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Mortal Kombat continues to hold its share of secrets and the capacity to surprise, over three decades after its original launch in arcades. A new collection covering the franchise's earliest days, comprising four arcade games, multiple console adaptations, and spinoffs, goes beyond simply a faithfully reproduced collection of iconic titles along with lesser-known entries — it functions as a detailed chronicle about the development of the renowned brand.

As a dedicated enthusiast of the series who has carefully followed its development and progression, there was numerous fresh aspects for me to understand and value about the series.

What Defines the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to other retro collections from the development team Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, part playable archive. The anthology contains digitally recreated editions of the original arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, along with home system and portable adaptations of several of these titles. 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 is therefore not a “best of” collection, but an examination of Mortal Kombat's early days, when developer Midway and franchise originators the creative duo behind the series were discovering methods to develop a battle series, produced using film material of live performers, through experimentation. Viewing the historical footage — which includes historical videos, recent conversations, and digital copies of vintage posters, illustrated stories, and even company memos — it's incredible to witness how Mortal Kombat went from simple starts to a worldwide phenomenon. It's truly remarkable to see a group of early video game creators, operating with virtually no plan or oversight, focus their cultural enthusiasms into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Documentary Portion

The documentary portion of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of the combat franchise and the developers' professional journeys at the now-defunct Midway. It further illustrates how those same creators contended with how to regularly outdo their previous work, facing no small amount of demand to replicate their achievements. It's a fascinating time capsule made from video recordings and film-based pictures and hand-drawn illustrations, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of the franchise's production method and how word of mouth helped disseminate its secrets and undisclosed elements of the series in its peak period in gaming halls. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's an eminently watchable set of brief historical films that covers video games, graphic novels, movies and even the silly live-action tour. It also includes some never-implemented techniques and character sprites among its previously unreleased material.

Playable Component

Distributed throughout the five-segment historical film's chronology are invitations to experience the actual titles. At various points, audience members can jump into a combat game session or one of its home console ports to revisit its gameplay and artistic style, emulated nearly perfectly on current technology.

I spent the bulk of my time experiencing the original arcade titles, especially Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here hold up, notably with one-on-one local play. Yet competing with the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a demonstration of how basic and unjust the development approached in the series' initial installments. Computer-directed fighters clearly employ dishonest tactics or are alternatively incredibly stupid. Lacking another person to compete with — internet multiplayer exists in numerous anthology releases, but rather basic in functionality — you'll be missing out.

Visual Options

The twenty-three accessible Mortal Kombat titles in the compilation, a combination of arcade, console, and handheld games, are precisely simulated, though I detected a couple minor issues — mainly control latency and the occasional bug, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. Even though the releases are mostly shown in their original form, the creators has added several intelligent quality-of-life features and visual presentation options. As an illustration, players have the option to reveal combatant-unique actions during gameplay and select to activate infinite time to perform a Fatality. Additionally available are settings for revealing concealed combatants, without having to perform complicated methods to unlock them.

Visually, the games can be played with a variety of graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic filters that mimic the cathode-ray tube displays of arcades or household displays, or the limited color monitor of a portable gaming device. An especially welcome feature is the choice to enable coin-op-inspired frames surrounding the screen, with your selected Mortal Kombat title faithfully and subtly duplicating against the artificial ebony plastic frames. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Bonus Elements

Players will discover multiple nice touches beyond the documentary and emulated arcade classics, containing a soundtrack mode that enables players to reexperience the music from multiple Mortal Kombat games absent the noise of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. Additionally included are character profiles that feature histories and numerous narrative components displayed via the demo sequences of coin-op titles and final sequences.

Archival Discovery

A particularly notable inclusion for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the ability to access a example of historically missing material in the format of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This version of the game, a slightly updated version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an early attempt by Midway 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 contained several small error corrections and adjustments. Yet this online edition never gained traction, in part