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This iconic fighting game continues to hold its share of secrets and the power to astonish, more than 30 years after its first appearance in gaming halls. A new collection covering the brand's formative years, which includes four arcade games, various home ports, and spinoffs, goes beyond just a well-emulated collection of iconic titles including less celebrated releases — it additionally serves as a detailed chronicle about the making of the legendary series.

As a dedicated Mortal Kombat fan who has closely monitored its creation and evolution, there was much to discover for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Makes the Historical Compilation

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to previous classic compilations from developer Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, portion interactive museum. The collection includes digitally recreated editions of the pioneering 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. This compilation also features the franchise's attempts at spin-off titles, like action-oriented titles Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' worst entries.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a highlight reel anthology, but an exploration into the series' formative period, when developer Midway and franchise originators the creative duo behind the series were figuring out how to develop a battle series, produced using film material of real actors, through experimentation. Watching the documentary — which includes vintage recordings, recent conversations, and digital copies of vintage posters, graphic novels, and even company memos — it's incredible to witness how the franchise evolved from humble beginnings to a worldwide phenomenon. It's truly remarkable to see a group of pioneering developers, developing without clear direction or guidance, channel their pop-culture interests into establishing an enduring gaming brand.

Documentary Portion

The documentary portion of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection documents the ascent of the fighting series and the founders' vocational paths at the now-defunct Midway. It further illustrates how those same creators reckoned with how to consistently surpass their achievements, experiencing considerable stress to duplicate their achievements. It serves as a compelling period piece constructed using video recordings and film-based pictures and pencil sketches, which reveal the self-made character of Mortal Kombat's development and how word of mouth helped spread its rumors and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its peak period in gaming halls. Presented in manageable segments, it's highly engaging set of brief historical films that includes titles, illustrated stories, cinematic adaptations and including the humorous real-world tour. The compilation also contains some unused moves and character sprites among its archived development assets.

Playable Component

Distributed throughout the five-segment historical film's chronology are opportunities to engage with the original releases. At certain intervals, users can directly access a Mortal Kombat title or a console adaptation to reexperience its mechanics and graphics, recreated with impressive accuracy on contemporary systems.

I spent the bulk of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here remain enjoyable, notably with direct competitive sessions. But playing against the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a reminder of how crude and unjust the development approached in the series' initial installments. CPU-controlled opponents blatantly cheat to win or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. Without having another person to compete with — network gaming is included in numerous anthology releases, but rather basic in functionality — the experience will be incomplete.

Technical Presentation

The twenty-three accessible Mortal Kombat titles in the anthology, a mix of coin-op, home system, and portable titles, are faithfully recreated, though I have noticed a handful slight anomalies — mostly input lag and intermittent errors, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are mostly shown in their original form, the creators has added several intelligent convenience enhancements and display customization choices. For example, players have the option to reveal combatant-unique actions on the display and select to activate infinite time to complete lethal techniques. Also included are choices for unlocking secret characters, removing the requirement to complete complicated methods to access them.

Artistically, the releases can be played with a variety of visual enhancements and presentation styles. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic effects that reproduce the cathode-ray tube displays of coin-op establishments or home televisions, or the limited color monitor of a portable gaming device. An especially welcome feature is the option to have coin-op-inspired frames surrounding the screen, with the specific combat game you're playing accurately and softly reflecting against the artificial ebony plastic frames. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Extra Content

Players will discover multiple welcome features besides the educational material and simulated classic games, containing a soundtrack mode that allows users to rediscover the tunes of various Mortal Kombat games excluding the sounds of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. Also present are combatant descriptions that feature histories and the various bits of lore presented by the idle displays of gaming hall releases and endings.

Historical Preservation

One of the biggest highlights for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the opportunity to play a piece of "lost media" in the form 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 head-to-head network battles in coin-op establishments. The online-enabled release of the game is virtually identical to UMK3, but featured the capability to battle network competitors and featured various slight error corrections and adjustments. But the Wavenet update didn't find widespread adoption, in part