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This iconic fighting game still possesses its share of secrets and the power to astonish, more than 30 years after its first appearance in arcades. This latest compilation including the brand's formative years, comprising four arcade games, various home ports, and derivative games, goes beyond just a well-emulated collection of iconic titles along with lesser-known entries — it functions as a comprehensive historical account about the creation of the renowned brand.

Even as a lifelong devotee of the franchise who has carefully followed its origins and transformation, there was plenty new for me to discover and admire about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to other retro collections from the development team Digital Eclipse, part documentary, part playable archive. The anthology contains digitally recreated editions of the pioneering arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, plus console and handheld ports of some of those games. The anthology additionally contains the franchise's attempts at spinoffs, like action-oriented titles Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — some of the brand's most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection thus isn't a “best of” collection, but a study of Mortal Kombat's early days, when the creators at Midway and brand founders the creative duo behind the series were determining how to make a fighting game, produced using film material of real actors, as they went along. Watching the documentary — that features vintage recordings, new interviews, and reproductions of classic advertisements, comics, and including internal communications — it's astonishing to observe how the franchise evolved from simple starts to a global sensation. It's frankly astounding to watch a handful of young game developers, developing without clear direction or guidance, focus their cultural enthusiasms into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Historical Section

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of Mortal Kombat and its creators' careers at the no-longer-operating Midway. It then goes on to show how those same creators reckoned with how to regularly outdo their previous work, experiencing considerable stress to duplicate their achievements. It's a fascinating time capsule made from VHS tapes and traditional photos and hand-drawn illustrations, which reveal the self-made character of the franchise's production method and how oral tradition helped disseminate its secrets and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's thoroughly enjoyable set of brief historical films that spans games, comics, films and even the silly live-action tour. It also includes some never-implemented techniques and game character images among its previously unreleased material.

Playable Component

Placed within the five-part documentary's timeline are opportunities to engage with the actual titles. During specific moments, viewers can hop into a game of Mortal Kombat or one of its home console ports to rediscover its combat system and graphics, recreated with impressive accuracy on contemporary systems.

I spent the bulk of my time playing the arcade classics, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Many of the games here hold up, particularly during one-on-one local play. But playing against the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a reminder of how crude and unfair the coding existed in early Mortal Kombat games. Computer-directed fighters blatantly cheat to win or are alternatively incredibly stupid. If you don't have a human opponent — network gaming is included in numerous anthology releases, but rather basic in functionality — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Visual Options

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the collection, a mix of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are precisely simulated, though I have noticed a couple minor issues — mostly input lag and the occasional bug, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are largely presented as-is, the creators has included some smart convenience enhancements and display customization choices. For instance, you can choose to reveal combatant-unique actions on the display and choose to enable infinite time to execute finishing moves. There are also options for revealing concealed combatants, eliminating the need to execute obscure techniques to obtain them.

Visually, the games can be enjoyed with multiple filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection includes remarkably accurate filters that mimic the traditional television screens of gaming halls or domestic TVs, or the monochrome green display of a Nintendo handheld. A particularly nice touch is the setting to activate arcade-like bezels encircling the display, with the specific combat game you're playing accurately and softly reflecting against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Additional Features

The collection includes numerous welcome features besides the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, including a music player that enables players to reexperience the tunes of various fighting releases absent the noise of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. Also present are combatant descriptions that include bios and the various bits of lore presented by arcade games' attract mode screens and endings.

Archival Discovery

A particularly notable inclusion 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 specific release, a somewhat revised iteration of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an initial venture by the company at head-to-head network battles in gaming halls. The Wavenet Edition 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 didn't find widespread adoption, in part