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Mortal Kombat retains its share of secrets and the power to astonish, well past its 30th anniversary after its initial debut in gaming halls. This latest compilation covering the series' initial period, featuring a quartet of arcade releases, several home system versions, and spinoffs, transcends just a well-emulated collection of iconic titles including less celebrated releases — it's also a rich documentary about the development of the iconic franchise.

Even as a lifelong enthusiast of the series who has carefully followed its origins and transformation, there was numerous fresh aspects for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Constitutes the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to other retro collections from developer Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, 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. The collection even includes the franchise's attempts at spin-off titles, like action games Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — some of the brand's most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection consequently doesn't represent a greatest hits compilation, but a study of the franchise's initial era, when the development team Midway and series co-creators the visionary developers were discovering methods to create a combat title, created from video recordings of real actors, as they went along. Watching the documentary — that features historical videos, new interviews, and digital copies of vintage posters, illustrated stories, and even company memos — it's incredible to witness how Mortal Kombat went from modest origins to a global sensation. It's frankly astounding to observe several young game developers, operating with virtually no plan or supervision, focus their cultural enthusiasms into creating a legendary video game series.

Historical Section

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of Mortal Kombat and its creators' careers at the no-longer-operating Midway. It further illustrates how the very same individuals contended with how to regularly outdo their previous work, experiencing considerable demand to replicate their achievements. It's a fascinating time capsule composed of VHS tapes and analog photographs and hand-drawn illustrations, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of Mortal Kombat's development and how personal recommendations helped disseminate its secrets and secrets of MK in its arcade heyday. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's highly engaging collection of mini-documentaries that covers video games, graphic novels, movies and including the humorous real-world tour. The compilation also contains some never-implemented techniques and character sprites among its cutting-room-floor content.

Playable Component

Distributed throughout the five-segment historical film's chronology are prompts to play the original releases. At various points, users can directly access a Mortal Kombat title or a console adaptation to reexperience its mechanics and graphics, recreated with impressive accuracy on current technology.

I dedicated most of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, specifically Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here remain enjoyable, particularly during one-on-one local play. Yet competing with the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a testament to how primitive and unjust the development approached in early Mortal Kombat games. AI-managed characters clearly employ dishonest tactics or are alternatively incredibly stupid. Without having another person to compete with — online play is available in numerous anthology releases, but too light on features — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Visual Options

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the anthology, a combination of arcade, console, and handheld games, are faithfully recreated, though I detected a handful slight anomalies — mainly control latency and the occasional bug, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are largely presented as-is, the creators has added several intelligent user experience improvements and visual presentation options. As an illustration, you can choose to display fighter-specific techniques during gameplay and opt to have unlimited duration to complete lethal techniques. There are also options for accessing hidden fighters, removing the requirement to complete some esoteric trick to obtain them.

Graphically, the titles can be enjoyed with multiple filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic options that simulate the cathode-ray tube displays of coin-op establishments or household displays, or the monochrome green display of a Nintendo handheld. A particularly nice touch is the choice to enable gaming hall-style borders framing the gameplay, with your selected Mortal Kombat title faithfully and subtly duplicating against the faux black plastic borders. It's very artistically charming.

Extra Content

Players will discover multiple appreciated elements beyond the documentary and emulated arcade classics, featuring an audio component that allows users to rediscover the soundtracks of different combat titles without the din of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. There are also character profiles that contain backgrounds and numerous narrative components presented by the idle displays of gaming hall releases and endings.

Lost Media Recovery

A particularly notable inclusion for dedicated series enthusiasts is the chance to experience a piece of "lost media" in the form of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This version of the game, a slightly updated version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an early attempt by Midway at one-on-one internet-based play in coin-op establishments. The Wavenet Edition of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but included the option to battle network competitors and featured various slight bug fixes and balance. However, this network version didn't find widespread adoption, in part