Mortal Kombat Legacy Kollection Review In Progress – Worthy of the Elder Gods

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Digital Eclipse has become a leader in preserving video game history, starting with the release of Atari 50 in 2022. They’ve gained recognition for their unique “interactive documentary” style, successfully showcasing classic games and the people who made them with projects like The Making of Karateka, Tetris Forever, and Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story. Now, they’re turning their attention to the story behind another iconic gaming franchise: Mortal Kombat.

The Mortal Kombat Legacy Collection is a fantastic celebration of the classic fighting games that started it all. It features over 20 games, carefully restored from various platforms, and includes a detailed documentary exploring the history of the series, the development teams, and the key people behind it. Digital Eclipse has done an exceptional job with this collection, truly honoring Mortal Kombat’s lasting impact.

The MK Legacy Collection is a fantastic package thanks to its impressive game lineup. It features 23 Mortal Kombat titles – spanning arcade, console, and handheld systems – all faithfully recreating the original experiences. Every fighter, feature, and game mode is present, and some have even been enhanced.

I remember playing Mortal Kombat Trilogy on PlayStation, and when it first came out, Shang Tsung was seriously messed up! Every time he’d try to morph into another fighter, the game would just freeze up while it loaded. It was super annoying. But thankfully, they fixed that now, which is awesome. You can finally play as Shang Tsung the way he was meant to be, without all those frustrating pauses!

Each game includes helpful features that make gameplay a little simpler, and players really appreciate them. Seeing a character’s moves displayed on screen feels like a classic arcade experience, like looking at handwritten notes taped to the machine. The ability to slow down time for Fatalities is a more recent addition, but it’s fantastic – a Mortal Kombat match isn’t complete without them!

Despite being truly terrible games, both Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces have been carefully restored. Mythologies is a notoriously poor platformer that tries to incorporate Mortal Kombat’s fighting style, and Special Forces is a slow-paced, top-down action game filled with unintentionally funny cutscenes. Both games suffer from significant, ongoing problems.

Surprisingly, those older, clunkier games have become endearing. While often criticized, they’re a significant part of Mortal Kombat’s legacy and would be missed if they weren’t included. Despite their reputation, these less-polished titles – like the original Game Boy version, which is truly something to experience – were treated with the same care as the more popular games. This highlights Digital Eclipse’s commitment to preserving all games, regardless of their quality, and shows how important that preservation is.

As a fighting game fan, finding the Wavenet Arcade edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 in this collection was a huge surprise! For years, people thought this version was completely lost. Back in the late 90s, Midway tried this online arcade thing called Wavenet, and these UMK3 cabinets were only in a few arcades in Chicago and San Francisco. Gameplay-wise, it’s pretty much the same as the regular UMK3, except they added Noob Saibot as a playable character. Honestly, just having it preserved is awesome, and it’s a really cool bonus. I even tried connecting to Wavenet just to see the error message – it’s kinda funny!

The MK Legacy Collection does let you play most of the games online, and it includes rollback netcode for smoother matches. However, I wasn’t able to find any active matches during my testing, so I’ll need to check the online servers again once more players start using the collection to see how well they perform.

These games also include a five-part documentary, created in the signature style of Digital Eclipse. The documentary traces the development team’s journey, starting with their work at Williams and Midway and continuing to the present day. It’s a really insightful look at the origins of this iconic fighting game series, and you’ll be surprised by what you discover in the included files and videos.

This documentary reveals the surprising, behind-the-scenes story of how Jean-Claude Van Damme unintentionally shaped the first Mortal Kombat game, even though he wasn’t directly involved. It also shares the original names considered for iconic characters – Shang Tsung was almost called ‘Shang Lao,’ and Johnny Cage was initially ‘Michael Grimm.’ Plus, it explains the uproar the game caused when it first came out, and why many of us were forbidden from playing it as kids due to its controversial content.

This book is both interesting and fun to read, featuring interviews with well-known figures like Ed Boon and John Tobias, as well as some surprising ones, such as shoot-’em-up game pioneer Eugene Jarvis. A helpful addition is that the games themselves are included on the timeline, allowing you to play them as you explore the history of Mortal Kombat.

The Mortal Kombat Legacy Collection isn’t just a celebration of the Mortal Kombat series – it’s a love letter to video games in general. This collection features 23 games, all beautifully restored to their original condition. Combined with the included documentary, it’s a fantastic tribute to the Mortal Kombat legacy, and Digital Eclipse has once again done a superb job honoring the series.

You know that quote from the old Mortal Kombat 3 arcade machine – ‘All your base are belong to us’? Well, it kinda feels like that applies here. Digital Eclipse really went all out with this collection, and honestly, there’s just so much cool stuff to dig into. It’s like they’ve given us all the tools and info we need to become total masters of the game – pure gaming power!

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2025-10-30 16:10