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This iconic fighting game continues to hold many hidden mysteries and the capacity to surprise, well past its 30th anniversary after its initial debut in gaming halls. This latest compilation covering the series' initial period, featuring four arcade games, several home system versions, and spinoffs, is more than only a accurately simulated series of classics including less celebrated releases — it's also a detailed chronicle about the creation of the renowned brand.

As a dedicated devotee of the franchise who has paid close attention its creation and evolution, there was plenty new for me to discover and admire about the series.

What Defines the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like previous classic compilations from the development team Digital Eclipse, part documentary, section playable historical record. This compilation features emulated versions of the first arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, including television and mobile versions of certain releases. The collection even includes the franchise's attempts at spin-off titles, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — two of the franchise's least successful installments.

The Legacy Kollection consequently doesn't represent a “best of” collection, but an exploration into the franchise's initial era, when the development team Midway and franchise originators the visionary developers were figuring out how to make a fighting game, created from video recordings of actual people, as they went along. Observing the archival material — which includes archival footage, contemporary discussions, and scans of old flyers, graphic novels, and even interoffice faxes — it's remarkable to see how the series transformed from humble beginnings to a international craze. It's genuinely amazing to see a group of young game developers, operating with virtually no plan or guidance, focus their cultural enthusiasms into creating a legendary video game series.

Historical Section

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection documents the ascent of the fighting series and its creators' careers at the no-longer-operating Midway. It subsequently demonstrates how these identical developers contended with how to routinely one-up themselves, experiencing considerable stress to duplicate their triumphs. It's a fascinating time capsule constructed using VHS tapes and traditional photos and manual drawings, which reveal the self-made character of the series' creation process and how personal recommendations helped circulate its mysteries and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its peak period in gaming halls. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's an eminently watchable set of brief historical films that spans games, comics, films and even the comical physical events. It also includes some unused moves and game character images among its cutting-room-floor content.

Interactive Experience

Interspersed along the five-segment historical film's chronology are invitations to experience the actual titles. At various points, viewers can hop into a game of Mortal Kombat or a console adaptation to rediscover its combat system and visual presentation, emulated nearly perfectly on contemporary systems.

I allocated the majority of my time experiencing the original arcade titles, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here hold up, especially in local multiplayer matches. However, facing the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a demonstration of how basic and unfair the development approached in the franchise's pioneering releases. CPU-controlled opponents blatantly cheat to win or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. Lacking a human opponent — online play is available in numerous anthology releases, but too light on features — you'll be missing out.

Visual Options

The twenty-three accessible Mortal Kombat titles in the compilation, a mix of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are precisely simulated, though I've observed a handful slight anomalies — mainly control latency and sporadic glitches, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are mostly shown in their original form, the development team has added several intelligent convenience enhancements and graphical adjustment settings. For instance, players have the option to show each character's special moves during gameplay and opt to have endless periods to perform a Fatality. Additionally available are settings for accessing hidden fighters, without having to perform obscure techniques to obtain them.

Visually, the games can be enjoyed with multiple filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection includes remarkably accurate options that simulate the CRT monitors of coin-op establishments or household displays, or the monochrome green display of a portable gaming device. An especially welcome feature is the option to have coin-op-inspired frames surrounding the screen, with the specific combat game you're playing faithfully and subtly duplicating against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's very artistically charming.

Additional Features

There are plenty of nice touches beyond the educational material and simulated classic games, including a music player that lets you revisit the music from multiple combat titles excluding the sounds of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. Additionally included are fighter biographies that include bios and numerous narrative components presented by the demo sequences of coin-op titles and endings.

Historical Preservation

One of the biggest highlights for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the ability to access a example of historically missing material in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This specific release, a slightly updated version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an early attempt by Midway at direct online competitive gaming in arcades. The online-enabled release of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but provided the ability to compete against internet adversaries and featured various slight glitch repairs and refinements. However, this network version failed to achieve popularity, in part