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This iconic fighting game retains many hidden mysteries and the capacity to surprise, well past its 30th anniversary after its initial debut in gaming halls. The recent anthology including the franchise's earliest days, comprising a quartet of arcade releases, multiple console adaptations, and spinoffs, is more than simply a faithfully reproduced series of classics along with lesser-known entries — it functions as a comprehensive historical account about the development of the iconic franchise.

Being a long-time devotee of the franchise who has carefully followed its development and progression, there was much to discover for me to discover and admire about the series.

What Defines the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like other retro collections from the creators at Digital Eclipse, part documentary, part playable archive. This compilation features emulated versions of the original arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, including television and mobile versions of several of these titles. The collection even includes the series' ventures at spinoffs, like action games Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — some of the brand's worst entries.

The Legacy Kollection thus isn't a “best of” collection, but a study of Mortal Kombat's early days, when the development team Midway and brand founders the creative duo behind the series were determining how to make a fighting game, produced using film material of live performers, through experimentation. Watching the documentary — which includes historical videos, recent conversations, and scans of old flyers, graphic novels, and even company memos — it's incredible to witness how the series transformed from modest origins to a worldwide phenomenon. It's truly remarkable to see a group of early video game creators, operating with virtually no plan or supervision, direct their entertainment passions into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Historical Section

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of Mortal Kombat and the founders' vocational paths at the now-defunct Midway. It then goes on to show how these identical developers reckoned with how to regularly outdo their previous work, experiencing considerable stress to duplicate their success. It's a fascinating time capsule composed of video recordings and analog photographs and hand-drawn illustrations, which reveal the self-made character of the series' creation process and how personal recommendations helped disseminate its secrets and undisclosed elements of the series in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's highly engaging set of brief historical films that covers video games, graphic novels, movies and including the humorous real-world tour. The compilation also contains some unused moves and game character images among its archived development assets.

Interactive Gaming

Placed within the five-part documentary's timeline are invitations to experience the games themselves. During specific moments, audience members can jump into a combat game session or a console adaptation to reexperience its mechanics and visual presentation, emulated nearly perfectly on modern hardware.

I spent the bulk of my time experiencing the original arcade titles, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Many of the games here stand the test of time, especially in direct competitive sessions. But playing against the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a reminder of how crude and unfair the programming was in the series' initial installments. AI-managed characters clearly employ dishonest tactics or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. If you don't have someone to play against — online play is available in the majority of included games, but somewhat limited in options — the experience will be incomplete.

Display Features

The twenty-three accessible Mortal Kombat titles in the compilation, a mix of coin-op, home system, and portable titles, are faithfully recreated, though I have noticed a couple minor issues — mainly control latency and intermittent errors, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are largely presented as-is, developer Digital Eclipse has included some smart user experience improvements and visual presentation options. For example, you can choose to show each character's special moves on-screen and select to activate endless periods to complete lethal techniques. There are also options for unlocking secret characters, removing the requirement to complete some esoteric trick to access them.

Visually, the games can be experienced with numerous visual enhancements and presentation styles. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection includes remarkably accurate filters that mimic the traditional television screens of gaming halls or household displays, or the monochrome green display of a Game Boy. A particularly nice touch is the option to have gaming hall-style borders framing the gameplay, with the MK game of your choice faithfully and subtly duplicating against the artificial ebony plastic frames. It's quite aesthetically pleasing.

Bonus Elements

Players will discover multiple nice touches beyond the educational material and simulated classic games, featuring an audio component that enables players to reexperience the soundtracks of different Mortal Kombat games absent the noise of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. Also present are combatant descriptions that contain backgrounds and numerous narrative components shown through the idle displays of gaming hall releases and conclusions.

Historical Preservation

Among the most significant features for dedicated series enthusiasts is the chance to experience 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 pioneering effort from the developer at direct online competitive gaming in gaming halls. The Wavenet Edition of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but included the option to challenge online opponents and included some minor error corrections and adjustments. Yet this online edition failed to achieve popularity, in part