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The Mortal Kombat series retains numerous undisclosed elements and the power to astonish, over three decades after its original launch in arcades. A new collection covering the franchise's earliest days, featuring four original arcade titles, several home system versions, and spinoffs, goes beyond only a accurately simulated set of legendary games along with lesser-known entries — it's also a rich documentary about the making of the legendary series.

As a dedicated Mortal Kombat fan who has paid close attention its origins and transformation, there was much to discover for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to other retro collections from developer Digital Eclipse, part documentary, portion interactive museum. The collection includes simulated releases of the first arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, plus console and handheld ports of several of these titles. This compilation also features the franchise's attempts at spin-off titles, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a greatest hits compilation, but a study of Mortal Kombat's early days, when the development team Midway and franchise originators the visionary developers were figuring out how to develop a battle series, produced using film material of actual people, through experimentation. Observing the archival material — which includes archival footage, recent conversations, and digital copies of vintage posters, graphic novels, and even interoffice faxes — it's incredible to witness how Mortal Kombat went from simple starts to a worldwide phenomenon. It's genuinely amazing to watch a handful of early video game creators, working with minimal planning or oversight, channel their pop-culture interests into establishing an enduring gaming brand.

Historical Section

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of the combat franchise and its creators' careers at the now-defunct Midway. It subsequently demonstrates how the very same individuals addressed how to routinely one-up themselves, encountering significant stress to duplicate their achievements. It represents an intriguing historical record constructed using VHS tapes and traditional photos and hand-drawn illustrations, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of the franchise's production method and how word of mouth helped disseminate its secrets and undisclosed elements of the series in its arcade heyday. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's an eminently watchable series of documentary shorts that spans games, comics, films and including the humorous real-world tour. It also includes some never-implemented techniques and game character images among its cutting-room-floor content.

Interactive Experience

Interspersed along the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are invitations to experience the actual titles. At certain intervals, audience members can jump into a game of Mortal Kombat or a home system version to rediscover its combat system and visual presentation, recreated with impressive accuracy on modern hardware.

I spent the bulk of my time playing the arcade classics, especially Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here stand the test of time, particularly during direct competitive sessions. However, facing the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a reminder of how crude and unfair the coding existed in early Mortal Kombat games. Computer-directed fighters blatantly cheat to win or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. If you don't have another person to compete with — network gaming is included in the majority of included games, but rather basic in functionality — you'll be missing out.

Display Features

The two dozen available combat games in the anthology, a blend of arcade, console, and handheld games, are precisely simulated, though I have noticed a couple minor issues — mainly control latency and intermittent errors, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are largely presented as-is, the development team has added several intelligent quality-of-life features and visual presentation options. As an illustration, users can elect to display fighter-specific techniques on-screen and select to activate infinite time to execute finishing moves. There are also options for accessing hidden fighters, removing the requirement to complete complicated methods to access them.

Visually, the games can be experienced with numerous graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic filters that mimic the cathode-ray tube displays of gaming halls or home televisions, or the greenscale screen of a Game Boy. A notably appreciated element is the choice to enable gaming hall-style borders surrounding the screen, with the specific combat game you're playing faithfully and subtly duplicating against the faux black plastic borders. It's quite aesthetically pleasing.

Bonus Elements

Players will discover multiple welcome features besides the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, featuring an audio component that allows users to rediscover the tunes of various Mortal Kombat games absent the noise of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. There are also character profiles that feature histories and the various bits of lore presented by arcade games' attract mode screens and conclusions.

Archival Discovery

A particularly notable inclusion for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the chance to experience a piece of "lost media" in the format of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This particular edition, a somewhat revised iteration of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an initial venture by the company at direct online competitive gaming in gaming halls. This network version of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but featured the capability to compete against internet adversaries and featured various slight bug fixes and balance. However, this network version didn't find widespread adoption, in part