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This iconic fighting game retains many hidden mysteries and the power to astonish, more than 30 years after its first appearance in gaming halls. A new collection spanning the series' initial period, which includes four arcade games, several home system versions, and related titles, goes beyond just a well-emulated series of classics and not-so-classics — it additionally serves as a comprehensive historical account about the making of the iconic franchise.

As a dedicated enthusiast of the series who has closely monitored its development and progression, there was plenty new for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like other vintage game anthologies from the creators at Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, section playable historical record. This compilation features emulated versions 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. This compilation also features the brand's experiments at spinoffs, like combat-focused releases 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 an exploration into the franchise's initial era, when the creators at Midway and series co-creators the visionary developers were figuring out how to create a combat title, digitized from footage of real actors, through experimentation. Viewing the historical footage — that features vintage recordings, contemporary discussions, and scans of old flyers, graphic novels, and including internal communications — it's astonishing to observe how Mortal Kombat went from simple starts to a global sensation. It's truly remarkable to observe several young game developers, operating with virtually no plan or supervision, focus their cultural enthusiasms into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Documentary Portion

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of the combat franchise and the founders' vocational paths at the now-defunct Midway. It then goes on to show how these identical developers addressed how to regularly outdo their previous work, experiencing considerable demand to replicate their achievements. It's a fascinating time capsule constructed using video recordings and film-based pictures and pencil sketches, which reveal the self-made character of the series' creation process and how word of mouth helped spread its rumors and undisclosed elements of the series in its arcade heyday. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's highly engaging collection of mini-documentaries that covers video games, graphic novels, movies and even the silly live-action tour. The compilation also contains some unreleased actions and character sprites among its previously unreleased material.

Interactive Gaming

Interspersed along the five-segment historical film's chronology are opportunities to engage with the original releases. At various points, users can directly access a game of Mortal Kombat or a console adaptation to rediscover its combat system and graphics, emulated nearly perfectly on contemporary systems.

I dedicated most of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here hold up, especially in direct competitive sessions. However, facing the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a testament to how primitive and unfair the coding existed in the franchise's pioneering releases. AI-managed characters clearly employ dishonest tactics or are otherwise dumb as rocks. Without having another person to compete with — network gaming is included in the majority of included games, but rather basic in functionality — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Technical Presentation

The two dozen available combat games in the collection, a blend of arcade, console, and handheld games, are accurately emulated, though I've observed a handful slight anomalies — primarily delayed responses and sporadic glitches, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are largely presented as-is, the development team has added several intelligent convenience enhancements and display customization choices. For instance, users can elect to show each character's special moves on-screen and opt to have endless periods to execute finishing moves. Also included are choices for revealing concealed combatants, removing the requirement to complete obscure techniques to unlock them.

Visually, the games can be played with a variety of filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic options that simulate the CRT monitors of gaming halls or household displays, or the limited color monitor of a Game Boy. A particularly nice touch is the option to have coin-op-inspired frames framing the gameplay, with your selected Mortal Kombat title accurately and softly reflecting against the faux black plastic borders. It's quite aesthetically pleasing.

Additional Features

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 fighting releases excluding the sounds of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. There are also character profiles that include bios and multiple story elements presented by the idle displays of gaming hall releases and final sequences.

Historical Preservation

A particularly notable inclusion for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the opportunity to play a example of historically missing material 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 one-on-one internet-based play in arcades. This network version of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but featured the capability to compete against internet adversaries and contained several small error corrections and adjustments. But the Wavenet update didn't find widespread adoption, in part