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Mortal Kombat still possesses many hidden mysteries and the power to astonish, over three decades after its first appearance in arcades. A new collection covering the franchise's earliest days, featuring four arcade games, various home ports, and related titles, transcends only a accurately simulated set of legendary games including less celebrated releases — it's also a rich documentary about the creation of the iconic franchise.

Even as a lifelong enthusiast of the series who has closely monitored its creation and evolution, there was much to discover for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Defines the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to other retro collections from the development team Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, part playable archive. This compilation features 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 collection even includes the franchise's attempts at spinoffs, like action games Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — some of the brand's least successful installments.

The Legacy Kollection consequently doesn't represent a greatest hits compilation, but a study of the franchise's initial era, when the creators at Midway and series co-creators the visionary developers were discovering methods to make a fighting game, created from video recordings of live performers, on the fly. Observing the archival material — containing historical videos, contemporary discussions, and scans of old flyers, comics, and even company memos — it's astonishing to observe how Mortal Kombat went from simple starts to a global sensation. It's frankly astounding to see a group of early video game creators, working with minimal planning or oversight, focus their cultural enthusiasms into establishing an enduring gaming brand.

Educational Component

The documentary portion of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection documents the ascent 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 regularly outdo their previous work, encountering significant demand to replicate their triumphs. It's a fascinating time capsule constructed using video recordings and traditional photos and pencil sketches, which reveal the self-made character of Mortal Kombat's development and how word of mouth helped disseminate its secrets and undisclosed elements of the series in its peak period in gaming halls. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's an eminently watchable set of brief historical films that covers video games, graphic novels, movies and even the comical physical events. The compilation also contains some unreleased actions and game character images among its archived development assets.

Playable Component

Interspersed along the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are invitations to experience the original releases. At various points, users can directly access a combat game session or a home system version to reexperience its mechanics and graphics, recreated with impressive accuracy on modern hardware.

I dedicated most of my time experiencing the original arcade titles, especially Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here remain enjoyable, notably with local multiplayer matches. However, facing the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a testament to how primitive and unbalanced the development approached in the series' initial installments. CPU-controlled opponents obviously use unfair advantages or are otherwise dumb as rocks. If you don't have someone to play against — online play is available in the majority of included games, but somewhat limited in options — you'll be missing out.

Technical Presentation

The twenty-three accessible Mortal Kombat titles in the anthology, a blend of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are precisely simulated, though I detected a handful slight anomalies — mostly input lag and the occasional bug, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. Even though the releases are largely presented as-is, developer Digital Eclipse has added several intelligent convenience enhancements and graphical adjustment settings. As an illustration, players have the option to reveal combatant-unique actions during gameplay and opt to have endless periods to execute finishing moves. Additionally available are settings for unlocking secret characters, removing the requirement to complete some esoteric trick to unlock them.

Artistically, the releases can be enjoyed with multiple graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic effects that reproduce the traditional television screens of gaming halls or household displays, or the greenscale screen of a portable gaming device. An especially welcome feature is the option to have gaming hall-style borders surrounding the screen, 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 tunes of various Mortal Kombat games without the din of combatants violently defeating each other. Also present are combatant descriptions that include bios and the various bits of lore shown through the idle displays of gaming hall releases and endings.

Lost Media Recovery

Among the most significant features for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the chance to experience a piece of "lost media" in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This version of the game, a slightly updated version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an initial venture by the company at head-to-head network battles in arcades. This network version of the game is virtually identical to UMK3, but featured the capability to challenge online opponents and included some minor glitch repairs and refinements. However, this network version never gained traction, in part