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The Mortal Kombat series still possesses numerous undisclosed elements and the power to astonish, well past its 30th anniversary after its original launch in gaming halls. This latest compilation spanning the franchise's earliest days, featuring four arcade games, multiple console adaptations, and derivative games, goes beyond simply a faithfully reproduced collection of iconic titles and not-so-classics — it functions as a rich documentary about the creation of the iconic franchise.

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

What Makes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to other vintage game anthologies from developer Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, section playable historical record. 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 anthology additionally contains the series' ventures at derivative games, like action-oriented titles Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — two of the franchise's worst entries.

The Legacy Kollection thus isn't a “best of” collection, but an exploration into the series' formative period, when developer Midway and brand founders the creative duo behind the series were determining how to develop a battle series, digitized from footage of real actors, as they went along. Watching the documentary — which includes vintage recordings, recent conversations, and scans of old flyers, graphic novels, and even company memos — it's astonishing to observe how the franchise evolved from modest origins to a global sensation. It's truly remarkable to see a group of early video game creators, operating with virtually no plan or guidance, direct their entertainment passions into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Educational Component

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection documents the ascent of Mortal Kombat and its creators' careers at the now-defunct Midway. It then goes on to show how the very same individuals contended with how to consistently surpass their achievements, facing no small amount of pressure to repeat their triumphs. It serves as a compelling period piece made from video recordings and analog photographs and pencil sketches, which reveal the self-made character of the series' creation process and how word of mouth helped circulate its mysteries and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its peak period in gaming halls. Presented in manageable segments, it's highly engaging set of brief historical films that spans games, comics, films and even the silly live-action tour. The compilation also contains some unreleased actions and game character images among its cutting-room-floor content.

Interactive Experience

Placed within the five-part documentary's timeline are opportunities to engage with the original releases. During specific moments, audience members can jump into a game of Mortal Kombat or a console adaptation to reexperience its mechanics and graphics, emulated nearly perfectly on contemporary systems.

I spent the bulk of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, specifically Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here hold up, notably with local multiplayer matches. However, facing the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a testament to how primitive and unfair the coding existed in early Mortal Kombat games. CPU-controlled opponents obviously use unfair advantages 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 too light on features — you'll be missing out.

Display Features

The two dozen available combat games in the anthology, a blend of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are accurately emulated, though I detected a few small quirks — mostly input lag and the occasional bug, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are largely presented as-is, the development team has added several intelligent user experience improvements and graphical adjustment settings. As an illustration, users can elect to show each character's special moves during gameplay and choose to enable infinite time to complete lethal techniques. Additionally available are settings for unlocking secret characters, without having to perform some esoteric trick to unlock them.

Visually, the games can be experienced with numerous filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection includes remarkably accurate effects that reproduce the CRT monitors of gaming halls or household displays, or the limited color monitor of a Nintendo handheld. An especially welcome feature is the choice to enable arcade-like bezels surrounding the screen, with the MK game of your choice accurately and softly reflecting against the artificial ebony plastic frames. It's very artistically charming.

Extra Content

Players will discover multiple appreciated elements beyond the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, containing a soundtrack mode that lets you revisit the music from multiple fighting releases absent the noise of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. Additionally included are fighter biographies that include bios and the various bits of lore displayed via the demo sequences of coin-op titles and endings.

Lost Media Recovery

A particularly notable inclusion for dedicated series enthusiasts is the opportunity to play a segment of previously unavailable content in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This particular edition, a somewhat revised iteration of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an early attempt by Midway at direct online competitive gaming in arcades. The online-enabled release of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but included the option to challenge online opponents and contained several small bug fixes and balance. But the Wavenet update didn't find widespread adoption, in part