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This iconic fighting game continues to hold numerous undisclosed elements and the capacity to surprise, more than 30 years after its original launch in coin-op establishments. A new collection covering the franchise's earliest days, comprising four original arcade titles, various home ports, and spinoffs, is more than just a well-emulated set of legendary games including less celebrated releases — it functions as a comprehensive historical account about the development of the iconic franchise.

As a dedicated enthusiast of the series who has closely monitored its origins and transformation, there was numerous fresh aspects for me to discover and admire about the series.

What Defines the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like previous classic compilations from the creators at Digital Eclipse, part documentary, part playable archive. The collection includes emulated versions of the pioneering arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, plus console and handheld ports of several of these titles. The collection even includes the franchise's attempts at spinoffs, like action-oriented titles Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — some of the brand's worst entries.

The Legacy Kollection consequently doesn't represent a “best of” collection, but a study of the franchise's initial era, when developer Midway and franchise originators the visionary developers were discovering methods to create a combat title, digitized from footage of real actors, on the fly. Watching the documentary — containing vintage recordings, contemporary discussions, and digital copies of vintage posters, comics, and including internal communications — it's incredible to witness how the franchise evolved from simple starts to a global sensation. It's frankly astounding to watch a handful of early video game creators, operating with virtually no plan or supervision, focus their cultural enthusiasms into creating a legendary video game series.

Historical Section

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of Mortal Kombat and the developers' professional journeys at the currently closed Midway. It then goes on to show how those same creators contended with how to regularly outdo their previous work, encountering significant stress to duplicate their triumphs. It represents an intriguing historical record composed of video recordings and film-based pictures and manual drawings, which showcase the DIY nature of the series' creation process and how oral tradition helped circulate its mysteries and secrets of MK in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Presented in manageable segments, it's an eminently watchable series of documentary shorts that covers video games, graphic novels, movies and including the humorous real-world tour. It also includes some never-implemented techniques and character sprites among its previously unreleased material.

Interactive Experience

Placed within the five-segment historical film's chronology are invitations to experience the original releases. At certain intervals, viewers can hop into a Mortal Kombat title or a console adaptation to reexperience its mechanics and artistic style, recreated with impressive accuracy on modern hardware.

I dedicated most 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, particularly during local multiplayer matches. But playing against the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a reminder of how crude and unjust the development approached in the series' initial installments. Computer-directed fighters clearly employ dishonest tactics or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. If you don't have someone to play against — online play is available in most titles in the collection, but somewhat limited in options — the experience will be incomplete.

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 couple minor issues — mostly input lag and sporadic glitches, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. Even though the releases are mostly shown in their original form, developer Digital Eclipse has added several intelligent convenience enhancements and visual presentation options. For example, players have the option to display fighter-specific techniques on the display and select to activate infinite time to complete lethal techniques. There are also options for revealing concealed combatants, removing the requirement to complete complicated methods to obtain them.

Graphically, the titles can be played with a variety of filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic options that simulate the CRT monitors of gaming halls or household displays, or the monochrome green display of a Nintendo handheld. An especially welcome feature is the option to have coin-op-inspired frames surrounding the screen, with the MK game of your choice accurately and softly reflecting against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's very artistically charming.

Extra Content

The collection includes numerous welcome features besides the educational material and simulated classic games, featuring an audio component that allows users to rediscover the tunes of various Mortal Kombat games absent the noise of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. Also present are fighter biographies that include bios and numerous narrative components displayed via the demo sequences of coin-op titles and final sequences.

Historical Preservation

Among the most significant features for committed franchise followers is the ability to access a segment of previously unavailable content in the form of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This specific release, a slightly updated version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an initial venture by the company at one-on-one internet-based play in coin-op establishments. The online-enabled release of the game is virtually identical to UMK3, but included the option to battle network competitors and contained several small error corrections and adjustments. But the Wavenet update failed to achieve popularity, in part