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This iconic fighting game retains many hidden mysteries and the power to astonish, well past its 30th anniversary after its initial debut in gaming halls. A new collection including the series' initial period, comprising four original arcade titles, several home system versions, and spinoffs, goes beyond simply a faithfully reproduced collection of iconic titles and not-so-classics — it functions as a rich documentary about the development of the legendary series.

Even as a lifelong Mortal Kombat fan who has carefully followed its creation and evolution, there was plenty new for me to discover and admire about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to other retro collections from developer Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, portion interactive museum. The collection includes simulated releases of the original 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 anthology additionally contains the brand's experiments at spinoffs, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — two of the franchise's worst entries.

The Legacy Kollection thus isn't a greatest hits compilation, but a study of the series' formative period, when the creators at Midway and brand founders Ed Boon and John Tobias were determining how to develop a battle series, created from video recordings of real actors, as they went along. Watching the documentary — containing archival footage, contemporary discussions, and reproductions of classic advertisements, illustrated stories, and even interoffice faxes — it's incredible to witness how the franchise evolved from simple starts to a global sensation. It's genuinely amazing to see a group of pioneering developers, working with minimal planning or supervision, channel their pop-culture interests into creating a legendary video game series.

Documentary Portion

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of the combat franchise and the developers' professional journeys at the currently closed Midway. It subsequently demonstrates how these identical developers addressed how to routinely one-up themselves, encountering significant pressure to repeat their success. It's a fascinating time capsule made from video recordings and analog photographs and pencil sketches, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of the franchise's production method and how oral tradition helped disseminate its secrets and secrets of MK in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's thoroughly enjoyable series of documentary shorts that spans games, comics, films and even the comical physical events. The compilation also contains some unreleased actions and digital fighter representations among its archived development assets.

Interactive Gaming

Placed within the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are invitations to experience the original releases. During specific moments, users can directly access a Mortal Kombat title or one of its home console ports to revisit its gameplay and artistic style, simulated with remarkable precision on contemporary systems.

I spent the bulk of my time playing the arcade classics, especially Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here stand the test of time, particularly during direct competitive sessions. Yet competing with the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a reminder of how crude and unjust the coding existed in early Mortal Kombat games. CPU-controlled opponents blatantly cheat to win or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. Without having someone to play against — network gaming is included in the majority of included games, but rather basic in functionality — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Visual Options

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the anthology, a combination of arcade, console, and handheld games, are faithfully recreated, though I've observed a handful slight anomalies — mostly input lag and intermittent errors, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are primarily displayed authentically, the creators has included some smart user experience improvements and display customization choices. For example, users can elect to show each character's special moves on the display and opt to have unlimited duration to execute finishing moves. Also included are choices for accessing hidden fighters, removing the requirement to complete some esoteric trick to access them.

Artistically, the releases can be played with a variety of graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic effects that reproduce the CRT monitors of arcades or household displays, or the monochrome green display of a portable gaming device. An especially welcome feature is the option to have gaming hall-style borders framing the gameplay, with the MK game of your choice accurately and softly reflecting against the faux black plastic borders. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Extra Content

Players will discover multiple nice touches beyond the educational material and simulated classic games, featuring an audio component that allows users to rediscover the soundtracks of different fighting releases excluding the sounds of combatants violently defeating each other. Additionally included are character profiles that contain backgrounds and multiple story elements displayed via the demo sequences of coin-op titles and final sequences.

Lost Media Recovery

Among the most significant features for committed franchise followers is the chance to experience a example of historically missing material in the format of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This version of the game, a moderately improved edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an pioneering effort from the developer at direct online competitive gaming in gaming halls. The Wavenet Edition of the game is virtually identical to UMK3, but provided the ability to battle network competitors and included some minor bug fixes and balance. However, this network version didn't find widespread adoption, in part