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This iconic fighting game continues to hold its share of secrets and the capacity to surprise, well past its 30th anniversary after its first appearance in gaming halls. This latest compilation covering the series' initial period, featuring four original arcade titles, several home system versions, and related titles, goes beyond only a accurately simulated collection of iconic titles including less celebrated releases — it functions as a comprehensive historical account about the creation of the legendary series.

Being a long-time Mortal Kombat fan who has closely monitored its origins and transformation, there was much to discover for me to discover and admire about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to other vintage game anthologies from the development team Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, portion interactive museum. The anthology contains digitally recreated editions of the original arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, plus console and handheld ports of several of these titles. This compilation also features the franchise's attempts at spin-off titles, 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 highlight reel anthology, but a study of Mortal Kombat's early days, when the creators at Midway and series co-creators Ed Boon and John Tobias were discovering methods to create a combat title, created from video recordings of real actors, through experimentation. Observing the archival material — that features historical videos, recent conversations, and reproductions of classic advertisements, comics, and even company memos — it's astonishing to observe how the series transformed from modest origins to a global sensation. It's frankly astounding to watch a handful of young game developers, operating with virtually no plan or supervision, focus their cultural enthusiasms into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Documentary Portion

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection documents the ascent of Mortal Kombat and the founders' vocational paths at the no-longer-operating Midway. It then goes on to show how those same creators addressed how to routinely one-up themselves, experiencing considerable stress to duplicate their success. It represents an intriguing historical record constructed using VHS tapes and film-based pictures and manual drawings, which reveal the self-made character of the series' creation process and how word of mouth helped disseminate its secrets and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's highly engaging series of documentary shorts that covers video games, graphic novels, movies and even the comical physical events. The collection additionally features some unused moves and character sprites among its archived development assets.

Interactive Experience

Placed within the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are opportunities to engage with the games themselves. During specific moments, audience members can jump into a game of Mortal Kombat or a home system version to reexperience its mechanics and visual presentation, emulated nearly perfectly on current technology.

I spent the bulk of my time experiencing the original arcade titles, specifically Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Many of the games here stand the test of time, notably with one-on-one local play. Yet competing with the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a demonstration of how basic and unjust the development approached in early Mortal Kombat games. AI-managed characters clearly employ dishonest tactics or are otherwise dumb as rocks. Lacking another person to compete with — online play is available in the majority of included games, but somewhat limited in options — you'll be missing out.

Display Features

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 few small quirks — mainly control latency and the occasional bug, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are largely presented as-is, the creators has incorporated various clever convenience enhancements and visual presentation options. For instance, users can elect to reveal combatant-unique actions on-screen and opt to have infinite time to complete lethal techniques. Additionally available are settings for revealing concealed combatants, removing the requirement to complete some esoteric trick to obtain them.

Graphically, the titles can be experienced with numerous graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic options that simulate the traditional television screens of arcades or domestic TVs, or the limited color monitor of a Nintendo handheld. An especially welcome feature is the setting to activate coin-op-inspired frames surrounding the screen, with your selected Mortal Kombat title faithfully and subtly duplicating against the faux black plastic borders. It's quite aesthetically pleasing.

Extra Content

The collection includes numerous appreciated elements beyond the documentary and emulated arcade classics, including a music player that lets you revisit the music from multiple Mortal Kombat games without the din of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. Additionally included are combatant descriptions that contain backgrounds and the various bits of lore displayed via the demo sequences of coin-op titles and final sequences.

Historical Preservation

A particularly notable inclusion for committed franchise followers is the opportunity to play a segment of previously unavailable content 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 early attempt by Midway at head-to-head network battles in gaming halls. The online-enabled release of the game is virtually identical to UMK3, but included the option to challenge online opponents and featured various slight bug fixes and balance. But the Wavenet update failed to achieve popularity, in part