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The Mortal Kombat series continues to hold numerous undisclosed elements and the power to astonish, over three decades after its original launch in coin-op establishments. A new collection including the brand's formative years, which includes four arcade games, several home system versions, and derivative games, is more than only a accurately simulated set of legendary games and not-so-classics — it additionally serves as a rich documentary about the creation of the renowned brand.

Being a long-time enthusiast of the series who has paid close attention its development and progression, there was numerous fresh aspects for me to discover and admire about the series.

What Defines the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to other retro collections from the development team Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, part playable archive. The anthology contains emulated versions of the first arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, including television and mobile versions of certain releases. This compilation also features the brand's experiments at spin-off titles, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — some of the brand's worst entries.

The Legacy Kollection thus isn't a greatest hits compilation, but an exploration into Mortal Kombat's early days, when the development team Midway and brand founders the creative duo behind the series were figuring out how to create a combat title, created from video recordings of actual people, on the fly. Viewing the historical footage — which includes archival footage, contemporary discussions, and digital copies of vintage posters, graphic novels, and even company memos — it's astonishing to observe how the series transformed from modest origins to a worldwide phenomenon. It's frankly astounding to watch a handful of early video game creators, developing without clear direction or supervision, channel their pop-culture interests into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Historical Section

The documentary portion of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection documents the ascent of Mortal Kombat and the founders' vocational paths at the now-defunct Midway. It then goes on to show how those same creators reckoned with how to regularly outdo their previous work, facing no small amount of demand to replicate their success. It represents an intriguing historical record composed of VHS tapes and film-based pictures and manual drawings, which reveal the self-made character of the franchise's production method and how oral tradition helped circulate its mysteries and undisclosed elements of the series in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's highly engaging series of documentary shorts that includes titles, illustrated stories, cinematic adaptations and even the comical physical events. The compilation also contains some never-implemented techniques and game character images among its cutting-room-floor content.

Interactive Gaming

Distributed throughout the five-part documentary's timeline are invitations to experience the original releases. During specific moments, users can directly access a game of Mortal Kombat or one of its home console ports to reexperience its mechanics and graphics, simulated with remarkable precision on current technology.

I spent the bulk of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, especially Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here stand the test of time, particularly during one-on-one local play. But playing against the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a reminder of how crude and unjust the development approached in the series' initial installments. AI-managed characters obviously use unfair advantages or are otherwise dumb as rocks. If you don't have a human opponent — internet multiplayer exists in the majority of included games, but rather basic in functionality — you'll be missing out.

Technical Presentation

The two dozen available combat games in the compilation, a blend of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are precisely simulated, though I detected a couple minor issues — mostly input lag and intermittent errors, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are largely presented as-is, the development team has added several intelligent quality-of-life features and display customization choices. For instance, users can elect to show each character's special moves on-screen and choose to enable endless periods to execute finishing moves. Also included are choices for unlocking secret characters, without having to perform some esoteric trick to obtain them.

Artistically, the releases can be experienced with numerous filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic effects that reproduce the cathode-ray tube displays of arcades or home televisions, or the limited color monitor of a Nintendo handheld. An especially welcome feature is the choice to enable gaming hall-style borders encircling the display, with the MK game of your choice faithfully and subtly duplicating against the faux black plastic borders. It's quite aesthetically pleasing.

Extra Content

Players will discover multiple appreciated elements beyond the documentary and emulated arcade classics, featuring an audio component that allows users to rediscover the music from multiple Mortal Kombat games excluding the sounds of combatants violently defeating each other. Additionally included are character profiles that include bios and multiple story elements shown through arcade games' attract mode screens and conclusions.

Historical Preservation

Among the most significant features for committed franchise followers is the ability to access a segment of previously unavailable content in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This version of the game, a slightly updated version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an initial venture by the company at head-to-head network battles in arcades. The Wavenet Edition of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but included the option to compete against internet adversaries and included some minor bug fixes and balance. But the Wavenet update failed to achieve popularity, in part