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This iconic fighting game retains numerous undisclosed elements and the capacity to surprise, over three decades after its initial debut in coin-op establishments. The recent anthology spanning the brand's formative years, featuring a quartet of arcade releases, various home ports, and spinoffs, transcends just a well-emulated set of legendary games including less celebrated releases — it's also a rich documentary about the creation of the renowned brand.

As a dedicated devotee of the franchise who has closely monitored 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 comparable to previous classic compilations from developer Digital Eclipse, part documentary, section playable historical record. The collection includes digitally recreated editions of the pioneering arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, along with home system and portable adaptations of certain releases. This compilation also features the brand's experiments at spinoffs, like action-oriented titles Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — two of the franchise's least successful installments.

The Legacy Kollection consequently doesn't represent a “best of” collection, but a study of the franchise's initial era, when the development team Midway and brand founders the visionary developers were discovering methods to develop a battle series, produced using film material of live performers, through experimentation. Observing the archival material — containing historical videos, new interviews, and scans of old flyers, comics, and including internal communications — it's remarkable to see how Mortal Kombat went from simple starts to a worldwide phenomenon. It's truly remarkable to observe several early video game creators, working with minimal planning or guidance, channel their pop-culture interests into creating a legendary video game series.

Documentary Portion

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of the combat franchise and the founders' vocational paths at the currently closed Midway. It subsequently demonstrates how the very same individuals addressed how to regularly outdo their previous work, facing no small amount of pressure to repeat their achievements. It's a fascinating time capsule made from VHS tapes and film-based pictures and hand-drawn illustrations, which reveal the self-made character of Mortal Kombat's development and how word of mouth helped circulate its mysteries and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its peak period in gaming halls. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's highly engaging series of documentary shorts that covers video games, graphic novels, movies and even the silly live-action tour. The compilation also contains some unreleased actions and digital fighter representations among its cutting-room-floor content.

Interactive Gaming

Placed within the five-segment historical film's chronology are invitations to experience the original releases. At certain intervals, users can directly access a Mortal Kombat title or a console adaptation to reexperience its mechanics and graphics, simulated with remarkable precision on modern hardware.

I spent the bulk of my time playing the arcade classics, specifically Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Many of the games here stand the test of time, especially in one-on-one local play. However, facing the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a demonstration of how basic and unfair the programming was in the franchise's pioneering releases. CPU-controlled opponents clearly employ dishonest tactics or are otherwise dumb as rocks. Without having another person to compete with — internet multiplayer exists in numerous anthology releases, but too light on features — the experience will be incomplete.

Display Features

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the compilation, a combination of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are accurately emulated, though I've observed a few small quirks — primarily delayed responses and intermittent errors, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are mostly shown in their original form, developer Digital Eclipse has added several intelligent user experience improvements and visual presentation options. For example, users can elect to display fighter-specific techniques on the display and select to activate endless periods to complete lethal techniques. There are also options for revealing concealed combatants, eliminating the need to execute some esoteric trick to access them.

Graphically, the titles can be enjoyed with multiple graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection includes remarkably accurate options that simulate the CRT monitors of gaming halls or domestic TVs, or the limited color monitor of a Nintendo handheld. A notably appreciated element is the choice to enable coin-op-inspired frames surrounding the screen, with the specific combat game you're playing faithfully and subtly duplicating against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's very artistically charming.

Additional Features

There are plenty of welcome features besides the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, including a music player that enables players to reexperience the music from multiple combat titles without the din of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. Additionally included are combatant descriptions that contain backgrounds and multiple story elements presented by the demo sequences of coin-op titles and conclusions.

Historical Preservation

Among the most significant features for committed franchise followers is the opportunity to play a piece of "lost media" in the form of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This version of the game, a somewhat revised iteration of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an initial venture by the company at head-to-head network battles in gaming halls. The online-enabled release of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but provided the ability to compete against internet adversaries and contained several small bug fixes and balance. However, this network version didn't find widespread adoption, in part