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This iconic fighting game continues to hold its share of secrets and the ability to amaze, more than 30 years after its first appearance in gaming halls. The recent anthology spanning the franchise's earliest days, comprising four original arcade titles, various home ports, and derivative games, goes beyond just a well-emulated set of legendary games including less celebrated releases — it additionally serves as a detailed chronicle about the creation of the renowned brand.

Being a long-time Mortal Kombat fan who has closely monitored its origins and transformation, there was numerous fresh aspects for me to understand and value about the series.

What Defines the Historical Compilation

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like previous classic compilations from developer Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, portion interactive museum. The collection includes emulated versions 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 spin-off titles, like action-oriented titles 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 highlight reel anthology, but an exploration into the franchise's initial era, when the creators at Midway and franchise originators the visionary developers were figuring out how to make a fighting game, produced using film material of actual people, as they went along. Viewing the historical footage — that features vintage recordings, recent conversations, and reproductions of classic advertisements, illustrated stories, and even interoffice faxes — it's astonishing to observe how Mortal Kombat went from humble beginnings to a worldwide phenomenon. It's truly remarkable to observe several young game developers, operating with virtually no plan or supervision, channel their pop-culture interests into creating a legendary video game series.

Educational Component

The documentary portion of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection documents the ascent of Mortal Kombat and the developers' professional journeys at the currently closed Midway. It then goes on to show how those same creators reckoned with how to regularly outdo their previous work, experiencing considerable demand to replicate their triumphs. It's a fascinating time capsule made from analog films and film-based pictures and manual drawings, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of the series' creation process and how personal recommendations helped circulate its mysteries and undisclosed elements of the series in its arcade heyday. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's an eminently watchable series of documentary shorts that spans games, comics, films and including the humorous real-world tour. The collection additionally features some never-implemented techniques and game character images among its cutting-room-floor content.

Interactive Experience

Distributed throughout the five-part documentary's timeline are invitations to experience the actual titles. At various points, audience members can jump into a game of Mortal Kombat or one of its home console ports to rediscover its combat system and graphics, emulated nearly perfectly on contemporary systems.

I spent the bulk of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, specifically Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here hold up, notably with direct competitive sessions. But playing against the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a reminder of how crude and unjust the programming was in early Mortal Kombat games. CPU-controlled opponents obviously use unfair advantages or are alternatively incredibly stupid. Without having a human opponent — network gaming is included in most titles in the collection, but somewhat limited in options — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Display Features

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the collection, a combination of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are accurately emulated, though I detected a handful slight anomalies — mostly input lag and intermittent errors, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are largely presented as-is, the development team has added several intelligent convenience enhancements and graphical adjustment settings. As an illustration, you can choose to display fighter-specific techniques on-screen and opt to have endless periods to complete lethal techniques. Also included are choices for accessing hidden fighters, eliminating the need to execute complicated methods to obtain them.

Artistically, the releases can be enjoyed with multiple filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic options that simulate the CRT monitors of gaming halls or domestic TVs, or the monochrome green display of a Game Boy. A particularly nice touch is the setting to activate gaming hall-style borders surrounding the screen, with the MK game of your choice precisely and gently mirroring against the faux black plastic borders. It's very artistically charming.

Extra Content

Players will discover multiple nice touches beyond the documentary and emulated arcade classics, featuring an audio component that lets you revisit the music from multiple Mortal Kombat games without the din of combatants violently defeating each other. Also present are fighter biographies that include bios and multiple story elements displayed via the idle displays of gaming hall releases and endings.

Historical Preservation

Among the most significant features for committed franchise followers is the chance to experience a example of historically missing material in the format of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This specific release, a slightly updated version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an initial venture by the company at direct online competitive gaming in arcades. The Wavenet Edition of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but featured the capability to challenge online opponents and included some minor error corrections and adjustments. However, this network version failed to achieve popularity, in part