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This iconic fighting game continues to hold numerous undisclosed elements and the capacity to surprise, well past its 30th anniversary after its initial debut in gaming halls. The recent anthology including the series' initial period, which includes four original arcade titles, several home system versions, and derivative games, is more than only a accurately simulated series of classics and not-so-classics — it functions as a detailed chronicle about the development of the legendary series.

As a dedicated enthusiast of the series who has carefully followed its development and progression, there was numerous fresh aspects for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like other retro collections from the creators at Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, portion interactive museum. The collection includes emulated versions of the original arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, plus console and handheld ports of certain releases. The anthology additionally contains the franchise's attempts at derivative games, like action-oriented titles Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — two of the franchise's most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a “best of” collection, but a study of the series' formative period, when developer Midway and brand founders Ed Boon and John Tobias were determining how to create a combat title, digitized from footage of actual people, as they went along. Viewing the historical footage — which includes vintage recordings, new interviews, and reproductions of classic advertisements, graphic novels, and even interoffice faxes — it's remarkable to see how the franchise evolved from modest origins to a international craze. It's genuinely amazing to observe several early video game creators, operating with virtually no plan or oversight, direct their entertainment passions into establishing an enduring gaming brand.

Documentary Portion

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of the combat franchise and the developers' professional journeys at the no-longer-operating Midway. It then goes on to show how these identical developers contended with how to consistently surpass their achievements, experiencing considerable pressure to repeat their success. It's a fascinating time capsule made from analog films and analog photographs and manual drawings, which showcase the DIY nature of the franchise's production method and how personal recommendations helped circulate its mysteries and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Presented in manageable segments, 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 unused moves and game character images among its archived development assets.

Playable Component

Distributed throughout the five-part documentary's timeline are prompts to play the original releases. At certain intervals, users can directly access a Mortal Kombat title or a console adaptation to reexperience its mechanics and artistic style, emulated nearly perfectly on modern hardware.

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. Many of the games here stand the test of time, especially in local multiplayer matches. Yet competing with the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a reminder of how crude and unfair the development approached in early Mortal Kombat games. Computer-directed fighters clearly employ dishonest tactics or are otherwise dumb as rocks. Lacking another person to compete with — internet multiplayer exists in most titles in the collection, but too light on features — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Display Features

The two dozen available combat games in the collection, a blend of coin-op, home system, and portable titles, are faithfully recreated, though I have noticed a couple minor issues — mainly control latency and sporadic glitches, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are mostly shown in their original form, the creators has incorporated various clever quality-of-life features and graphical adjustment settings. For example, users can elect to reveal combatant-unique actions on the display and choose to enable unlimited duration to perform a Fatality. Also included are choices for unlocking secret characters, eliminating the need to execute obscure techniques to unlock them.

Artistically, the releases can be enjoyed with multiple filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic options that simulate the traditional television screens of coin-op establishments or domestic TVs, or the monochrome green display of a Game Boy. A particularly nice touch is the setting to activate coin-op-inspired frames framing the gameplay, with the MK game of your choice precisely and gently mirroring against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Additional Features

There are plenty of nice touches beyond the documentary and emulated arcade classics, featuring an audio component that allows users to rediscover the tunes of various combat titles absent the noise of combatants violently defeating each other. Additionally included are fighter biographies that feature histories and multiple story elements shown through the demo sequences of coin-op titles and endings.

Archival Discovery

Among the most significant features for dedicated series enthusiasts is the ability to access a segment of previously unavailable content in the format of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This specific release, a somewhat revised iteration of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an pioneering effort from the developer at head-to-head network battles in gaming halls. The online-enabled release of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but featured the capability to challenge online opponents and contained several small error corrections and adjustments. However, this network version failed to achieve popularity, in part