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The Mortal Kombat series still possesses numerous undisclosed elements and the capacity to surprise, more than 30 years after its original launch in arcades. A new collection including the series' initial period, comprising four arcade games, multiple console adaptations, and derivative games, transcends only a accurately simulated series of classics including less celebrated releases — it's also a comprehensive historical account about the making of the iconic franchise.

Being a long-time Mortal Kombat fan who has closely monitored its creation and evolution, there was plenty new for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Constitutes the Historical Compilation

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like other vintage game anthologies from developer Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, portion interactive museum. This compilation features digitally recreated editions of the original arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, along with home system and portable adaptations of several of these titles. The collection even includes the brand's experiments at spinoffs, like action games Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection thus isn't a “best of” collection, but an exploration into Mortal Kombat's early days, when developer Midway and franchise originators the visionary developers were discovering methods to make a fighting game, created from video recordings of actual people, through experimentation. Watching the documentary — containing historical videos, new interviews, and scans of old flyers, graphic novels, and including internal communications — it's remarkable to see how Mortal Kombat went from simple starts to a international craze. It's truly remarkable to observe several pioneering developers, developing without clear direction or oversight, channel their pop-culture interests into establishing an enduring gaming brand.

Educational Component

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of the fighting series and the developers' professional journeys at the no-longer-operating Midway. It subsequently demonstrates how these identical developers addressed how to routinely one-up themselves, facing no small amount of pressure to repeat their success. It serves as a compelling period piece composed of analog films and analog photographs and hand-drawn illustrations, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of Mortal Kombat's development and how personal recommendations helped spread its rumors and undisclosed elements of the series in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's highly engaging series of documentary shorts that includes titles, illustrated stories, cinematic adaptations and even the comical physical events. The collection additionally features some unreleased actions and digital fighter representations among its cutting-room-floor content.

Interactive Experience

Placed within the five-segment historical film's chronology are invitations to experience the actual titles. At certain intervals, viewers can hop into a combat game session or a home system version to reexperience its mechanics and visual presentation, emulated nearly perfectly on contemporary systems.

I allocated the majority of my time playing the arcade classics, especially Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Many of the games here stand the test of time, notably with one-on-one local play. However, facing the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a testament to how primitive and unjust the programming was in early Mortal Kombat games. AI-managed characters blatantly cheat to win or are alternatively incredibly stupid. If you don't have another person to compete with — online play is available in numerous anthology releases, but too light on features — you'll be missing out.

Display Features

The twenty-three accessible Mortal Kombat titles in the compilation, a mix of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are accurately emulated, though I detected a few small quirks — primarily delayed responses and sporadic glitches, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are primarily displayed authentically, developer Digital Eclipse has added several intelligent convenience enhancements and graphical adjustment settings. As an illustration, players have the option to display fighter-specific techniques on-screen and choose to enable unlimited duration to execute finishing moves. Additionally available are settings for accessing hidden fighters, removing the requirement to complete some esoteric trick to unlock them.

Graphically, the titles can be enjoyed with multiple graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic options that simulate the CRT monitors of gaming halls or household displays, or the monochrome green display of a portable gaming device. A notably appreciated element is the choice to enable arcade-like bezels encircling the display, with your selected Mortal Kombat title accurately and softly reflecting against the artificial ebony plastic frames. It's very artistically charming.

Bonus Elements

There are plenty of appreciated elements beyond the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, featuring an audio component that enables players to reexperience the music from multiple Mortal Kombat games absent the noise of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. Also present are character profiles that contain backgrounds and the various bits of lore displayed via the demo sequences of coin-op titles and conclusions.

Archival Discovery

Among the most significant features for dedicated series enthusiasts is the opportunity to play a segment of previously unavailable content in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This particular edition, a slightly updated version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an early attempt by Midway at direct online competitive gaming in gaming halls. This network version of the game is virtually identical to UMK3, but provided the ability to compete against internet adversaries and featured various slight error corrections and adjustments. But the Wavenet update failed to achieve popularity, in part