the selected MK game reflects precisely and delicately against the artificial black plastic borders. It’s very charming artistically.
In addition to classic documentaries and emulated arcade games, there are plenty of chilly extras, including a music player that lets you replay tunes from various Mortal Kombat games without the din of two combatants viciously murdering each other. There are also character profiles that include biographies and various bits of backstory presented in the arcade game’s attraction mode screens and endings.
One of the biggest attractions for die-hard Mortal Kombat fans is the ability to recreate a fragment of “lost media” in the form of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet release. This version of the game, a slightly updated version Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3was Midway’s early attempt at online one-on-one gaming in arcades. The Wavenet Edition of the game is virtually identical UMK3but included the option to challenge opponents online and some minor bug and balance fixes. However, the Wavenet upgrade never gained popularity, in part because it was too exorbitant for arcade operators at the time. Fortunately, Digital Eclipse saved it thanks to a ROM dump from engineer Mike Boon – yes, Ed Boon’s brother – and it ended up being emulated here. It’s a huge victory for conservation and a fascinating monument that could be used.
The rest of the collection is full of classics, including the first four main arcade games and home ports for the Sega Genesis, Super NES, Game Boy, Game Gear, Sega 32X and PlayStation. Some highlights include Mortal Kombat trilogyPlayStation version containing as many as 32 characters selected from Mortal Kombats 1-3. The game, eminent for its loading times, is now much more playable thanks to faster hardware. An excellent port of the Super NES Mortal Kombat 2 It’s also nice to revisit it again, and being able to compare it to the inferior Genesis version is enlightening.
Some of the included games are downright terrible. Game Boy version of the original Mortal Kombat it’s a fascinating mess, but its inclusion here highlights what a substantial deal Mortal Kombat was in the early ’90s. Portable version Mortal Kombat it was garbage that couldn’t be recreated, but it certainly sold in massive quantities.
Equally fascinating is revisiting games like Mortal Kombat mythologies: Sub-Zeroa clunky side-scroller starring an ice ninja known for its terrible controls. Digital Eclipse has added a novel “modern controls” option which, along with the scroll feature, makes the game a bit more playable. The set also includes three Game Boy Advance titles, Mortal Kombat Assault, Mortal Kombat: Lethal AllianceAND Mortal Kombat Tournament Editionthe last two of which are adaptations of the first 3D Mortal Kombat game developed exclusively for home consoles. Though it sure would be nice to have a full 3D version Deadly AllianceGBA games are fascinating curiosities to say the least.
Given Mortal Kombat’s luxurious history spanning dozens of games and even multiple arcade versions, an argument can be made that Mortal Kombat: Legacy Collection could have gone further in terms of the titles included. But what’s here already feels like a solid package built with broad interest and appreciation for what has made Mortal Kombat a source of fascination for the past 33 years.
Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is available now on Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One and Xbox Series X. The game was reviewed on PS5 and Switch 2 using a pre-download code provided by Atari. Additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy can be found here.
