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This iconic fighting game continues to hold numerous undisclosed elements and the power to astonish, well past its 30th anniversary after its original launch in gaming halls. This latest compilation covering the brand's formative years, comprising four original arcade titles, several home system versions, and derivative games, transcends just a well-emulated collection of iconic titles along with lesser-known entries — it's also a comprehensive historical account about the making of the iconic franchise.

Even as a lifelong devotee of the franchise who has closely monitored its creation and evolution, there was plenty new for me to discover and admire about the series.

What Constitutes the Historical Compilation

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to other vintage game anthologies from developer Digital Eclipse, part documentary, portion interactive museum. This compilation features digitally recreated editions of the first arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, including television and mobile versions of several of these titles. The anthology additionally contains the series' ventures at spin-off titles, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — two of the franchise's most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection thus isn't a greatest hits compilation, but an examination of Mortal Kombat's early days, when the creators at Midway and series co-creators the creative duo behind the series were discovering methods to make a fighting game, produced using film material of real actors, as they went along. Watching the documentary — which includes vintage recordings, recent conversations, and reproductions of classic advertisements, comics, and even interoffice faxes — it's incredible to witness how Mortal Kombat went from simple starts to a international craze. It's genuinely amazing to observe several early video game creators, working with minimal planning or oversight, channel their pop-culture interests into creating a legendary video game series.

Historical Section

The documentary portion 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 consistently surpass their achievements, experiencing considerable stress to duplicate their triumphs. It's a fascinating time capsule made from analog films and film-based pictures and hand-drawn illustrations, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of the series' creation process and how personal recommendations helped spread its rumors and undisclosed elements of the series in its arcade heyday. Presented in manageable segments, it's an eminently watchable set of brief historical films that includes titles, illustrated stories, cinematic adaptations and even the silly live-action tour. The compilation also contains some never-implemented techniques and digital fighter representations 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 various points, viewers can hop into a combat game session or a home system version to reexperience its mechanics and visual presentation, simulated with remarkable precision on contemporary systems.

I dedicated most of my time experiencing the original arcade titles, especially Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here stand the test of time, especially in one-on-one local play. But playing against the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a reminder of how crude and unfair the programming was in the series' initial installments. CPU-controlled opponents blatantly cheat to win or are alternatively incredibly stupid. Lacking a human opponent — internet multiplayer exists in numerous anthology releases, but somewhat limited in options — you'll be missing out.

Technical Presentation

The twenty-three accessible Mortal Kombat titles in the collection, a blend of coin-op, home system, and portable titles, are precisely simulated, though I detected a couple minor issues — primarily delayed responses and the occasional bug, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are largely presented as-is, the creators has incorporated various clever quality-of-life features and graphical adjustment settings. For instance, users can elect to reveal combatant-unique actions on the display and opt to have unlimited duration to perform a Fatality. Additionally available are settings for unlocking secret characters, without having to perform obscure techniques to unlock them.

Artistically, the releases can be played with a variety of filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection includes remarkably accurate effects that reproduce the traditional television screens of arcades or home televisions, or the greenscale screen of a Nintendo handheld. A particularly nice touch is the setting to activate arcade-like bezels framing the gameplay, with your selected Mortal Kombat title accurately and softly reflecting against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Additional Features

Players will discover multiple nice touches beyond the documentary and emulated arcade classics, including a music player that enables players to reexperience the soundtracks of different combat titles absent the noise of combatants violently defeating each other. There are also fighter biographies that include bios and the various bits of lore presented by the idle displays of gaming hall releases and final sequences.

Historical Preservation

One of the biggest highlights for dedicated series enthusiasts is the opportunity to play a piece of "lost media" in the form of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This specific release, a slightly updated version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an pioneering effort from the developer at one-on-one internet-based play in coin-op establishments. The Wavenet Edition of the game is virtually identical to UMK3, but included the option to challenge online opponents and featured various slight bug fixes and balance. However, this network version failed to achieve popularity, in part