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This iconic fighting game continues to hold numerous undisclosed elements and the power to astonish, more than 30 years after its first appearance in coin-op establishments. A new collection covering the brand's formative years, which includes four arcade games, multiple console adaptations, and derivative games, is more than just a well-emulated series of classics along with lesser-known entries — it's also a comprehensive historical account about the creation of the legendary series.

Even as a lifelong Mortal Kombat fan who has paid close attention its origins and transformation, there was much to discover for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Constitutes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to other retro collections from the development team Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, portion interactive museum. The anthology contains simulated releases of the pioneering 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 spinoffs, like action games Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' least successful installments.

The Legacy Kollection thus isn't a highlight reel anthology, but an examination of Mortal Kombat's early days, when developer Midway and series co-creators the creative duo behind the series were determining how to create a combat title, created from video recordings of live performers, on the fly. Observing the archival material — that features historical videos, recent conversations, and digital copies of vintage posters, comics, and even company memos — it's remarkable to see how the series transformed from modest origins to a worldwide phenomenon. It's frankly astounding to see a group of pioneering developers, working with minimal planning or oversight, direct their entertainment passions into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Educational Component

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of Mortal Kombat and the developers' professional journeys at the currently closed Midway. It further illustrates how these identical developers addressed how to routinely one-up themselves, facing no small amount of pressure to repeat their success. It serves as a compelling period piece constructed using VHS tapes and film-based pictures and pencil sketches, which showcase the DIY nature of Mortal Kombat's development and how oral tradition helped circulate its mysteries and secrets of MK in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's highly engaging set of brief historical films that spans games, comics, films and including the humorous real-world tour. It also includes some unreleased actions and digital fighter representations among its archived development assets.

Playable Component

Interspersed along the five-part documentary's timeline are opportunities to engage with the original releases. At certain intervals, users can directly access a Mortal Kombat title or a home system version to reexperience its mechanics and graphics, simulated with remarkable precision on contemporary systems.

I allocated the majority of my time playing the arcade classics, specifically Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here remain enjoyable, notably with local multiplayer matches. But playing against the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a reminder of how crude and unjust the coding existed in the franchise's pioneering releases. CPU-controlled opponents clearly employ dishonest tactics or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. Without having a human opponent — internet multiplayer exists in the majority of included games, but somewhat limited in options — you'll be missing out.

Technical Presentation

The two dozen available combat games in the compilation, a combination of arcade, console, and handheld games, are accurately emulated, though I detected a couple minor issues — mostly input lag and sporadic glitches, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are largely presented as-is, the development team has incorporated various clever convenience enhancements and graphical adjustment settings. For instance, players have the option to display fighter-specific techniques on-screen and opt to have endless periods to perform a Fatality. Also included are choices for revealing concealed combatants, eliminating the need to execute obscure techniques to access them.

Artistically, the releases can be enjoyed with multiple graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic filters that mimic the traditional television screens of gaming halls or home televisions, or the monochrome green display of a portable gaming device. A notably appreciated element is the setting to activate coin-op-inspired frames framing the gameplay, with the specific combat game you're playing faithfully and subtly duplicating against the artificial ebony plastic frames. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Extra Content

There are plenty of appreciated elements beyond the educational material and simulated classic games, featuring an audio component that enables players to reexperience the tunes of various fighting releases excluding the sounds of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. Additionally included are fighter biographies that contain backgrounds and the various bits of lore presented by the demo sequences of coin-op titles and conclusions.

Archival Discovery

A particularly notable inclusion for dedicated series enthusiasts is the chance to experience a example of historically missing material in the form of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This specific release, a somewhat revised iteration of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an initial venture by the company at direct online competitive gaming in coin-op establishments. This network version of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but featured the capability to challenge online opponents and featured various slight glitch repairs and refinements. Yet this online edition failed to achieve popularity, in part