Mortal Kombat Legacy Kollection review – test your might in this brutally brilliant fighting package
The latest instalment in Digital Eclipse's Gold Master game series focusses on Mortal Kombat, and it does a extremely great job preserving the gory fighter's classic games.
Asdfsdf
I’ve been a Mortal Kombat guy for as long as I can remember. Ever since my mum let me play Mortal Kombat 2 on her old Sega Mega Drive console as a kid. The phrase “Get over here!” was regularly shouted on the school playground, believe me. Other fighting game franchises may have come before and after.
Yet, for whatever reason, it’s the thought of sizing my opponent up perfectly for the next gruesome Fatality finisher that always keeps me coming back. (Well, that and the ever-growing roster of cool ninja characters). As such, I’m probably the perfect mark for Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection.
Bundling in all the mainline entries – and a few fun oddities – from the series’ ‘90s period alongside Digital Eclipse’s trademark interactive documentary treatment, it’s yet another slick package. One that gives Mortal Kombat’s early era all the historical plaudits it deserves.
True, the Kollection isn’t a totally complete one, but it still does a great job hailing the evolution of NetherRealm’s gory series through its most notable highs, lows, and iterations. Previous Gold Master games from Digital Eclipse such as Atari 50 and most recently Tetris Forever already set a high standard of what to expect, and Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is another comprehensive addition to this pantheon.
Starting off with the list of games included, and essentially what you’re getting here are both the original and most comprehensive versions of Mortal Kombat 1 through 4 ever released. In technical terms there’s more when you include all the different console variations and handheld spin-offs - Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero fans are covered, for example.
However, for the most part, the Legacy Kollection does a brilliant job granting you access to the franchise’s first four entries, complete with improved visuals, accessibility options, filters, and a glossy overarching UI menu system tying it them all together.
Jumping into the package I was most intrigued to find out how Mortal Kombat 4 holds up. As the first game in the series to switch from rotoscoped actors to proper 3D character models, it’s forever been thought of as the black sheep of the series. To the extent that finding a way to replay it on modern hardware up until now has been impossible outside of emulation.
Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection, though, pays it excellent respect, admittedly not including the PS1 version I was most familiar with, but presenting its original arcade variation in the best possible light.
I’m not kidding when I say that playing Mortal Kombat 4 at four times its original resolution almost makes it feel like an all-new game. Because while the option to play it amidst fuzzy visuals is no doubt nostalgic, Digital Eclipse has clearly done the work to make duking it out across a semi 3D plane feel just as game-changing as Ed Boon and co. likely always intended.
The same can be said for other franchise tentpoles like Mortal Kombat Trilogy or Mortal Kombat 2 (my personal favourite), which all benefit from various filter and border options, the ability to play online, and external retrofitted additions like on-screen move lists and a dedicated finishing move trainer mode. Learning how to fight in Mortal Kombat and not just mash buttons has never been easier!
It would have been enough for Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection to collate these classic games, layer in the ability to tweak the visuals and gameplay as you prefer, and move on. This being the latest entry into Digital Eclipse’s Gold Master series, however, it goes above and beyond once again. Most obviously in the form of an original Mortal Kombat interactive documentary featuring all-new interviews and footage with members of the original development team.
Exploring everything from John Tobias and Ed Boon’s earliest forays into game design from the worlds of comic books and pinball machines to the making of each featured game themselves, Legacy Kollection is a treasure trove of footage and information for any fan.
Flawless Victory
The documentary is separated into the same neatly presented timelines as previous Gold Master titles, and it works brilliantly to let you flick through and peruse everything from archival footage, classic marketing materials, and any video clip interviews and behind-the-scenes footage. By now, the preservation geniuses at Digital Eclipse have got the presentation aspect of these playable time capsules down to an art, yet just how well organised and laid out the Legacy Kollection is never failed to impress me.
Exclusive to this package, though, is the Kombatant lore guide, which not only lists the history and rivalries of every fighter in a similar fashion to the documentary, but also neatly organises them to be read on a per game basis too. It makes learning about each’s backstory even more pleasing to indulge in.
While the inclusion of the original Mortal Kombat and, yes, even Mortal Kombat 4 is expected, I’d be remiss not to touch upon the quirkier titles Legacy Kollection goes out of its way to feature. By far the maddest is Mortal Kombat: Special Forces, being a third-person brawler centred on Jax’s exploits prior to the first tournament.
It’s… definitely a punt, I’ll say, and an early 3D experiment that doesn’t always work. But I still had fun messing around in one of the worst reviewed spin-offs in the entire series, and I’m glad to see it here for historical accuracy’s sake.
The equally as strange Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero fares slightly better, not only because it centres on the rivalry between fan-favourites Sub-Zero and Scorpion, but because it does a decent enough job of translating the series’ 2D fighting into a more familiar beat-em-up centric context.
The live-action cut scenes are particularly a treat since it puts me in mind of the underrated (at least, I think so) Mortal Kombat: Conquest TV show from ‘90s. That said, Mythologies is still way more difficult than it needs to be, but luckily the ability to save at any time or rewind gameplay that Legacy Kollection adds is appreciated.
Finally, you have the portable games, which aren’t so much great games as they are oddities to dip in and out of. Mortal Kombat Advance was an admirable attempt at squeezing in all the best bits of the first three games into a handheld version, yet today it leaves a lot to be desired. I could say the same of 2002’s Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance for the GBA, which, is a bit of a weird inclusion in Legacy Kollection since its far superior console version is nowhere to be seen.
It’s nice to have it here, of course, but it just seems a bit random. Overall, while the arcade and console games feel appropriately curated, some of the handheld games feel like more of a random grab bag, serving mostly as more oddball counterparts to versions of later games that are sadly missing.
In the end, Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is far and away a great celebration of one of the most influential and historically important video game franchises ever. Developer Digital Eclipse has once again outdone itself by faithfully preserving and presenting all the most notable games in the entire series (complete with console variants) and highlighting why Mortal Kombat should be so well regarded with another brilliant original interactive documentary – then it’s thrown in countless customisation options that makes it easy to for all to be enjoyed however you want them to be.
While the greedy fan in me pines for the franchise’s later PS2 era to receive similar treatment in future (please give us that Shaolin Monks remaster, Ed), Legacy Kollection excels in paying admirable respect to its namesake, the legacy of Mortal Kombat, with a varied and exhaustive mixture of titles.
Rating 4/5