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This iconic fighting game still possesses many hidden mysteries and the capacity to surprise, more than 30 years after its initial debut in arcades. This latest compilation covering the franchise's earliest days, featuring four arcade games, several home system versions, and derivative games, transcends simply a faithfully reproduced collection of iconic titles including less celebrated releases — it functions as a detailed chronicle about the making of the renowned brand.

Even as a lifelong devotee of the franchise who has paid close attention its creation and evolution, there was plenty new for me to understand and value about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to other vintage game anthologies from the development team Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, part playable archive. The anthology contains digitally recreated editions of the first 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 brand's experiments at spinoffs, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' least successful installments.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a highlight reel anthology, but an exploration into the series' formative period, when the creators at Midway and franchise originators the visionary developers were discovering methods to develop a battle series, produced using film material of real actors, through experimentation. Watching the documentary — that features historical videos, new interviews, and reproductions of classic advertisements, comics, and including internal communications — it's astonishing to observe how the series transformed from simple starts to a global sensation. It's frankly astounding to observe several early video game creators, working with minimal planning or supervision, 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 Mortal Kombat and the founders' vocational paths at the no-longer-operating Midway. It further illustrates how these identical developers reckoned with how to consistently surpass their achievements, encountering significant demand to replicate their success. 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 oral tradition helped disseminate its secrets and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its arcade heyday. Presented in manageable segments, it's an eminently watchable set of brief historical films that covers video games, graphic novels, movies and even the comical physical events. The collection additionally features some unreleased actions and digital fighter representations among its previously unreleased material.

Playable Component

Distributed throughout the five-segment historical film's chronology are invitations to experience the original releases. During specific moments, viewers can hop into a game of Mortal Kombat or a home system version to rediscover its combat system and graphics, recreated with impressive accuracy 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. Many of the games here hold up, particularly during one-on-one local play. Yet competing with the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a testament to how primitive and unjust the coding existed in the franchise's pioneering releases. CPU-controlled opponents blatantly cheat to win or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. Lacking someone to play against — online play is available in the majority of included games, but rather basic in functionality — the experience will be incomplete.

Visual Options

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the anthology, a combination of arcade, console, and handheld games, are faithfully recreated, though I have noticed a handful slight anomalies — primarily delayed responses and the occasional bug, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are largely presented as-is, the creators has included some smart quality-of-life features and display customization choices. For example, users can elect to display fighter-specific techniques on the display and select to activate unlimited duration to complete lethal techniques. Additionally available are settings for unlocking secret characters, without having to perform complicated methods to obtain them.

Visually, the games can be enjoyed with multiple visual enhancements and presentation styles. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection includes remarkably accurate effects that reproduce the CRT monitors of arcades or household displays, or the limited color monitor of a Nintendo handheld. An especially welcome feature is the option to have arcade-like bezels framing the gameplay, with your selected Mortal Kombat title accurately and softly reflecting against the faux black plastic borders. It's very artistically charming.

Extra Content

There are plenty of nice touches beyond the documentary and emulated arcade classics, including a music player that enables players to reexperience the soundtracks of different Mortal Kombat games absent the noise of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. Also present are fighter biographies that include bios and multiple story elements shown through arcade games' attract mode screens and conclusions.

Archival Discovery

One of the biggest highlights for dedicated series enthusiasts is the chance to experience a example of historically missing material in the format of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This version of the game, a somewhat revised iteration of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an initial venture by the company at head-to-head network battles in gaming halls. The Wavenet Edition of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but included the option to battle network competitors and included some minor bug fixes and balance. However, this network version never gained traction, in part