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Mortal Kombat continues to hold its share of secrets and the capacity to surprise, more than 30 years after its original launch in gaming halls. The recent anthology spanning the brand's formative years, which includes four original arcade titles, multiple console adaptations, and derivative games, transcends simply a faithfully reproduced collection of iconic titles including less celebrated releases — it functions as a rich documentary about the making of the iconic franchise.

Even as a lifelong Mortal Kombat fan who has carefully followed its origins and transformation, there was numerous fresh aspects for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Constitutes the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like other vintage game anthologies from developer Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, part playable archive. The anthology contains emulated versions of the pioneering arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, along with home system and portable adaptations of some of those games. The anthology additionally contains the franchise's attempts at spinoffs, like combat-focused releases 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 “best of” collection, but an examination of the series' formative period, when the creators at Midway and brand founders the visionary developers were discovering methods to develop a battle series, produced using film material of real actors, as they went along. Observing the archival material — that features historical videos, new interviews, and scans of old flyers, comics, and even company memos — it's astonishing to observe how the franchise evolved from humble beginnings to a worldwide phenomenon. It's truly remarkable to observe several early video game creators, operating with virtually no plan or guidance, direct their entertainment passions into creating a legendary video game series.

Educational Component

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of Mortal Kombat and the developers' professional journeys at the currently closed Midway. It then goes on to show how these identical developers contended with how to regularly outdo their previous work, facing no small amount of stress to duplicate their triumphs. It serves as a compelling period piece constructed using video recordings and traditional photos and hand-drawn illustrations, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of Mortal Kombat's development and how oral tradition helped circulate its mysteries and secrets of MK in its arcade heyday. Presented in manageable segments, it's highly engaging series of documentary shorts that includes titles, illustrated stories, cinematic adaptations and including the humorous real-world tour. The compilation also contains some never-implemented techniques and game character images among its archived development assets.

Interactive Gaming

Placed within the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are prompts to play the games themselves. At certain intervals, users can directly access a game of Mortal Kombat or one of its home console ports to rediscover its combat system and visual presentation, simulated with remarkable precision on contemporary systems.

I spent the bulk of my time playing the arcade classics, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here remain enjoyable, notably with direct competitive sessions. Yet competing with the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a reminder of how crude and unfair the development approached in the series' initial installments. AI-managed characters obviously use unfair advantages or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. 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 anthology, a mix of coin-op, home system, and portable titles, are accurately emulated, though I detected a handful slight anomalies — mostly input lag and intermittent errors, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. Even though the releases are primarily displayed authentically, the creators has incorporated various clever quality-of-life features and graphical adjustment settings. For instance, you can choose to show each character's special moves on the display and opt to have infinite time to complete lethal techniques. Additionally available are settings for accessing hidden fighters, without having to perform complicated methods to access them.

Artistically, the releases can be experienced with numerous graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection includes remarkably accurate options that simulate the traditional television screens of coin-op establishments or home televisions, or the monochrome green display of a portable gaming device. An especially welcome feature is the choice to enable coin-op-inspired frames surrounding the screen, with the specific combat game you're playing precisely and gently mirroring against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's very artistically charming.

Extra Content

There are plenty of welcome features besides the educational material and simulated classic games, featuring an audio component that lets you revisit the soundtracks of different Mortal Kombat games without the din of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. Additionally included are character profiles that feature histories and multiple story elements presented by the demo sequences of coin-op titles and endings.

Lost Media Recovery

One of the biggest highlights for committed franchise followers is the opportunity to play a example of historically missing material in the format of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This particular edition, a moderately improved edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an pioneering effort from the developer at head-to-head network battles in arcades. The online-enabled release of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but included the option to challenge online opponents and featured various slight bug fixes and balance. However, this network version never gained traction, in part