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This iconic fighting game continues to hold numerous undisclosed elements and the capacity to surprise, over three decades after its original launch in arcades. The recent anthology covering the series' initial period, featuring four original arcade titles, multiple console adaptations, and related titles, transcends simply a faithfully reproduced series of classics including less celebrated releases — it's also a rich documentary about the making of the renowned brand.

Being a long-time devotee of the franchise who has paid close attention its development and progression, there was numerous fresh aspects for me to understand and value about the series.

What Constitutes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to other vintage game anthologies from the creators at Digital Eclipse, part documentary, part playable archive. The anthology contains emulated versions of the first arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, including television and mobile versions of several of these titles. This compilation also features the brand's experiments at spinoffs, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — two of the franchise's most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection consequently doesn't represent a “best of” collection, but an exploration into the series' formative period, when the development team Midway and series co-creators the creative duo behind the series were figuring out how to create a combat title, produced using film material of real actors, as they went along. Watching the documentary — which includes vintage recordings, recent conversations, and digital copies of vintage posters, comics, and including internal communications — it's astonishing to observe how the series transformed from simple starts to a international craze. It's frankly astounding to see a group 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 documentary portion of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of Mortal Kombat and the founders' vocational paths at the no-longer-operating Midway. It further illustrates how the very same individuals reckoned with how to routinely one-up themselves, encountering significant pressure to repeat their achievements. It's a fascinating time capsule made from VHS tapes and analog photographs and manual drawings, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of the franchise's production method and how personal recommendations helped spread its rumors and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's an eminently watchable series of documentary shorts that includes titles, illustrated stories, cinematic adaptations and including the humorous real-world tour. The collection additionally features some never-implemented techniques and digital fighter representations among its cutting-room-floor content.

Interactive Experience

Interspersed along the five-part documentary's timeline are invitations to experience the games themselves. At certain intervals, users can directly access a Mortal Kombat title or one of its home console ports to reexperience its mechanics and visual presentation, simulated with remarkable precision on current technology.

I dedicated most of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here remain enjoyable, especially in one-on-one local play. However, facing the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a testament to how primitive and unjust the programming was in the franchise's pioneering releases. AI-managed characters obviously use unfair advantages or are otherwise dumb as rocks. Lacking another person to compete with — online play is available in numerous anthology releases, but too light on features — you'll be missing out.

Technical Presentation

The two dozen available combat games in the collection, a combination of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are accurately emulated, though I've observed a couple minor issues — mainly control latency and sporadic glitches, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are primarily displayed authentically, developer Digital Eclipse has added several intelligent user experience improvements and visual presentation options. As an illustration, you can choose to display fighter-specific techniques on-screen and choose to enable infinite time to complete lethal techniques. There are also options for revealing concealed combatants, eliminating the need to execute obscure techniques to unlock them.

Visually, the games can be played with a variety of graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic filters that mimic the cathode-ray tube displays of arcades or household displays, or the monochrome green display of a Nintendo handheld. An especially welcome feature is the setting to activate gaming hall-style borders encircling the display, with the specific combat game you're playing accurately and softly reflecting against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's very artistically charming.

Extra Content

Players will discover multiple nice touches beyond the documentary and emulated arcade classics, containing a soundtrack mode that allows users to rediscover the soundtracks of different combat titles without the din of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. Also present are combatant descriptions that include bios and numerous narrative components displayed via arcade games' attract mode screens and conclusions.

Historical Preservation

A particularly notable inclusion for dedicated series enthusiasts is the ability to access a piece of "lost media" in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This specific release, a moderately improved edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an early attempt by Midway at one-on-one internet-based play in arcades. The online-enabled release of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but provided the ability to compete against internet adversaries and included some minor glitch repairs and refinements. But the Wavenet update failed to achieve popularity, in part