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Mortal Kombat retains many hidden mysteries and the ability to amaze, over three decades after its initial debut in gaming halls. This latest compilation covering the franchise's earliest days, featuring a quartet of arcade releases, multiple console adaptations, and related titles, transcends only a accurately simulated set of legendary games including less celebrated releases — it additionally serves as a detailed chronicle about the making of the legendary series.

Even as a lifelong enthusiast of the series who has carefully followed its creation and evolution, there was much to discover for me to understand and value about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to other retro collections from the creators at Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, section playable historical record. The collection includes emulated versions of the pioneering arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, along with home system and portable adaptations of some of those games. The collection even includes the series' ventures at spin-off titles, like action games Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — two of the franchise's most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a “best of” collection, but a study of the franchise's initial era, when the development team Midway and series co-creators the visionary developers were determining how to develop a battle series, produced using film material of real actors, through experimentation. 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 the franchise evolved from modest origins to a global sensation. It's truly remarkable to watch a handful of early video game creators, developing without clear direction or oversight, channel their pop-culture interests into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Educational Component

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of the combat franchise and the founders' vocational paths at the currently closed Midway. It subsequently demonstrates how the very same individuals addressed how to routinely one-up themselves, encountering significant demand to replicate their success. It serves as a compelling period piece composed of VHS tapes and traditional photos and pencil sketches, which showcase the DIY nature of Mortal Kombat's development and how personal recommendations helped disseminate its secrets and undisclosed elements of the series in its arcade heyday. Presented in manageable segments, it's thoroughly enjoyable collection of mini-documentaries that spans games, comics, films and even the comical physical events. The collection additionally features some unused moves and digital fighter representations among its archived development assets.

Playable Component

Distributed throughout the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are opportunities to engage with the actual titles. At certain intervals, audience members can jump into a game of Mortal Kombat or a console adaptation to reexperience its mechanics and visual presentation, emulated nearly perfectly on contemporary systems.

I dedicated most of my time experiencing the original arcade titles, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here stand the test of time, notably with local multiplayer matches. However, facing the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a demonstration of how basic and unbalanced the development approached in early Mortal Kombat games. CPU-controlled opponents clearly employ dishonest tactics or are otherwise dumb as rocks. Without having another person to compete with — network gaming is included in the majority of included games, but somewhat limited in options — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Visual Options

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the compilation, a combination of arcade, console, and handheld games, are faithfully recreated, though I detected a few small quirks — mainly control latency and intermittent errors, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are mostly shown in their original form, the creators has included some smart quality-of-life features and visual presentation options. As an illustration, you can choose to display fighter-specific techniques on-screen and select to activate unlimited duration to execute finishing moves. Additionally available are settings for accessing hidden fighters, without having to perform some esoteric trick to access them.

Visually, the games can be played with a variety of visual enhancements and presentation styles. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic effects that reproduce the cathode-ray tube displays of gaming halls or home televisions, or the limited color monitor of a Game Boy. A particularly nice touch is the option to have arcade-like bezels encircling the display, with the specific combat game you're playing accurately and softly reflecting against the artificial ebony plastic frames. It's very artistically charming.

Bonus Elements

The collection includes numerous nice touches beyond the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, featuring an audio component that lets you revisit the tunes of various fighting releases excluding the sounds of combatants violently defeating each other. Additionally included are fighter biographies that contain backgrounds and multiple story elements displayed via arcade games' attract mode screens and conclusions.

Lost Media Recovery

Among the most significant features for dedicated series enthusiasts is the chance to experience a segment of previously unavailable content in the form of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This version of the game, a somewhat revised iteration of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an pioneering effort from the developer at direct online competitive gaming in gaming halls. The online-enabled release of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but included the option to battle network competitors and included some minor error corrections and adjustments. But the Wavenet update never gained traction, in part