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The Mortal Kombat series continues to hold its share of secrets and the ability to amaze, over three decades after its first appearance in coin-op establishments. This latest compilation spanning the series' initial period, comprising four original arcade titles, several home system versions, and derivative games, goes beyond just a well-emulated series of classics along with lesser-known entries — it's also a rich documentary about the creation of the iconic franchise.

Being a long-time devotee of the franchise who has paid close attention its development and progression, there was plenty new for me to discover and admire about the series.

What Constitutes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like other retro collections from the development team Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, portion interactive museum. The collection includes simulated releases of the pioneering arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, including television and mobile versions of some of those games. This compilation also features the series' ventures at spin-off titles, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — two of the franchise's most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection thus isn't a “best of” collection, but an examination of Mortal Kombat's early days, when developer Midway and brand founders the visionary developers were discovering methods to develop a battle series, produced using film material of actual people, on the fly. Watching the documentary — which includes vintage recordings, contemporary discussions, and reproductions of classic advertisements, graphic novels, and including internal communications — it's astonishing to observe how the series transformed from humble beginnings to a international craze. It's genuinely amazing to see a group of pioneering developers, working with minimal planning or guidance, direct their entertainment passions into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Educational Component

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of the combat franchise and its creators' careers at the now-defunct Midway. It further illustrates how those same creators contended with how to regularly outdo their previous work, facing no small amount of demand to replicate their success. It represents an intriguing historical record composed of VHS tapes and analog photographs and hand-drawn illustrations, which showcase the DIY nature of the series' creation process and how word of mouth helped circulate its mysteries and secrets of MK in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Presented in manageable segments, it's highly engaging set of brief historical films that spans games, comics, films and including the humorous real-world tour. The collection additionally features some unreleased actions and digital fighter representations among its previously unreleased material.

Interactive Experience

Interspersed along the five-segment historical film's chronology are invitations to experience the games themselves. During specific moments, audience members can jump into a Mortal Kombat title or one of its home console ports to rediscover its combat system and visual presentation, simulated with remarkable precision on modern hardware.

I dedicated most of my time experiencing the original arcade titles, specifically Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here stand the test of time, notably with local multiplayer matches. But playing against the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a demonstration of how basic and unjust the development approached in the franchise's pioneering releases. AI-managed characters obviously use unfair advantages or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. Without having someone to play against — online play is available in most titles in the collection, but somewhat limited in options — the experience will be incomplete.

Visual Options

The twenty-three accessible Mortal Kombat titles in the compilation, a blend of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are accurately emulated, though I detected a handful slight anomalies — mostly input lag and sporadic glitches, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are mostly shown in their original form, the development team has added several intelligent convenience enhancements and graphical adjustment settings. For example, users can elect to show each character's special moves on the display and opt to have endless periods to execute finishing moves. There are also options for revealing concealed combatants, eliminating the need to execute obscure techniques to access them.

Visually, the games 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 gaming halls or domestic TVs, or the greenscale screen of a portable gaming device. A notably appreciated element is the choice to enable gaming hall-style borders framing the gameplay, with the MK game of your choice faithfully and subtly duplicating against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's very artistically charming.

Extra Content

The collection includes numerous appreciated elements beyond the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, containing a soundtrack mode that lets you revisit the tunes of various fighting releases without the din of combatants violently defeating each other. Additionally included are combatant descriptions that feature histories and numerous narrative components shown through the demo sequences of coin-op titles and final sequences.

Archival Discovery

One of the biggest highlights for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the ability to access a example of historically missing material in the form of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This version of the game, a moderately improved edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an pioneering effort from the developer at direct online competitive gaming in gaming halls. The Wavenet Edition of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but provided the ability to battle network competitors and featured various slight glitch repairs and refinements. Yet this online edition didn't find widespread adoption, in part