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The Mortal Kombat series continues to hold many hidden mysteries and the ability to amaze, more than 30 years after its original launch in gaming halls. This latest compilation including the brand's formative years, comprising four arcade games, multiple console adaptations, and spinoffs, is more than simply a faithfully reproduced set of legendary games and not-so-classics — it's also a detailed chronicle about the making of the renowned brand.

Being a long-time devotee of the franchise who has closely monitored its creation and evolution, there was numerous fresh aspects for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Constitutes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to other retro collections from the development team Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, portion interactive museum. The collection includes digitally recreated editions of the pioneering arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, including television and mobile versions of several of these titles. This compilation also features 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 least successful installments.

The Legacy Kollection thus isn't a highlight reel anthology, but a study of Mortal Kombat's early days, when the creators at Midway and series co-creators the creative duo behind the series were determining how to make a fighting game, produced using film material of live performers, on the fly. Observing the archival material — that features historical videos, recent conversations, and reproductions of classic advertisements, graphic novels, and even interoffice faxes — it's incredible to witness how the series transformed from humble beginnings to a global sensation. It's truly remarkable to observe several young game developers, operating with virtually no plan or oversight, focus their cultural enthusiasms into establishing an enduring gaming brand.

Historical Section

The documentary portion of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of the combat franchise and the founders' vocational paths at the no-longer-operating Midway. It further illustrates how the very same individuals addressed how to consistently surpass their achievements, facing no small amount of 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 Mortal Kombat's development and how word of mouth helped circulate its mysteries and undisclosed elements of the series in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's thoroughly enjoyable collection of mini-documentaries that spans games, comics, films and including the humorous real-world tour. It also includes some never-implemented techniques and game character images among its cutting-room-floor content.

Playable Component

Distributed throughout the five-part documentary's timeline are opportunities to engage with the games themselves. At certain intervals, audience members can jump into a combat game session or a home system version to revisit its gameplay and visual presentation, simulated with remarkable precision on contemporary systems.

I allocated the majority of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, especially Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here remain enjoyable, especially in one-on-one local play. Yet competing with the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a testament to how primitive and unjust the development approached in the franchise's pioneering releases. Computer-directed fighters blatantly cheat to win or are otherwise dumb as rocks. If you don't have a human opponent — network gaming is included in most titles in the collection, but rather basic in functionality — the experience will be incomplete.

Visual Options

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the collection, a blend of coin-op, home system, and portable titles, are faithfully recreated, though I detected a few small quirks — mainly control latency and sporadic glitches, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are largely presented as-is, the creators has included some smart convenience enhancements and visual presentation options. As an illustration, you can choose to show each character's special moves during gameplay and select to activate endless periods to perform a Fatality. There are also options for unlocking secret characters, without having to perform obscure techniques to unlock them.

Graphically, the titles can be experienced with numerous visual enhancements and presentation styles. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic effects that reproduce the CRT monitors of coin-op establishments or household displays, or the greenscale screen of a Nintendo handheld. An especially welcome feature is the choice to enable gaming hall-style borders encircling the display, with the specific combat game you're playing accurately and softly reflecting against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's very artistically charming.

Bonus Elements

The collection includes numerous nice touches beyond the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, featuring an audio component that enables players to reexperience the music from multiple Mortal Kombat games absent the noise of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. Also present are combatant descriptions that feature histories and numerous narrative components displayed via arcade games' attract mode screens and conclusions.

Historical Preservation

Among the most significant features for dedicated series enthusiasts is the ability to access a segment of previously unavailable content in the form of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This particular edition, a somewhat revised iteration of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an pioneering effort from the developer at direct online competitive gaming in coin-op establishments. The online-enabled release of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but included the option to challenge online opponents and featured various slight bug fixes and balance. Yet this online edition never gained traction, in part