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This iconic fighting game still possesses its share of secrets and the power to astonish, over three decades after its first appearance in arcades. A new collection covering the series' initial period, featuring four original arcade titles, various home ports, and derivative games, transcends only a accurately simulated collection of iconic titles and not-so-classics — it functions as a comprehensive historical account about the creation of the iconic franchise.

As a dedicated enthusiast of the series who has paid close attention its creation and evolution, there was numerous fresh aspects for me to discover and admire about the series.

What Defines the Historical Compilation

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like previous classic compilations from the development team Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, part playable archive. This compilation features digitally recreated editions of the original arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, along with home system and portable adaptations of some of those games. The anthology additionally contains the series' ventures at derivative games, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — some of the brand's least successful installments.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a “best of” collection, but an exploration into the series' formative period, when the development team Midway and series co-creators Ed Boon and John Tobias were figuring out how to make a fighting game, produced using film material of actual people, on the fly. Watching the documentary — containing vintage recordings, contemporary discussions, and digital copies of vintage posters, comics, and even company memos — it's remarkable to see how the franchise evolved from simple starts to a global sensation. It's genuinely amazing to watch a handful of young game developers, developing without clear direction or oversight, focus their cultural enthusiasms into creating a legendary video game series.

Documentary Portion

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of the fighting series and its creators' careers at the currently closed Midway. It subsequently demonstrates how those same creators contended with how to regularly outdo their previous work, facing no small amount of stress to duplicate their achievements. It's a fascinating time capsule constructed using VHS tapes and traditional photos and manual drawings, which reveal the self-made character of the series' creation process and how word of mouth helped circulate its mysteries and undisclosed elements of the series in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Presented in manageable segments, it's an eminently watchable collection of mini-documentaries that spans games, comics, films and even the comical physical events. The compilation also contains some unused moves and game character images among its previously unreleased material.

Interactive Experience

Placed within the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are opportunities to engage with the actual titles. At certain intervals, viewers can hop into a Mortal Kombat title or a console adaptation to reexperience its mechanics and graphics, emulated nearly perfectly 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. Many of the games here hold up, notably with direct competitive sessions. However, facing the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a testament to how primitive and unbalanced the programming was in the series' initial installments. Computer-directed fighters obviously use unfair advantages or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. Lacking a human opponent — internet multiplayer exists in numerous anthology releases, but too light on features — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Visual Options

The two dozen available combat games in the compilation, a blend of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are accurately emulated, though I've observed a couple minor issues — primarily delayed responses and intermittent errors, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are mostly shown in their original form, developer Digital Eclipse has included some smart convenience enhancements and graphical adjustment settings. As an illustration, players have the option to display fighter-specific techniques on the display and select to activate infinite time to execute finishing moves. There are also options for unlocking secret characters, without having to perform complicated methods to access them.

Visually, the games can be experienced with numerous visual enhancements and presentation styles. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic effects that reproduce the CRT monitors of arcades or home televisions, or the limited color monitor of a Nintendo handheld. A notably appreciated element is the option to have coin-op-inspired frames encircling the display, with the specific combat game you're playing precisely and gently mirroring against the artificial ebony plastic frames. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Bonus Elements

Players will discover multiple nice touches beyond the documentary and emulated arcade classics, including a music player that enables players to reexperience the soundtracks of different fighting releases absent the noise of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. Also present are character profiles that contain backgrounds and multiple story elements shown through the idle displays of gaming hall releases and conclusions.

Archival Discovery

One of the biggest highlights for committed franchise followers is the ability to access a piece of "lost media" in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This version of the game, a somewhat revised iteration of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an early attempt by Midway at one-on-one internet-based play in coin-op establishments. This network version of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but included the option to compete against internet adversaries and contained several small bug fixes and balance. However, this network version didn't find widespread adoption, in part