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Mortal Kombat continues to hold its share of secrets and the power to astonish, well past its 30th anniversary after its first appearance in coin-op establishments. The recent anthology spanning the brand's formative years, comprising four original arcade titles, various home ports, and related titles, is more than simply a faithfully reproduced set of legendary games and not-so-classics — it functions as a detailed chronicle about the development of the renowned brand.

As a dedicated devotee of the franchise who has carefully followed its origins and transformation, there was plenty new for me to understand and value about the series.

What Defines the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like other vintage game anthologies from the creators at Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, portion interactive museum. The anthology contains simulated releases of the first arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, including television and mobile versions of certain releases. The anthology additionally contains the franchise's attempts at spinoffs, like action-oriented titles 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 greatest hits compilation, but a study of the franchise's initial era, when the creators at Midway and brand founders the visionary developers were determining how to develop a battle series, created from video recordings of real actors, through experimentation. Observing the archival material — which includes historical videos, new interviews, and scans of old flyers, graphic novels, and even interoffice faxes — it's incredible to witness how Mortal Kombat went from modest origins to a international craze. It's genuinely amazing to observe several young game developers, operating with virtually no plan or guidance, channel their pop-culture interests into creating a legendary video game series.

Historical Section

The documentary portion of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of Mortal Kombat and the founders' vocational paths at the currently closed Midway. It subsequently demonstrates how those same creators reckoned with how to regularly outdo their previous work, encountering significant stress to duplicate their triumphs. It serves as a compelling period piece made from video recordings and traditional photos and hand-drawn illustrations, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of Mortal Kombat's development and how word of mouth helped disseminate its secrets and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its peak period in gaming halls. Presented in manageable segments, it's highly engaging collection of mini-documentaries that spans games, comics, films and including the humorous real-world tour. The compilation also contains some never-implemented techniques and digital fighter representations among its previously unreleased material.

Playable Component

Distributed throughout the five-part documentary's timeline are opportunities to engage with the games themselves. At certain intervals, viewers can hop into a game of Mortal Kombat or a console adaptation to revisit its gameplay and artistic style, recreated with impressive accuracy on contemporary systems.

I allocated the majority of my time playing the arcade classics, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Many of the games here hold up, particularly during direct competitive sessions. But playing against the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a demonstration of how basic and unbalanced the programming was in the series' initial installments. AI-managed characters clearly employ dishonest tactics or are alternatively incredibly stupid. Without having someone to play against — internet multiplayer exists in numerous anthology releases, but somewhat limited in options — the experience will be incomplete.

Technical Presentation

The two dozen available combat games in the collection, a mix of coin-op, home system, and portable titles, are precisely simulated, though I've observed a handful slight anomalies — mainly control latency and sporadic glitches, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are largely presented as-is, developer Digital Eclipse has incorporated various clever user experience improvements and visual presentation options. For example, users can elect to display fighter-specific techniques on-screen and opt to have unlimited duration to execute finishing moves. There are also options for accessing hidden fighters, eliminating the need to execute obscure techniques to obtain them.

Artistically, the releases can be experienced with numerous visual enhancements and presentation styles. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic options that simulate the traditional television screens of coin-op establishments or home televisions, or the limited color monitor of a portable gaming device. A notably appreciated element is the option to have arcade-like bezels encircling the display, with your selected Mortal Kombat title 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 documentary and emulated arcade classics, including a music player that allows users to rediscover the music from multiple Mortal Kombat games excluding the sounds of combatants violently defeating each other. Additionally included are character profiles that contain backgrounds and numerous narrative components shown through the demo sequences of coin-op titles and endings.

Lost Media Recovery

A particularly notable inclusion for dedicated series enthusiasts is the chance to experience a segment of previously unavailable content in the format of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This specific release, a somewhat revised iteration of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an early attempt by Midway at direct online competitive gaming in gaming halls. The online-enabled release of the game is virtually identical to UMK3, but provided the ability to compete against internet adversaries and featured various slight glitch repairs and refinements. Yet this online edition failed to achieve popularity, in part