Since releasing Atari 50 in 2022, Digital Eclipse has established itself as a champion for game preservation, thanks in large part to its “interactive documentary” approach. The Making of Karateka, Tetris Forever, and Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story have all explored notable names and games of the past with great success. For its next project, the studio set its sights on the history behind one of the most famous properties in gaming: Mortal Kombat.
Mortal Kombat Legacy Collection is a loving tribute to the early years of the trailblazing fighting game franchise. Over 20 games from kombats past, across multiple formats, are expertly restored, all highlighted by a deep-dive documentary into the history of the series, as well as the studios, and the notable names responsible for them. And Digital Eclipse has once again set the bar for preservation, as this is a collection worthy of Mortal Kombat’s legacy.
MK Legacy Collection immediately impresses with its game selection. Twenty-three Mortal Kombat games, including arcade, console, and handheld versions, are all included here, and they look and feel exactly as they did when they originally launched. All of the fighters, features, and modes are included, and a few even have some notable improvements.
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Mortal Kombat Trilogy, for instance, is represented by the PlayStation version. When it originally launched in 1996, Shang Tsung was infamously broken, as his trademark morph move would require the game to pause for loading whenever the move was used. Thankfully, those loading times are now gone and Shang Tsung fans can rejoice in being able to use the sinister sorcerer at his full potential.
Each game also offers special enhancements that technically makes things easier, and are still very appreciated. The ability to display a character’s move list on the sides of the screen while playing adds a level of old-school arcade nostalgia, reminiscent of the scribbled pieces of paper taped to the sides of the machine. Infinite Fatality Time, meanwhile, is a modern addition, but a very welcome one; what’s a Mortal Kombat match without a Fatality?
A few games, meanwhile, are faithfully restored despite being notoriously awful experiences. Both Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces are very bad games with major issues that persist throughout. MK Mythologies is a famously bad platformer with MK-style combat mixed in, while Special Forces is a top-down action game with slow, plodding combat and hilariously bad cutscenes.
However, in an odd way, that jank is part of the charm now. Maligned as they are, they are a part of Mortal Kombat’s history and would be notable in their absence if they were left out. Despite their reputation, these and the other “bad” MK games–the Game Boy port of the original MK must be played to be believed–were shown the same respect as the rest of the lineup. Preserving games, no matter their quality, is important, and the inclusion of these two games speaks to Digital Eclipse’s dedication to the cause.
Perhaps an even bigger sign of that dedication is the appearance of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3’s Wavenet Arcade edition–once considered to be lost media. Wavenet was an experiment in online arcade play by Midway in the late 1990s, and the Wavenet-UMK3 cabinets were only available in Chicago and San Francisco for a limited time. Functionally, it plays the same as the normal UMK3 cabinet–only with the addition of Noob Saibot to the roster–but it’s a preservation victory, and one of the cooler inclusions in the collection. It is funny to try to connect to Wavenet though, if only to read the inevitable error message.
MK Legacy Collection does otherwise offer full online capabilities for the majority of the titles featured in the collection, with rollback netcode supported. I wasn’t able to connect to any matches during the review period, so I’ll have to wait until more players have hopped in before I can report on the quality of the servers.
All of these games are packaged with a five-part interactive documentary in the established Digital Eclipse style. The series follows the history of the development team from the days of Williams and Midway all the way to today. It’s a fantastic and fascinating look into how this monolithic fighting franchise began, and it’s amazing the things you’ll learn by looking through the files and watching the videos.
You’ll learn how Jean-Claude Van Damme indirectly influenced the first game without ever getting involved. You’ll see how Shang Tsung was originally named “Shang Lao” and Johnny Cage was “Michael Grimm.” For those too young to remember, the documentary also does a great job of highlighting the controversy surrounding the game, and why so many young video gamers–myself included–had this “immoral” franchise banned from their houses as children.
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It’s insightful and entertaining, with many of the names you’d expect like Ed Boon, John Tobias, and some you may not, like shoot-’em-up legend Eugene Jarvis among them. You’ll also find the collection’s games included on the timeline, if you want to play them while walking through MK history, which is a nice touch.
Mortal Kombat Legacy Collection is a compilation built from love not only for Mortal Kombat, but for video games as a whole. Each of the 23 games featured here are restored to their original splendor, content of the actual game notwithstanding. Those games, along with the documentary accompanying them, create a package worthy of the Mortal Kombat name, and Digital Eclipse has once again paid proper homage to the name it set out to explore.
As the MK3 arcade cabinet once said, there is no knowledge that is not power. With everything Digital Eclipse packed into the collection, there’s a lot of power to be had.
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