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The Mortal Kombat series continues to hold numerous undisclosed elements and the capacity to surprise, well past its 30th anniversary after its first appearance in gaming halls. The recent anthology including the franchise's earliest days, comprising four arcade games, various home ports, and related titles, is more than just a well-emulated set of legendary games along with lesser-known entries — it additionally serves as a comprehensive historical account about the development of the legendary series.

Being a long-time devotee of the franchise who has paid close attention its development and progression, there was plenty new for me to discover and admire about the series.

What Constitutes the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to previous classic compilations from developer Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, part playable archive. The collection includes simulated releases of the first arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, plus console and handheld ports of some of those games. The collection even includes the series' ventures at derivative games, like action games Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — some of the brand's worst entries.

The Legacy Kollection consequently doesn't represent a “best of” collection, but an exploration into Mortal Kombat's early days, when developer Midway and franchise originators the creative duo behind the series were determining how to make a fighting game, created from video recordings of live performers, as they went along. Watching the documentary — containing vintage recordings, new interviews, and scans of old flyers, comics, and even interoffice faxes — it's incredible to witness how the series transformed from humble beginnings to a international craze. It's genuinely amazing to watch a handful of pioneering developers, working with minimal planning or guidance, direct their entertainment passions into creating a legendary video game series.

Historical Section

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of the fighting series and the founders' vocational paths at the currently closed Midway. It then goes on to show how those same creators addressed how to regularly outdo their previous work, experiencing considerable demand to replicate their triumphs. It serves as a compelling period piece composed of video recordings and film-based pictures and pencil sketches, which reveal the self-made character of the series' creation process and how word of mouth helped circulate its mysteries and undisclosed elements of the series in its peak period in gaming halls. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's an eminently watchable set of brief historical films that includes titles, illustrated stories, cinematic adaptations and even the silly live-action tour. The collection additionally features some unused moves and game character images among its archived development assets.

Interactive Gaming

Interspersed along the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are invitations to experience the games themselves. During specific moments, audience members can jump into a combat game session or a home system version to rediscover its combat system and graphics, recreated with impressive accuracy on contemporary systems.

I spent the bulk of my time playing the arcade classics, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here hold up, particularly during local multiplayer matches. But playing against the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a testament to how primitive and unbalanced the programming was in the series' initial installments. Computer-directed fighters blatantly cheat to win or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. If you don't have another person to compete with — internet multiplayer exists in the majority of included games, but too light on features — you'll be missing out.

Technical Presentation

The twenty-three accessible Mortal Kombat titles in the collection, a blend of coin-op, home system, and portable titles, are accurately emulated, though I've observed a couple minor issues — mainly control latency and the occasional bug, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are primarily displayed authentically, developer Digital Eclipse has included some smart convenience enhancements and display customization choices. As an illustration, users can elect to show each character's special moves during gameplay and choose to enable endless periods to complete lethal techniques. There are also options for unlocking secret characters, removing the requirement to complete some esoteric trick to unlock them.

Graphically, the titles can be experienced with numerous visual enhancements and presentation styles. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic filters that mimic the CRT monitors of arcades or domestic TVs, or the limited color monitor of a Game Boy. A notably appreciated element is the option to have gaming hall-style borders surrounding the screen, with the MK game of your choice accurately and softly reflecting against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Extra Content

Players will discover multiple appreciated elements beyond the educational material and simulated classic games, featuring an audio component that enables players to reexperience the tunes of various Mortal Kombat games excluding the sounds of combatants violently defeating each other. Also present are fighter biographies that contain backgrounds and numerous narrative components displayed via arcade games' attract mode screens and final sequences.

Archival Discovery

One of the biggest highlights for committed franchise followers is the opportunity to play a piece of "lost media" in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This specific release, a moderately improved edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an pioneering effort from the developer at head-to-head network battles in arcades. This network version of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but featured the capability to challenge online opponents and contained several small bug fixes and balance. But the Wavenet update never gained traction, in part