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The Mortal Kombat series still possesses many hidden mysteries and the ability to amaze, more than 30 years after its original launch in coin-op establishments. The recent anthology spanning the series' initial period, featuring a quartet of arcade releases, several home system versions, and derivative games, transcends only a accurately simulated series of classics along with lesser-known entries — it additionally serves as a comprehensive historical account about the development of the iconic franchise.

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

What Makes the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to other retro collections from the creators at Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, section playable historical record. This compilation features simulated releases of the first arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, plus console and handheld ports of certain releases. The anthology additionally contains the brand's experiments at spin-off titles, like action-oriented titles Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — some of the brand's most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a greatest hits compilation, but a study of the franchise's initial era, when developer Midway and brand founders Ed Boon and John Tobias were discovering methods to make a fighting game, created from video recordings of real actors, through experimentation. Observing the archival material — which includes historical videos, contemporary discussions, and digital copies of vintage posters, graphic novels, and even interoffice faxes — it's astonishing to observe how the franchise evolved from simple starts to a worldwide phenomenon. It's frankly astounding to see a group of early video game creators, working with minimal planning or guidance, focus their cultural enthusiasms into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Documentary Portion

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of the fighting series and its creators' careers at the currently closed Midway. It subsequently demonstrates how the very same individuals contended with how to routinely one-up themselves, experiencing considerable pressure to repeat their achievements. It represents an intriguing historical record constructed using VHS tapes and film-based pictures and pencil sketches, which showcase the DIY nature of the franchise's production method and how personal recommendations helped spread its rumors and secrets of MK in its arcade heyday. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's an eminently watchable set of brief historical films that spans games, comics, films and even the comical physical events. The compilation also contains some never-implemented techniques and character sprites among its archived development assets.

Playable Component

Distributed throughout the five-part documentary's timeline are prompts to play the games themselves. During specific moments, users can directly access a Mortal Kombat title or a home system version to rediscover its combat system and visual presentation, emulated nearly perfectly on current technology.

I spent the bulk of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here hold up, notably with local multiplayer matches. However, facing the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a demonstration of how basic and unbalanced the development approached in the series' initial installments. AI-managed characters clearly employ dishonest tactics or are alternatively incredibly stupid. If you don't have a human opponent — network gaming is included in most titles in the collection, but somewhat limited in options — the experience will be incomplete.

Display Features

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the anthology, a blend of coin-op, home system, and portable titles, are accurately emulated, though I have noticed a handful slight anomalies — mostly input lag and the occasional bug, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are largely presented as-is, developer Digital Eclipse has incorporated various clever convenience enhancements and graphical adjustment settings. For example, players have the option to show each character's special moves on-screen and select to activate endless periods to execute finishing moves. There are also options for unlocking secret characters, eliminating the need to execute some esoteric trick to access them.

Graphically, the titles can be experienced with numerous visual enhancements and presentation styles. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic effects that reproduce the CRT monitors of coin-op establishments or household displays, or the greenscale screen of a Game Boy. An especially welcome feature is the choice to enable gaming hall-style borders framing the gameplay, with the specific combat game you're playing faithfully and subtly duplicating against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's very artistically charming.

Additional Features

Players will discover multiple welcome features besides the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, including a music player that allows users to rediscover the soundtracks of different fighting releases excluding the sounds of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. Additionally included are character profiles that include bios and the various bits of lore shown through the idle displays of gaming hall releases and endings.

Archival Discovery

Among the most significant features for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the opportunity to play 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 pioneering effort from the developer at direct online competitive gaming in arcades. The Wavenet Edition of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but provided the ability to compete against internet adversaries and included some minor bug fixes and balance. However, this network version never gained traction, in part