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This iconic fighting game continues to hold numerous undisclosed elements and the power to astonish, over three decades after its original launch in arcades. A new collection covering the series' initial period, which includes four original arcade titles, several home system versions, and spinoffs, transcends just a well-emulated collection of iconic titles and not-so-classics — it functions as a detailed chronicle about the creation of the legendary series.

Even as a lifelong devotee of the franchise who has paid close attention its creation and evolution, there was plenty new for me to discover and admire about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to other retro collections from the development team Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, part playable archive. The collection includes simulated releases of the pioneering arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, plus console and handheld ports of several of these titles. The collection even includes the series' ventures at derivative games, like action games Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — two of the franchise's most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection thus isn't a “best of” collection, but a study of the series' formative period, when developer Midway and franchise originators Ed Boon and John Tobias were discovering methods to develop a battle series, created from video recordings of real actors, through experimentation. Observing the archival material — that features historical videos, contemporary discussions, and digital copies of vintage posters, graphic novels, and including internal communications — it's incredible to witness how Mortal Kombat went from modest origins to a international craze. It's genuinely amazing to watch a handful of young game developers, developing without clear direction or supervision, focus their cultural enthusiasms into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Educational Component

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of the combat franchise and its creators' careers at the now-defunct Midway. It further illustrates how the very same individuals contended with how to consistently surpass their achievements, encountering significant pressure to repeat their success. It represents an intriguing historical record made from analog films and traditional photos and pencil sketches, which reveal the self-made character of Mortal Kombat's development and how word of mouth 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 including the humorous real-world tour. It also includes some unused moves and character sprites among its previously unreleased material.

Interactive Experience

Interspersed along the five-segment historical film's chronology are opportunities to engage with the actual titles. During specific moments, viewers can hop into a Mortal Kombat title or a home system version to revisit its gameplay and visual presentation, recreated with impressive accuracy on contemporary systems.

I allocated the majority of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, especially Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here hold up, notably with one-on-one local play. Yet competing with the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a testament to how primitive and unjust the development approached in the franchise's pioneering releases. CPU-controlled opponents clearly employ dishonest tactics or are otherwise dumb as rocks. If you don't have a human opponent — network gaming is included in the majority of included games, but rather basic in functionality — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Display Features

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the collection, a mix of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are precisely simulated, though I've observed a handful slight anomalies — mainly control latency and sporadic glitches, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. Even though the releases are mostly shown in their original form, developer Digital Eclipse has added several intelligent user experience improvements and visual presentation options. For instance, you can choose to show each character's special moves on the display and opt to have unlimited duration to complete lethal techniques. Also included are choices for accessing hidden fighters, without having to perform complicated methods to access them.

Graphically, the titles can be enjoyed with multiple visual enhancements and presentation styles. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic filters that mimic the CRT monitors of arcades or home televisions, or the limited color monitor of a Nintendo handheld. A particularly nice touch is the setting to activate arcade-like bezels framing the gameplay, with your selected Mortal Kombat title accurately and softly reflecting against the artificial ebony plastic frames. It's quite aesthetically pleasing.

Additional Features

Players will discover multiple nice touches beyond the educational material and simulated classic games, featuring an audio component that allows users to rediscover the music from multiple combat titles without the din of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. Additionally included are character profiles that contain backgrounds and multiple story elements displayed via arcade games' attract mode screens and endings.

Lost Media Recovery

Among the most significant features for dedicated series enthusiasts is the ability to access a example of historically missing material in the format of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This version of the game, a somewhat revised iteration of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an initial venture by the company at one-on-one internet-based play in gaming halls. The online-enabled release of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but provided the ability to compete against internet adversaries and featured various slight bug fixes and balance. Yet this online edition never gained traction, in part