When you drop a quarter into the Player 1 slot, and you hear it click-clang down into the endless abyss of an arcade cabinet, there’s nothing quite like it. It just hits different, and it’s how you know it’s going down. As an avid arcade player, once my local laundromat—basically my grade school’s personal arcade—decided to include the new Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 arcade cabinet tucked securely next to the Street Fighter III: New Generation machine, it became my second home. This cabinet changed my young life trajectory and made my music tastes go from ‘pretty much anything,’ to The Immortals’ Technosyndrome on repeat. I had Kombat fever.
Fast forward nearly three decades, and Digital Extremes and Atari have excavated the arcade cabinets for four mainline Mortal Kombat titles (alongside some other niche releases) to bring the Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection back to the living room. The Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection drags fans back to where it all began, making Kombat centre stage like it’s the ‘90s.
First things first, the Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection doesn’t include just the arcade versions of Mortal Kombat 1-4 with Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 thrown in. It includes every version of the original Mortal Kombat (yes, even the Sega Game Gear version), multiple versions of Mortal Kombat II and III, and the elusive WaveNet version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3.
This arcade cabinet version of UMK3 has been considered ‘lost’ by the Mortal Kombat fanbase until Digital Extremes brought it back. WaveNet was intended to bring multiplayer fights to an arcade network dubbed the Williams Action Video Entertainment Network. WaveNet used dedicated connections (featuring T1connection lines) centred at the Midway HQ in Chicago, and as such, was only used in Chicago and San Francisco. If fans haven’t heard of this version before, it wasn’t a widely known development at the time.
“The Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection drags fans back to where it all began, making Kombat centre stage like it’s the ‘90s.”
That’s just one title in the catalogue, and Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection doesn’t stop there. For MK lore buffs, The Krypt makes its return and gives fans a library of information regarding the entire franchise. Atari took notes from Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration’s included a museum timeline and provided an in-depth way to see the entire history of Mortal Kombat, from inception to 2023’s Mortal Kombat 1.
What greets the player is a mix of icons that allow you to jump into a game from the Kollection off the historical timeline instantly, video documentaries, interviews and written explanations on everything Mortal Kombat. The Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection does a great job of hyping the series to newcomers and fans alike with this museum of MK history, and the ability to play a title straight off the timeline after building the hype is a no-brainer.
Each title included with Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is as faithful as possible to the original release, with some quality-of-life improvements. Every game in the Kollection lets you cheat your way past unlocking secrets and has a nifty menu to let you toggle all secrets on or off at the outset. In the menu for each title, Digital Extremes allows players to practice in a myriad of ways, including a Fatality Trainer for original arcade cabinet versions of the games, and a way to turn off the fast fatality counter when “Finish Him/Her!” appears on-screen. Players can also toggle whether special move inputs appear on-screen or not, letting unfamiliar players even the playing field against more seasoned combatants.
Some of the more baffling (but faithful) decisions made it into Legacy as well. Mortal Kombat Trilogy (often regarded as one of the best releases) included the blackout censor screen for Sub-Zero’s iconic spine-ripping fatality, so the screen doesn’t show what occurs, similar to Street Fighter’s Raging Demon special move. This censorship was included to avoid re-animating the fatality (as Trilogy recycled assets from former releases), although some fans believed it was a cheeky move against the ESRB, who at the time, were not fans of the franchise. This is just another example of Legacy Kollection’s commitment to staying true to the franchise.
As far as gameplay is concerned, the Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection nails a 1-for-1 faithful port of each game (minus the quality improvements) with online multiplayer capabilities (not using WaveNet). Each title plays as Midway intended, down to sound programmer Dan Forden’s face randomly appearing and uttering “Toasty!” in a very high-pitched tone after you or an opponent receives a particularly nasty combo or uppercut.
Speaking of soundtrack, each game in the series retains its classic soundtrack and effects down to the devastating impact of a Johnny Cage low blow, crafted by sound tech wizard Forden. You can even hear the tinny wail of the Sega Genesis when playing the 32x version of Mortal Kombat II. Every aspect of Kombat has been delivered in Legacy Kollection, embodying the nostalgic feels of the ‘90s, all without having to rifle through couch cushions for quarters.
Included with the Legacy Kollection are two spin-off titles not exclusive to the fighting game genre: Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Special Forces from the PlayStation. These two titles are often found on reselling websites for older consoles that can be a hassle to set up and play, but the Legacy Kollection lets fans in on some of the oddest (and more frustrating) titles in MK history.
The campy cutscenes of Mythologies are groan-inducing and awesome to see, and the supplied controls are stiff and unfairly stuck in the past (you must press left trigger to turn around). For the first time, Digital Extremes allows fans to have unlimited lives (in both games) and gives players the ability to rewind time on command like a Mortal Kombat-flavoured Sands of Time.
You can even turn around automatically where Mythologies is concerned! Gameplay from both titles are often called rough and unfair, but these new safety nets allow fans (like myself) to experience the entire narrative of both games without breaking your controller. While both games have aged poorly, it’s a great inclusion to have both here, especially when you couldn’t beat the second Fujin boss in Mythologies before rewinding became a thing.
The best part about the Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is the breadth of respect it has for the franchise. Aside from countless background information regarding the entire franchise, Digital Extremes highlights what makes the franchise so important for fans while providing 11 different titles (23 if you count the ports) for Kombatants to combo their way through.
Inclusions like a playable Human Smoke toggle in MK3 removes the burden of needing to enter the code each time (yes, there’s also a gross MEAT filter in Mortal Kombat 4), and a character bio screen highlights which character comes from which game. Fans can even go into the developer menus of each arcade game and check out what these titles looked like under the hood. Digital Extremes threw everything but the kitchen sink in the Legacy Kollection, proving that this is not just a game they’ve developed with insight from Netherrealm Studios and published with Atari, it’s a collection they, as fans, have also wanted to play.
“The best part about the Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is the breadth of respect it has for the franchise.”
The Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is a ‘90s fighting game fanatic’s dream come true. The original story of Mortal Kombat from the original instalment up to its first foray into 3D with Mortal Kombat 4 has been preserved in its arcade cabinet state. With deft hands, Digital Extremes added just enough quality-of-life improvements to these classic titles to give them a new finish and take out much of the frustration that originally shipped with them.
Special care was given to reiterating the history of Mortal Kombat in The Krypt. Each character from the franchise is given their own bio, where they originally appeared, and how to gain access to play as them. The history of the franchise is broken down into easy-to-read timelines filled with videos, old posters, and all of the nostalgia an avid Mortal Kombat fan could handle. Jumping into a local match of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 and serving a punishing Animality to my brother still drags me back to when I first showed him how to do them all of those years ago.
For what it is, the Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection serves as an awesome time capsule into the controversial series born in 1992, and takes gamers gently by the hand on a journey through the innovations of one of the most celebrated fighting game franchises in history. A Flawless Victory for Kombat fans looking to return to the arcade.
