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Mortal Kombat still possesses its share of secrets and the ability to amaze, well past its 30th anniversary after its first appearance in coin-op establishments. A new collection spanning the series' initial period, which includes a quartet of arcade releases, multiple console adaptations, and spinoffs, transcends simply a faithfully reproduced set of legendary games along with lesser-known entries — it's also a comprehensive historical account about the making of the legendary series.

As a dedicated Mortal Kombat fan who has closely monitored its development and progression, there was numerous fresh aspects for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to other vintage game anthologies from the development team Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, section playable historical record. The anthology contains digitally recreated editions of the original arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, including television and mobile versions of several of these titles. The anthology additionally contains the franchise's attempts at derivative games, like action-oriented titles Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a “best of” collection, but an exploration into the series' formative period, when developer Midway and series co-creators Ed Boon and John Tobias were determining how to create a combat title, created from video recordings of real actors, through experimentation. Observing the archival material — containing archival footage, contemporary discussions, and scans of old flyers, illustrated stories, and including internal communications — it's incredible to witness how Mortal Kombat went from modest origins to a worldwide phenomenon. It's frankly astounding to watch a handful of early video game creators, developing without clear direction or guidance, direct their entertainment passions into creating a legendary video game series.

Educational Component

The documentary portion of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of the combat franchise and the developers' professional journeys at the currently closed Midway. It further illustrates how these identical developers reckoned with how to regularly outdo their previous work, experiencing considerable demand to replicate their success. It represents an intriguing historical record made from VHS tapes and film-based pictures and pencil sketches, which showcase the DIY nature of the franchise's production method and how personal recommendations helped disseminate its secrets and secrets of MK in its arcade heyday. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's highly engaging collection of mini-documentaries that spans games, comics, films and even the comical physical events. It also includes some unreleased actions and digital fighter representations among its cutting-room-floor content.

Interactive Experience

Distributed throughout the five-segment historical film's chronology are prompts to play the actual titles. At certain intervals, users can directly access a game of Mortal Kombat or a home system version to rediscover its combat system and graphics, emulated nearly perfectly on modern hardware.

I allocated the majority of my time playing the arcade classics, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here remain enjoyable, notably with direct competitive sessions. However, facing the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a reminder of how crude and unjust the programming was in early Mortal Kombat games. Computer-directed fighters blatantly cheat to win or are otherwise dumb as rocks. Lacking someone to play against — network gaming is included in the majority of included games, but too light on features — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Visual Options

The two dozen available combat games in the compilation, a combination of arcade, console, and handheld games, are accurately emulated, though I've observed a couple minor issues — mostly input lag and the occasional bug, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are primarily displayed authentically, developer Digital Eclipse has incorporated various clever user experience improvements and visual presentation options. For example, you can choose to show each character's special moves on the display and select to activate endless periods to perform a Fatality. Additionally available are settings for accessing hidden fighters, without having to perform complicated methods to unlock them.

Artistically, the releases can be played with a variety of filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic effects that reproduce the traditional television screens of gaming halls or domestic TVs, or the greenscale screen of a portable gaming device. A particularly nice touch is the choice to enable arcade-like bezels encircling the display, with your selected Mortal Kombat title faithfully and subtly duplicating against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Bonus Elements

Players will discover multiple welcome features besides the educational material and simulated classic games, featuring an audio component that enables players to reexperience the soundtracks of different combat titles excluding the sounds of combatants violently defeating each other. Additionally included are character profiles that contain backgrounds and multiple story elements presented by arcade games' attract mode screens and endings.

Lost Media Recovery

One of the biggest highlights for committed franchise followers is the chance to experience a piece of "lost media" in the form of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This specific release, a moderately improved edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an early attempt by Midway at head-to-head network battles in arcades. The Wavenet Edition of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but provided the ability to compete against internet adversaries and contained several small bug fixes and balance. Yet this online edition never gained traction, in part