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This iconic fighting game 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 covering the brand's formative years, which includes four arcade games, multiple console adaptations, and related titles, is more than just a well-emulated collection of iconic titles and not-so-classics — it functions as a comprehensive historical account about the development of the legendary series.

As a dedicated Mortal Kombat fan who has paid close attention its development and progression, there was much to discover for me to discover and admire about the series.

What Constitutes the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to previous classic compilations from the creators at Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, portion interactive museum. The collection includes simulated releases of the original 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 anthology additionally contains the series' ventures at spin-off titles, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' least successful installments.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a highlight reel anthology, but an exploration into Mortal Kombat's early days, when the creators at Midway and brand founders the visionary developers were determining how to create a combat title, created from video recordings of live performers, through experimentation. Viewing the historical footage — which includes historical videos, contemporary discussions, and reproductions of classic advertisements, illustrated stories, and even interoffice faxes — it's astonishing to observe how Mortal Kombat went from humble beginnings to a global sensation. It's genuinely amazing to observe several pioneering developers, developing without clear direction or oversight, channel their pop-culture interests into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Documentary Portion

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of the combat franchise and its creators' careers at the currently closed Midway. It further illustrates how these identical developers addressed how to routinely one-up themselves, encountering significant stress to duplicate their success. It serves as a compelling period piece composed of analog films and film-based pictures and hand-drawn illustrations, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of the franchise's production method and how word of mouth helped disseminate its secrets and secrets of MK in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's an eminently watchable collection of mini-documentaries that spans games, comics, films and even the comical physical events. The collection additionally features some unreleased actions and game character images among its archived development assets.

Interactive Experience

Distributed throughout the five-segment historical film's chronology are opportunities to engage with the games themselves. At various points, audience members can jump into a game of Mortal Kombat or a home system version to reexperience its mechanics and visual presentation, recreated with impressive accuracy on contemporary systems.

I dedicated most of my time experiencing the original arcade titles, specifically Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Many of the games here remain enjoyable, especially in direct competitive sessions. However, facing the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a reminder of how crude and unfair the coding existed in the series' initial installments. Computer-directed fighters obviously use unfair advantages or are otherwise dumb as rocks. Without having another person to compete with — network gaming is included in numerous anthology releases, but rather basic in functionality — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Technical Presentation

The two dozen available combat games in the collection, a combination of arcade, console, and handheld games, are accurately emulated, though I've observed a couple minor issues — mainly control latency and intermittent errors, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are primarily displayed authentically, the creators has incorporated various clever convenience enhancements and visual presentation options. For instance, users can elect to display fighter-specific techniques on-screen and choose to enable infinite time to execute finishing moves. There are also options for accessing hidden fighters, eliminating the need to execute complicated methods to access them.

Visually, the games can be played with a variety of filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic options that simulate the cathode-ray tube displays of coin-op establishments or domestic TVs, or the monochrome green display of a Game Boy. A particularly nice touch is the setting to activate coin-op-inspired frames framing the gameplay, with the MK game of your choice precisely and gently mirroring against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's very artistically charming.

Extra Content

Players will discover multiple nice touches beyond the educational material and simulated classic games, including a music player that enables players to reexperience the soundtracks of different fighting releases without the din of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. Also present are character profiles that feature histories and numerous narrative components displayed via the idle displays of gaming hall releases and endings.

Historical Preservation

One of the biggest highlights for committed franchise followers is the ability to access a segment of previously unavailable content in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This version of the game, a somewhat revised iteration of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an initial venture by the company at one-on-one internet-based play in coin-op establishments. This network version of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but provided the ability to battle network competitors and featured various slight bug fixes and balance. However, this network version failed to achieve popularity, in part