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This iconic fighting game retains its share of secrets and the capacity to surprise, over three decades after its initial debut in arcades. This latest compilation including the franchise's earliest days, which includes a quartet of arcade releases, various home ports, and spinoffs, is more than just a well-emulated series of classics along with lesser-known entries — it's also a detailed chronicle about the creation of the iconic franchise.

Even as a lifelong Mortal Kombat fan who has closely monitored its creation and evolution, there was plenty new for me to understand and value about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to other retro collections from the creators at Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, portion interactive museum. This compilation features digitally recreated editions of the pioneering 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 collection even includes the series' ventures at spin-off titles, like action games Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — two of the franchise's worst entries.

The Legacy Kollection consequently doesn't represent a “best of” collection, but an examination of the series' formative period, when the development team Midway and brand founders the visionary developers were figuring out how to create a combat title, created from video recordings of live performers, as they went along. Viewing the historical footage — that features historical videos, recent conversations, and reproductions of classic advertisements, comics, and even company memos — it's astonishing to observe how the franchise evolved from humble beginnings to a international craze. It's frankly astounding to watch a handful of pioneering developers, operating with virtually no plan or supervision, focus their cultural enthusiasms into establishing an enduring gaming brand.

Documentary Portion

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection documents the ascent of the combat franchise and the founders' vocational paths at the now-defunct Midway. It further illustrates how these identical developers addressed how to regularly outdo their previous work, encountering significant demand to replicate their achievements. It serves as a compelling period piece made from video recordings and film-based pictures and manual drawings, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of Mortal Kombat's development and how word of mouth helped spread its rumors and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its arcade heyday. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's thoroughly enjoyable series of documentary shorts that spans games, comics, films and even the silly live-action tour. The collection additionally features some never-implemented techniques and digital fighter representations among its archived development assets.

Interactive Experience

Placed within the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are invitations to experience the actual titles. During specific moments, audience members can jump into a combat game session or a home system version to revisit its gameplay and artistic style, emulated nearly perfectly on contemporary systems.

I dedicated most of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, specifically Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here hold up, notably with direct competitive sessions. However, facing the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a reminder of how crude and unfair the programming was in early Mortal Kombat games. CPU-controlled opponents obviously use unfair advantages or are alternatively incredibly stupid. Lacking another person to compete with — internet multiplayer exists in numerous anthology releases, but too light on features — the experience will be incomplete.

Display Features

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the compilation, a combination of arcade, console, and handheld games, are faithfully recreated, though I detected a couple minor issues — mainly control latency and the occasional bug, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are largely presented as-is, the development team has included some smart quality-of-life features and graphical adjustment settings. For instance, players have the option to display fighter-specific techniques during gameplay and opt to have endless periods to perform a Fatality. There are also options for revealing concealed combatants, eliminating the need to execute obscure techniques to access them.

Visually, the games can be played with a variety of graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection includes remarkably accurate effects that reproduce the traditional television screens of coin-op establishments or home televisions, or the monochrome green display of a portable gaming device. A notably appreciated element is the setting to activate coin-op-inspired frames encircling the display, with your selected Mortal Kombat title accurately and softly reflecting against the artificial ebony plastic frames. It's quite aesthetically pleasing.

Additional Features

The collection includes numerous welcome features besides the educational material and simulated classic games, featuring an audio component that enables players to reexperience the tunes of various Mortal Kombat games without the din of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. There are also character profiles that include bios and multiple story elements 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 example of historically missing material in the format of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This particular edition, a slightly updated version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an pioneering effort from the developer at head-to-head network battles in gaming halls. The online-enabled release of the game is virtually identical to UMK3, but provided the ability to compete against internet adversaries and featured various slight bug fixes and balance. But the Wavenet update didn't find widespread adoption, in part