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Mortal Kombat still possesses its share of secrets and the ability to amaze, over three decades after its first appearance in arcades. This latest compilation spanning the brand's formative years, which includes four original arcade titles, various home ports, and related titles, goes beyond simply a faithfully reproduced series of classics along with lesser-known entries — it's also a rich documentary about the development of the legendary series.

Being a long-time enthusiast of the series who has paid close attention its development and progression, there was numerous fresh aspects for me to discover and admire about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like previous classic compilations from the development team Digital Eclipse, part documentary, part playable archive. 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 some of those games. The collection even includes the brand's experiments at derivative games, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' least successful installments.

The Legacy Kollection thus isn't a “best of” collection, but an exploration into Mortal Kombat's early days, when developer Midway and brand founders the visionary developers were figuring out how to create a combat title, created from video recordings of real actors, through experimentation. Viewing the historical footage — that features archival footage, contemporary discussions, and digital copies of vintage posters, graphic novels, and even company memos — it's remarkable to see how Mortal Kombat went from simple starts to a international craze. It's truly remarkable to see a group of early video game creators, working with minimal planning or guidance, channel their pop-culture interests into creating a legendary video game series.

Educational Component

The documentary portion of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of Mortal Kombat and the developers' professional journeys at the currently closed Midway. It then goes on to show how these identical developers addressed how to regularly outdo their previous work, encountering significant stress to duplicate their achievements. It's a fascinating time capsule made from video recordings and traditional photos and pencil sketches, which reveal the self-made character of the franchise's production method and how word of mouth helped disseminate its secrets and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its peak period in gaming halls. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's highly engaging collection of mini-documentaries that spans games, comics, films and even the silly live-action tour. It also includes some unreleased actions and digital fighter representations among its cutting-room-floor content.

Interactive Gaming

Interspersed along the five-segment historical film's chronology are prompts to play the actual titles. At certain intervals, users can directly access a Mortal Kombat title or a home system version to reexperience its mechanics and visual presentation, simulated with remarkable precision on modern hardware.

I spent the bulk 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 direct competitive sessions. However, facing the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a testament to how primitive and unfair the programming was in the franchise's pioneering releases. AI-managed characters clearly employ dishonest tactics or are otherwise dumb as rocks. Without having someone to play against — internet multiplayer exists in most titles in the collection, but rather basic in functionality — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Display Features

The twenty-three accessible Mortal Kombat titles in the compilation, a blend of arcade, console, and handheld games, are precisely simulated, though I have noticed a handful slight anomalies — primarily delayed responses and the occasional bug, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are primarily displayed authentically, the development team has incorporated various clever convenience enhancements and visual presentation options. As an illustration, users can elect to reveal combatant-unique actions on the display and opt to have endless periods to execute finishing moves. Also included are choices for revealing concealed combatants, eliminating the need to execute complicated methods to unlock them.

Artistically, the releases can be enjoyed with multiple visual enhancements and presentation styles. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic filters that mimic the CRT monitors of gaming halls or domestic TVs, or the limited color monitor of a Game Boy. A particularly nice touch is the choice to enable gaming hall-style borders framing the gameplay, with the MK game of your choice accurately and softly reflecting against the artificial ebony plastic frames. It's quite aesthetically pleasing.

Bonus Elements

There are plenty of nice touches beyond the documentary and emulated arcade classics, containing a soundtrack mode that enables players to reexperience the soundtracks of different combat titles absent the noise of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. There are also character profiles that feature histories and the various bits of lore displayed via the demo sequences of coin-op titles and endings.

Historical Preservation

One of the biggest highlights for dedicated series enthusiasts is the opportunity to play a piece of "lost media" in the form of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This particular edition, a somewhat revised iteration of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an early attempt by Midway at head-to-head network battles in gaming halls. This network version of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but provided the ability to compete against internet adversaries and included some minor bug fixes and balance. However, this network version failed to achieve popularity, in part