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Mortal Kombat continues to hold its share of secrets and the power to astonish, over three decades after its first appearance in gaming halls. A new collection including the series' initial period, featuring four arcade games, several home system versions, and spinoffs, is more than only a accurately simulated collection of iconic titles and not-so-classics — it's also a comprehensive historical account about the creation of the renowned brand.

Even as a lifelong Mortal Kombat fan who has carefully followed its development and progression, there was numerous fresh aspects for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like other retro collections from the development team Digital Eclipse, part documentary, section playable historical record. The anthology contains digitally recreated editions of the first arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, along with home system and portable adaptations of several of these titles. The collection even includes the brand's experiments at spin-off titles, like action-oriented titles 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 highlight reel anthology, but an examination of the franchise's initial era, when developer Midway and series co-creators Ed Boon and John Tobias were figuring out how to create a combat title, created from video recordings of real actors, as they went along. Observing the archival material — containing vintage recordings, contemporary discussions, and scans of old flyers, illustrated stories, and even company memos — it's incredible to witness how the series transformed from humble beginnings to a international craze. It's frankly astounding to see a group of early video game creators, developing without clear direction or supervision, channel their pop-culture interests into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Documentary Portion

The documentary portion of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of the combat franchise and the founders' vocational paths at the no-longer-operating Midway. It further illustrates how those same creators reckoned with how to routinely one-up themselves, experiencing considerable stress to duplicate their achievements. It serves as a compelling period piece constructed using video recordings and traditional photos and hand-drawn illustrations, which showcase the DIY nature of the franchise's production method and how personal recommendations helped disseminate its secrets and secrets of MK in its peak period in gaming halls. Presented in manageable segments, it's thoroughly enjoyable series of documentary shorts that includes titles, illustrated stories, cinematic adaptations and including the humorous real-world tour. It also includes some unused moves and digital fighter representations among its cutting-room-floor content.

Interactive Experience

Interspersed along the five-part documentary's timeline are invitations to experience the original releases. At certain intervals, viewers can hop into a Mortal Kombat title or a home system version to revisit its gameplay and visual presentation, emulated nearly perfectly on modern hardware.

I spent the bulk of my time playing the arcade classics, especially Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here hold up, notably with direct competitive sessions. However, facing the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a testament to how primitive and unbalanced the development approached in early Mortal Kombat games. CPU-controlled opponents obviously use unfair advantages or are otherwise dumb as rocks. Lacking another person to compete with — internet multiplayer exists in numerous anthology releases, but somewhat limited in options — the experience will be incomplete.

Visual Options

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the anthology, a combination of coin-op, home system, and portable titles, are precisely simulated, though I've observed a few small quirks — primarily delayed responses and sporadic glitches, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are largely presented as-is, the development team has included some smart convenience enhancements and graphical adjustment settings. As an illustration, you can choose to show each character's special moves during gameplay and choose to enable infinite time to perform a Fatality. Additionally available are settings for unlocking secret characters, removing the requirement to complete some esoteric trick to obtain them.

Visually, the games can be experienced with numerous visual enhancements and presentation styles. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic options that simulate the traditional television screens of arcades or home televisions, or the monochrome green display of a portable gaming device. A particularly nice touch is the setting to activate gaming hall-style borders encircling the display, with the specific combat game you're playing faithfully and subtly duplicating against the faux black plastic borders. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Extra Content

The collection includes numerous welcome features besides the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, featuring an audio component that lets you revisit the music from multiple combat titles excluding the sounds of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. Also present are fighter biographies that feature histories and multiple story elements displayed via arcade games' attract mode screens and final sequences.

Archival Discovery

Among the most significant features for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the ability to access a piece of "lost media" in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This particular edition, a somewhat revised iteration of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an initial venture by the company at direct online competitive gaming in coin-op establishments. The online-enabled release of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but featured the capability to battle network competitors and contained several small error corrections and adjustments. Yet this online edition never gained traction, in part