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The Mortal Kombat series still possesses its share of secrets and the capacity to surprise, over three decades after its original launch in coin-op establishments. This latest compilation spanning the brand's formative years, which includes four original arcade titles, various home ports, and related titles, goes beyond simply a faithfully reproduced collection of iconic titles including less celebrated releases — it additionally serves as a detailed chronicle about the development of the iconic franchise.

Being a long-time enthusiast of the series who has carefully followed its development and progression, there was plenty new for me to understand and value about the series.

What Defines the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to other vintage game anthologies from the creators at Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, portion interactive museum. The anthology contains simulated releases of the pioneering arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, including television and mobile versions of certain releases. The collection even includes the series' ventures 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 thus isn't a highlight reel anthology, but an examination of the franchise's initial era, when the development team Midway and series co-creators the creative duo behind the series were determining how to develop a battle series, produced using film material of actual people, as they went along. Observing the archival material — which includes historical videos, new interviews, and scans of old flyers, illustrated stories, and even company memos — it's incredible to witness how the franchise evolved from humble beginnings to a international craze. It's genuinely amazing to watch a handful of pioneering developers, developing without clear direction or oversight, focus their cultural enthusiasms into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Documentary Portion

The documentary portion of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of the combat franchise and its creators' careers at the now-defunct Midway. It then goes on to show how these identical developers contended with how to consistently surpass their achievements, experiencing considerable demand to replicate their achievements. It's a fascinating time capsule composed of VHS tapes and analog photographs and manual drawings, which reveal the self-made character of Mortal Kombat's development and how word of mouth helped circulate its mysteries and secrets of MK in its arcade heyday. Presented in manageable segments, it's highly engaging set of brief historical films that spans games, comics, films and even the comical physical events. The compilation also contains some unused moves and game character images among its previously unreleased material.

Interactive Experience

Distributed throughout the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are opportunities to engage with the original releases. At certain intervals, viewers can hop into a game of Mortal Kombat or a home system version to revisit its gameplay and graphics, recreated with impressive accuracy on contemporary systems.

I allocated the majority of my time experiencing the original arcade titles, especially Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here hold up, notably with local multiplayer matches. But playing against the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a testament to how primitive and unfair the coding existed in the franchise's pioneering releases. Computer-directed fighters blatantly cheat to win or are otherwise dumb as rocks. If you don't have another person to compete with — network gaming is included in the majority of included games, but too light on features — the experience will be incomplete.

Visual Options

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the compilation, a blend of coin-op, home system, and portable titles, are accurately emulated, though I detected a couple minor issues — mainly control latency and intermittent errors, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are mostly shown in their original form, the creators has included some smart convenience enhancements and graphical adjustment settings. For example, users can elect to show each character's special moves on-screen and choose to enable endless periods to complete lethal techniques. Also included are choices for accessing hidden fighters, removing the requirement to complete obscure techniques to access them.

Visually, the games can be played with a variety of filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic options that simulate the cathode-ray tube displays of gaming halls or domestic TVs, or the monochrome green display of a Nintendo handheld. A particularly nice touch is the choice to enable arcade-like bezels encircling the display, with the MK game of your choice accurately and softly reflecting against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's very artistically charming.

Extra Content

Players will discover multiple welcome features besides the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, featuring an audio component that lets you revisit the music from multiple fighting releases without the din of combatants violently defeating each other. Also present are character profiles that include bios and numerous narrative components shown through the idle displays of gaming hall releases and final sequences.

Lost Media Recovery

Among the most significant features for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the opportunity to play a segment of previously unavailable content in the format of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This version of the game, a moderately improved edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an early attempt by Midway at one-on-one internet-based play in arcades. This network version of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but included the option to compete against internet adversaries and included some minor bug fixes and balance. But the Wavenet update failed to achieve popularity, in part