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The Mortal Kombat series retains many hidden mysteries and the power to astonish, well past its 30th anniversary after its initial debut in arcades. A new collection spanning the brand's formative years, which includes a quartet of arcade releases, multiple console adaptations, and spinoffs, goes beyond just a well-emulated series of classics including less celebrated releases — it additionally serves as a detailed chronicle about the development of the iconic franchise.

Being a long-time devotee of the franchise who has paid close attention its origins and transformation, there was numerous fresh aspects for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to other retro collections from the creators at Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, part playable archive. This compilation features simulated releases of the pioneering arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, plus console and handheld ports of some of those games. This compilation also features the franchise's attempts at spin-off titles, like action-oriented titles Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a highlight reel anthology, but a study of the series' formative period, when the creators at Midway and series co-creators Ed Boon and John Tobias were figuring out how to develop a battle series, produced using film material of real actors, on the fly. Observing the archival material — that features vintage recordings, recent conversations, and reproductions of classic advertisements, graphic novels, and even interoffice faxes — it's remarkable to see how the series transformed from simple starts to a global sensation. It's frankly astounding to watch a handful of young game developers, operating with virtually no plan or oversight, channel their pop-culture interests into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Historical Section

The documentary portion of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of the combat franchise and the developers' professional journeys at the now-defunct Midway. It further illustrates how those same creators reckoned with how to routinely one-up themselves, facing no small amount of pressure to repeat their achievements. It's a fascinating time capsule constructed using video recordings and film-based pictures and hand-drawn illustrations, which showcase the DIY nature of the series' creation process and how personal recommendations helped spread its rumors and undisclosed elements of the series in its arcade heyday. Presented in manageable segments, it's thoroughly enjoyable series of documentary shorts that covers video games, graphic novels, movies and even the comical physical events. It also includes some unused moves and game character images among its archived development assets.

Playable Component

Distributed throughout the five-part documentary's timeline are prompts to play the actual titles. At certain intervals, users can directly access a combat game session or one of its home console ports to revisit its gameplay and graphics, recreated with impressive accuracy on contemporary systems.

I allocated the majority of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, particularly 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 testament to how primitive and unjust the programming was in the franchise's pioneering releases. AI-managed characters obviously use unfair advantages or are alternatively incredibly stupid. Without having a human opponent — network gaming is included in most titles in the collection, but too light on features — you'll be missing out.

Visual Options

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the compilation, a blend of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are precisely simulated, though I detected a handful slight anomalies — primarily delayed responses and intermittent errors, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. Even though the releases are mostly shown in their original form, the development team has added several intelligent quality-of-life features and display customization choices. As an illustration, users can elect to reveal combatant-unique actions on the display and opt to have endless periods to perform a Fatality. Additionally available are settings for revealing concealed combatants, eliminating the need to execute complicated methods to unlock them.

Visually, the games can be enjoyed with multiple graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic options that simulate the traditional television screens of arcades or household displays, or the monochrome green display of a portable gaming device. A particularly nice touch is the option to have 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 quite aesthetically pleasing.

Extra Content

The collection includes numerous appreciated elements beyond the documentary and emulated arcade classics, including a music player that enables players to reexperience the tunes of various Mortal Kombat games excluding the sounds of combatants violently defeating each other. There are also combatant descriptions that contain backgrounds and numerous narrative components displayed via arcade games' attract mode screens and final sequences.

Lost Media Recovery

One of the biggest highlights for dedicated series enthusiasts is the chance to experience a example of historically missing material in the format of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This specific release, a slightly updated version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an pioneering effort from the developer at direct online competitive gaming in arcades. This network version of the game is virtually identical to UMK3, but provided the ability to compete against internet adversaries and featured various slight error corrections and adjustments. Yet this online edition didn't find widespread adoption, in part