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This iconic fighting game retains numerous undisclosed elements and the ability to amaze, well past its 30th anniversary after its first appearance in arcades. A new collection covering the series' initial period, which includes four original arcade titles, several home system versions, and derivative games, goes beyond only a accurately simulated set of legendary games including less celebrated releases — it's also a detailed chronicle about the creation of the iconic franchise.

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

What Makes the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to other retro collections from the creators at Digital Eclipse, part documentary, part playable archive. The collection includes simulated releases 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 franchise's attempts at derivative games, 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 an examination of the series' formative period, when developer Midway and brand founders the visionary developers were discovering methods to create a combat title, produced using film material of real actors, as they went along. Observing the archival material — which includes historical videos, contemporary discussions, and digital copies of vintage posters, illustrated stories, and even company memos — it's astonishing to observe how Mortal Kombat went from humble beginnings to a international craze. It's truly remarkable to observe several pioneering developers, operating with virtually no plan or oversight, focus their cultural enthusiasms into establishing an enduring gaming brand.

Educational Component

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection documents the ascent of Mortal Kombat and the developers' professional journeys at the no-longer-operating Midway. It further illustrates how these identical developers contended with how to routinely one-up themselves, encountering significant demand to replicate their achievements. It serves as a compelling period piece made from analog films and analog photographs and pencil sketches, which reveal the self-made character of the franchise's production method and how oral tradition helped disseminate its secrets and undisclosed elements of the series in its peak period in gaming halls. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's highly engaging series of documentary shorts that includes titles, illustrated stories, cinematic adaptations and even the comical physical events. The compilation also contains some never-implemented techniques and digital fighter representations among its previously unreleased material.

Interactive Gaming

Placed within the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are opportunities to engage with the original releases. At various points, users can directly access a Mortal Kombat title or one of its home console ports to reexperience its mechanics and visual presentation, recreated with impressive accuracy on contemporary systems.

I spent the bulk of my time experiencing the original arcade titles, specifically Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Many of the games here remain enjoyable, especially in one-on-one local play. However, facing the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a demonstration of how basic and unjust the coding existed in early Mortal Kombat games. CPU-controlled opponents blatantly cheat to win or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. If you don't have another person to compete with — network gaming is included in most titles in the collection, but too light on features — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Technical Presentation

The two dozen available combat games in the collection, a mix of arcade, console, and handheld games, are faithfully recreated, though I have noticed a couple minor issues — primarily delayed responses and sporadic glitches, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are mostly shown in their original form, the creators has incorporated various clever convenience enhancements and display customization choices. As an illustration, players have the option to display fighter-specific techniques on-screen and opt to have unlimited duration to execute finishing moves. There are also options for revealing concealed combatants, eliminating the need to execute complicated methods 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 filters that mimic the cathode-ray tube displays of coin-op establishments or home televisions, or the monochrome green display of a portable gaming device. An especially welcome feature is the option to have coin-op-inspired frames encircling the display, with the specific combat game you're playing faithfully and subtly duplicating against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's very artistically charming.

Extra Content

There are plenty of appreciated elements beyond the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, featuring an audio component that allows users to rediscover the tunes of various fighting releases absent the noise of combatants violently defeating each other. There are also combatant descriptions that feature histories and numerous narrative components shown through the idle displays of gaming hall releases and final sequences.

Archival Discovery

One of the biggest highlights for dedicated series enthusiasts is the chance to experience a example of historically missing material in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This version of the game, a slightly updated version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an pioneering effort from the developer at head-to-head network battles in arcades. The online-enabled release of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but featured the capability to challenge online opponents and featured various slight error corrections and adjustments. But the Wavenet update didn't find widespread adoption, in part