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The Mortal Kombat series continues to hold its share of secrets and the power to astonish, over three decades after its first appearance in arcades. A new collection including the brand's formative years, featuring a quartet of arcade releases, various home ports, and spinoffs, goes beyond just a well-emulated series of classics along with lesser-known entries — it functions as a detailed chronicle about the making of the iconic franchise.

As a dedicated enthusiast of the series who has paid close attention its development and progression, 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 other vintage game anthologies from the development team Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, part playable archive. This compilation features simulated releases of the first arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, along with home system and portable adaptations of some of those games. The collection even includes the franchise's attempts at spin-off titles, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' least successful installments.

The Legacy Kollection consequently doesn't represent a “best of” collection, but an exploration into the franchise's initial era, when the creators at Midway and franchise originators the creative duo behind the series were figuring out how to create a combat title, created from video recordings of real actors, on the fly. Viewing the historical footage — which includes historical videos, new interviews, and scans of old flyers, illustrated stories, and even company memos — it's incredible to witness how the series transformed from modest origins to a international craze. It's truly remarkable to observe several pioneering developers, developing without clear direction or guidance, direct their entertainment passions into establishing an enduring gaming brand.

Historical Section

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 further illustrates how those same creators reckoned with how to regularly outdo their previous work, facing no small amount of stress to duplicate their triumphs. It's a fascinating time capsule composed of video recordings and analog photographs and manual drawings, which reveal the self-made character of Mortal Kombat's development and how word of mouth helped disseminate its secrets and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's thoroughly enjoyable collection of mini-documentaries that spans games, comics, films and even the silly live-action tour. The collection additionally features some unused moves and digital fighter representations among its cutting-room-floor content.

Playable Component

Placed within the five-part documentary's timeline are prompts to play the actual titles. During specific moments, audience members can jump into a Mortal Kombat title or one of its home console ports to revisit its gameplay and artistic style, recreated with impressive accuracy on current technology.

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. Many of the games here hold up, particularly during one-on-one local play. But playing against the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a reminder of how crude and unjust the programming was in early Mortal Kombat games. AI-managed characters obviously use unfair advantages or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. If you don't have a human opponent — online play is available in numerous anthology releases, but rather basic in functionality — the experience will be incomplete.

Display Features

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the compilation, a blend of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are precisely simulated, though I've observed a few small quirks — mostly input lag and the occasional bug, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are mostly shown in their original form, the development team has included some smart user experience improvements and display customization choices. As an illustration, users can elect to reveal combatant-unique actions on the display and select to activate infinite time to execute finishing moves. There are also options for accessing hidden fighters, without having to perform obscure techniques to unlock them.

Artistically, the releases can be enjoyed with multiple filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic filters that mimic the CRT monitors of gaming halls or domestic TVs, or the monochrome green display of a portable gaming device. A notably appreciated element is the option to have coin-op-inspired frames surrounding the screen, with the specific combat game you're playing accurately and softly reflecting against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Additional Features

The collection includes numerous welcome features besides the documentary and emulated arcade classics, containing a soundtrack mode that allows users to rediscover the music from multiple combat titles absent the noise of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. Also present are character profiles that contain backgrounds and multiple story elements displayed via arcade games' attract mode screens and endings.

Archival Discovery

A particularly notable inclusion for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the opportunity to play a example of historically missing material in the guise 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 one-on-one internet-based play in coin-op establishments. The online-enabled release of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but included the option to challenge online opponents and contained several small bug fixes and balance. However, this network version didn't find widespread adoption, in part