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The Mortal Kombat series continues to hold its share of secrets and the ability to amaze, over three decades after its original launch in gaming halls. This latest compilation covering the franchise's earliest days, which includes four original arcade titles, various home ports, and derivative games, transcends simply a faithfully reproduced series of classics including less celebrated releases — it functions as a detailed chronicle about the creation of the iconic franchise.

Even as a lifelong Mortal Kombat fan who has closely monitored its origins and transformation, there was plenty new for me to understand and value about the series.

What Defines the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to previous classic compilations from developer Digital Eclipse, part documentary, part playable archive. The collection includes simulated releases of the pioneering arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, including television and mobile versions of some of those games. This compilation also features the brand's experiments at derivative games, like action-oriented titles Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' least successful installments.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a “best of” collection, but an exploration into the franchise's initial era, when developer Midway and brand founders Ed Boon and John Tobias were determining how to make a fighting game, created from video recordings of real actors, through experimentation. Observing the archival material — which includes archival footage, contemporary discussions, and digital copies of vintage posters, illustrated stories, and including internal communications — it's incredible to witness how the series transformed from simple starts to a international craze. It's truly remarkable to watch a handful of young game developers, operating with virtually no plan or guidance, channel their pop-culture interests into creating a legendary video game series.

Historical Section

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of the combat franchise and its creators' careers at the now-defunct Midway. It then goes on to show how these identical developers reckoned with how to consistently surpass their achievements, facing no small amount of pressure to repeat their triumphs. It's a fascinating time capsule made from VHS tapes and film-based pictures 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 arcade heyday. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's thoroughly enjoyable series of documentary shorts that spans games, comics, films and including the humorous real-world tour. It also includes some unreleased actions and game character images among its cutting-room-floor content.

Interactive Experience

Distributed throughout the five-part documentary's timeline are opportunities to engage with the games themselves. At certain intervals, users can directly access a combat game session or a home system version to rediscover its combat system and graphics, emulated nearly perfectly 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. Many of the games here hold up, especially in local multiplayer matches. But playing against the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a reminder of how crude and unfair the coding existed in the series' initial installments. AI-managed characters clearly employ dishonest tactics or are alternatively incredibly stupid. Without having someone to play against — internet multiplayer exists in most titles in the collection, but rather basic in functionality — the experience will be incomplete.

Visual Options

The twenty-three accessible Mortal Kombat titles in the compilation, a mix of arcade, console, and handheld games, are faithfully recreated, though I have noticed a couple minor issues — mainly control latency and intermittent errors, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are mostly shown in their original form, the creators has added several intelligent user experience improvements and graphical adjustment settings. For example, you can choose to reveal combatant-unique actions on the display and opt to have endless periods to execute finishing moves. Additionally available are settings for accessing hidden fighters, without having to perform obscure techniques to access them.

Visually, the games can be played with a variety of graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection includes remarkably accurate filters that mimic the traditional television screens of coin-op establishments or domestic TVs, or the limited color monitor of a Nintendo handheld. A notably appreciated element is the setting to activate gaming hall-style borders surrounding the screen, with the MK game of your choice accurately and softly reflecting against the artificial ebony plastic frames. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Additional Features

There are plenty of appreciated elements beyond the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, featuring an audio component that lets you revisit the music from multiple combat titles excluding the sounds of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. Additionally included are combatant descriptions that include bios and numerous narrative components presented by the demo sequences of coin-op titles and conclusions.

Historical Preservation

A particularly notable inclusion for committed franchise followers is the opportunity to play a example of historically missing material in the form 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 arcades. This network version of the game is virtually identical to UMK3, but included the option to battle network competitors and contained several small bug fixes and balance. Yet this online edition never gained traction, in part