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This iconic fighting game retains its share of secrets and the capacity to surprise, well past its 30th anniversary after its initial debut in coin-op establishments. The recent anthology covering the brand's formative years, which includes four original arcade titles, various home ports, and related titles, is more than simply a faithfully reproduced series of classics along with lesser-known entries — it additionally serves as a rich documentary about the creation of the legendary series.

Being a long-time enthusiast of the series who has closely monitored its creation and evolution, there was plenty new for me to discover and admire about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like other vintage game anthologies from the creators at Digital Eclipse, part documentary, part playable archive. 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 spin-off titles, like action games Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — some of the brand's worst entries.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a “best of” collection, but an exploration into the franchise's initial era, when developer Midway and franchise originators Ed Boon and John Tobias were discovering methods to develop a battle series, digitized from footage of real actors, through experimentation. Observing the archival material — that features archival footage, recent conversations, and scans of old flyers, graphic novels, and including internal communications — it's astonishing to observe how the series transformed from simple starts to a international craze. It's genuinely amazing to see a group of pioneering developers, operating with virtually no plan or oversight, channel their pop-culture interests into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Documentary Portion

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection documents the ascent of the combat franchise and the developers' professional journeys at the currently closed Midway. It further illustrates how those same creators reckoned with how to consistently surpass their achievements, facing no small amount of stress to duplicate their achievements. It represents an intriguing historical record 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 circulate its mysteries and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's thoroughly enjoyable series of documentary shorts that covers video games, graphic novels, movies and even the silly live-action tour. The collection additionally features some unused moves and game character images among its previously unreleased material.

Interactive Experience

Placed within the five-segment historical film's chronology are invitations to experience the actual titles. During specific moments, users can directly access a combat game session or a home system version to reexperience its mechanics and artistic style, recreated with impressive accuracy on modern hardware.

I spent the bulk of my time playing the arcade classics, specifically Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Many of the games here remain enjoyable, notably with one-on-one local play. But playing against the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a testament to how primitive and unbalanced the coding existed in early Mortal Kombat games. AI-managed characters obviously use unfair advantages or are alternatively incredibly stupid. Without having someone to play against — internet multiplayer exists in the majority of included games, but rather basic in functionality — the experience will be incomplete.

Visual Options

The two dozen available combat games in the collection, a combination of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are precisely simulated, though I've observed a couple minor issues — primarily delayed responses and intermittent errors, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are mostly shown in their original form, developer Digital Eclipse has added several intelligent user experience improvements and graphical adjustment settings. For example, users can elect to reveal combatant-unique actions on-screen and choose to enable unlimited duration to complete lethal techniques. Additionally available are settings for accessing hidden fighters, eliminating the need to execute obscure techniques to unlock them.

Graphically, the titles can be played with a variety of graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic filters that mimic the traditional television screens of coin-op establishments or home televisions, or the monochrome green display of a Game Boy. A particularly nice touch is the option to have gaming hall-style borders framing the gameplay, with the MK game of your choice faithfully and subtly duplicating against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's very artistically charming.

Extra Content

Players will discover multiple appreciated elements beyond the educational material and simulated classic games, containing a soundtrack mode that enables players to reexperience the soundtracks of different combat titles absent the noise of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. Additionally included are combatant descriptions that include bios and numerous narrative components presented by the idle displays of gaming hall releases and endings.

Historical Preservation

One of the biggest highlights for dedicated series enthusiasts is the ability to access a example of historically missing material in the format of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This version of the game, 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 practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but provided the ability to battle network competitors and contained several small glitch repairs and refinements. However, this network version never gained traction, in part