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This iconic fighting game still possesses many hidden mysteries and the ability to amaze, over three decades after its first appearance in gaming halls. This latest compilation including the brand's formative years, featuring four arcade games, multiple console adaptations, and spinoffs, is more than simply a faithfully reproduced collection of iconic titles along with lesser-known entries — it functions as a detailed chronicle about the creation of the iconic franchise.

Even as a lifelong devotee of the franchise who has closely monitored its creation and evolution, there was numerous fresh aspects for me to discover and admire about the series.

What Constitutes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to previous classic compilations from developer Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, section playable historical record. This compilation features digitally recreated editions of the original 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 series' ventures at derivative games, like action-oriented titles Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — some of the brand's worst entries.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a greatest hits compilation, but an exploration into Mortal Kombat's early days, when developer Midway and series co-creators the visionary developers were figuring out how to develop a battle series, digitized from footage of real actors, as they went along. Watching the documentary — that features archival footage, contemporary discussions, and reproductions of classic advertisements, graphic novels, and including internal communications — it's incredible to witness how Mortal Kombat went from modest origins to a worldwide phenomenon. It's frankly astounding to watch a handful of young game developers, working with minimal planning or oversight, focus their cultural enthusiasms into creating a legendary video game series.

Documentary Portion

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of the combat franchise and its creators' careers at the currently closed Midway. It subsequently demonstrates how these identical developers addressed how to routinely one-up themselves, facing no small amount of stress to duplicate their triumphs. It represents an intriguing historical record made from video recordings and analog photographs and manual drawings, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of the series' creation process and how oral tradition helped spread its rumors and secrets of MK in its peak period in gaming halls. Presented in manageable segments, it's highly engaging set of brief historical films that spans games, comics, films and even the comical physical events. It also includes some unused moves and digital fighter representations among its archived development assets.

Interactive Experience

Interspersed along the five-segment historical film's chronology are prompts to play the original releases. At various points, audience members can jump into a game of Mortal Kombat or a console adaptation to revisit its gameplay and visual presentation, simulated with remarkable precision on contemporary systems.

I spent the bulk of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, specifically Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here stand the test of time, notably with one-on-one local play. Yet competing with the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a testament to how primitive and unbalanced the coding existed in early Mortal Kombat games. CPU-controlled opponents clearly employ dishonest tactics or are otherwise dumb as rocks. If you don't have another person to compete with — internet multiplayer exists in most titles in the collection, but somewhat limited in options — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Technical Presentation

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the collection, a mix of coin-op, home system, and portable titles, are faithfully recreated, though I detected a couple minor issues — mainly control latency and the occasional bug, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are primarily displayed authentically, the creators has added several intelligent user experience improvements and display customization choices. For instance, players have the option to reveal combatant-unique actions on the display and select to activate infinite time to perform a Fatality. Additionally available are settings for revealing concealed combatants, without having to perform obscure techniques to obtain them.

Artistically, the releases can be experienced with numerous graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic filters that mimic the traditional television screens of gaming halls or home televisions, or the greenscale screen of a Nintendo handheld. A particularly nice touch is the choice to enable gaming hall-style borders encircling the display, with the specific combat game you're playing precisely and gently mirroring against the artificial ebony plastic frames. It's quite aesthetically pleasing.

Extra Content

The collection includes numerous nice touches beyond the documentary and emulated arcade classics, containing a soundtrack mode that allows users to rediscover the soundtracks of different Mortal Kombat games absent the noise of combatants violently defeating each other. Additionally included are combatant descriptions that feature histories and numerous narrative components shown through the idle displays of gaming hall releases and final sequences.

Lost Media Recovery

A particularly notable inclusion for dedicated series enthusiasts is the ability to access a example of historically missing material in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This version of the game, a moderately improved edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an pioneering effort from the developer at direct online competitive gaming in gaming halls. This network version of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but featured the capability to compete against internet adversaries and contained several small glitch repairs and refinements. But the Wavenet update failed to achieve popularity, in part