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The Mortal Kombat series still possesses many hidden mysteries and the ability to amaze, over three decades after its original launch in coin-op establishments. The recent anthology including the brand's formative years, featuring four original arcade titles, several home system versions, and related titles, is more than only a accurately simulated set of legendary games along with lesser-known entries — it functions as a comprehensive historical account about the making of the renowned brand.

Being a long-time enthusiast of the series who has closely monitored its creation and evolution, there was much to discover for me to discover and admire about the series.

What Defines the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to other vintage game anthologies from the creators at Digital Eclipse, part documentary, part playable archive. The collection includes emulated versions of the first arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, plus console and handheld ports of certain releases. This compilation also features the franchise's attempts at spin-off titles, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — some of the brand's most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection consequently doesn't represent a highlight reel anthology, but a study of the series' formative period, when the creators at Midway and brand founders the visionary developers were figuring out how to develop a battle series, digitized from footage of live performers, on the fly. Watching the documentary — which includes historical videos, recent conversations, and reproductions of classic advertisements, graphic novels, and including internal communications — it's incredible to witness how Mortal Kombat went from humble beginnings to a global sensation. It's truly remarkable to observe several young game developers, developing without clear direction or oversight, channel their pop-culture interests into establishing an enduring gaming brand.

Educational Component

The documentary portion of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of the fighting series and its creators' careers at the currently closed Midway. It subsequently demonstrates how those same creators contended with how to routinely one-up themselves, encountering significant pressure to repeat their achievements. It's a fascinating time capsule constructed using analog films and film-based pictures and hand-drawn illustrations, which reveal the self-made character of the franchise's production method and how word of mouth helped spread its rumors and undisclosed elements of the series in its peak period in gaming halls. Presented in manageable segments, it's an eminently watchable collection of mini-documentaries that spans games, comics, films and including the humorous real-world tour. The compilation also contains some unused moves and digital fighter representations among its cutting-room-floor content.

Interactive Gaming

Placed within the five-part documentary's timeline are opportunities to engage with the games themselves. At various points, viewers can hop into a game of Mortal Kombat or a console adaptation to reexperience its mechanics and artistic style, recreated with impressive accuracy on modern hardware.

I allocated the majority of my time experiencing the original arcade titles, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here remain enjoyable, especially in one-on-one local play. But playing against the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a demonstration of how basic and unfair the coding existed in the franchise's pioneering releases. Computer-directed fighters blatantly cheat to win or are alternatively incredibly stupid. If you don't have someone to play against — network gaming is included in most titles in the collection, but too light on features — you'll be missing out.

Technical Presentation

The two dozen available combat games in the collection, a blend of arcade, console, and handheld games, are faithfully recreated, though I detected a handful slight anomalies — mainly control latency and the occasional bug, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are primarily displayed authentically, developer Digital Eclipse has incorporated various clever convenience enhancements and graphical adjustment settings. As an illustration, users can elect to display fighter-specific techniques during gameplay and select to activate infinite time to complete lethal techniques. There are also options for revealing concealed combatants, without having to perform obscure techniques to obtain them.

Graphically, the titles can be enjoyed with multiple visual enhancements and presentation styles. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection includes remarkably accurate filters that mimic the cathode-ray tube displays of gaming halls or household displays, or the greenscale screen of a portable gaming device. A notably appreciated element is the setting to activate gaming hall-style borders framing the gameplay, with the MK game of your choice faithfully and subtly duplicating against the artificial ebony plastic frames. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Bonus Elements

There are plenty of welcome features besides the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, including a music player that lets you revisit the tunes of various fighting releases without the din of combatants violently defeating each other. Additionally included are fighter biographies that include bios and the various bits of lore shown through arcade games' attract mode screens and final sequences.

Lost Media Recovery

One of the biggest highlights for committed franchise followers is the chance to experience a piece of "lost media" in the form of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This specific release, 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. This network version of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but provided the ability to compete against internet adversaries and included some minor glitch repairs and refinements. However, this network version never gained traction, in part