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This iconic fighting game still possesses many hidden mysteries and the power to astonish, over three decades after its first appearance in coin-op establishments. A new collection spanning the franchise's earliest days, which includes a quartet of arcade releases, various home ports, and derivative games, goes beyond just a well-emulated set of legendary games along with lesser-known entries — it additionally serves as a detailed chronicle about the creation of the legendary series.

Being a long-time Mortal Kombat fan who has carefully followed its development and progression, there was numerous fresh aspects for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Constitutes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like other vintage game anthologies from the development team Digital Eclipse, part documentary, part playable archive. This compilation features simulated releases of the pioneering arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, plus console and handheld ports of certain releases. This compilation also features the series' ventures at derivative games, like action games 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 franchise's initial era, when developer Midway and series co-creators Ed Boon and John Tobias were figuring out how to create a combat title, produced using film material of actual people, through experimentation. Watching the documentary — that features historical videos, contemporary discussions, and scans of old flyers, comics, and even interoffice faxes — it's incredible to witness how the franchise evolved from humble beginnings to a worldwide phenomenon. It's frankly astounding to observe several young game developers, developing without clear direction or oversight, direct their entertainment passions into establishing an enduring gaming brand.

Educational Component

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of the fighting series and its creators' careers at the no-longer-operating Midway. It then goes on to show how the very same individuals contended with how to consistently surpass their achievements, facing no small amount of pressure to repeat their achievements. It's a fascinating time capsule constructed using analog films and film-based pictures and pencil sketches, which showcase the DIY nature of the series' creation process and how oral tradition helped spread its rumors and secrets of MK in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's highly engaging set of brief historical films that includes titles, illustrated stories, cinematic adaptations and even the comical physical events. It also includes some never-implemented techniques and game character images among its previously unreleased material.

Playable Component

Placed within the five-part documentary's timeline are opportunities to engage with the original releases. During specific moments, audience members can jump into a Mortal Kombat title or a console adaptation to revisit its gameplay and graphics, emulated nearly perfectly on contemporary systems.

I dedicated most of my time experiencing the original arcade titles, especially Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here hold up, especially in one-on-one local play. Yet competing with the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a demonstration of how basic and unjust the coding existed in the series' initial installments. Computer-directed fighters obviously use unfair advantages or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. If you don't have someone to play against — online play is available in most titles in the collection, but rather basic in functionality — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Visual Options

The twenty-three accessible Mortal Kombat titles in the collection, a combination of coin-op, home system, and portable titles, are accurately emulated, though I detected a handful slight anomalies — primarily delayed responses and sporadic glitches, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are primarily displayed authentically, developer Digital Eclipse has incorporated various clever convenience enhancements and display customization choices. As an illustration, users can elect to show each character's special moves on-screen and choose to enable unlimited duration to execute finishing moves. Additionally available are settings for unlocking secret characters, removing the requirement to complete obscure techniques to access them.

Graphically, the titles can be enjoyed with multiple graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic options that simulate the cathode-ray tube displays of gaming halls or household displays, or the monochrome green display of a portable gaming device. A notably appreciated element is the option to have arcade-like bezels encircling the display, with your selected Mortal Kombat title faithfully and subtly duplicating against the faux black plastic borders. It's quite aesthetically pleasing.

Additional Features

Players will discover multiple appreciated elements beyond the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, containing a soundtrack mode that enables players to reexperience the soundtracks of different combat titles absent the noise of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. There are also fighter biographies that contain backgrounds and numerous narrative components presented by the idle displays of gaming hall releases and final sequences.

Lost Media Recovery

One of the biggest highlights for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the chance to experience a segment of previously unavailable content in the format of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This version of the game, a moderately improved edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an initial venture by the company at direct online competitive gaming in gaming halls. The online-enabled release of the game is virtually identical to UMK3, but provided the ability to challenge online opponents and included some minor glitch repairs and refinements. However, this network version failed to achieve popularity, in part