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This iconic fighting game continues to hold numerous undisclosed elements and the ability to amaze, more than 30 years after its initial debut in coin-op establishments. This latest compilation including the brand's formative years, featuring a quartet of arcade releases, several home system versions, and derivative games, is more than simply a faithfully reproduced series of classics including less celebrated releases — it additionally serves as a detailed chronicle about the creation of the iconic franchise.

Being a long-time enthusiast of the series who has paid close attention its development and progression, there was much to discover for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Defines the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to previous classic compilations from developer Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, section playable historical record. This compilation features simulated releases of the first arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, plus console and handheld ports of certain releases. The collection even includes the franchise's attempts at spinoffs, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection consequently doesn't represent a highlight reel anthology, but an exploration into the franchise's initial era, when developer Midway and brand founders Ed Boon and John Tobias were determining how to develop a battle series, created from video recordings of live performers, through experimentation. Viewing the historical footage — containing archival footage, contemporary discussions, and reproductions of classic advertisements, comics, and even company memos — it's remarkable to see how the series transformed from simple starts to a worldwide phenomenon. It's frankly astounding to observe several pioneering developers, operating with virtually no plan or supervision, direct their entertainment passions into creating a legendary video game series.

Documentary Portion

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of the fighting series and its creators' careers at the no-longer-operating Midway. It further illustrates how these identical developers contended with how to routinely one-up themselves, facing no small amount of stress to duplicate their success. It's a fascinating time capsule composed of VHS tapes and analog photographs and hand-drawn illustrations, which showcase the DIY nature of Mortal Kombat's development and how oral tradition helped spread its rumors and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat 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 even the comical physical events. The compilation also contains some unreleased actions and game character images among its cutting-room-floor content.

Interactive Experience

Placed within the five-segment historical film's chronology are opportunities to engage with the actual titles. During specific moments, audience members can jump into a combat game session or one of its home console ports to reexperience its mechanics and graphics, emulated nearly perfectly on contemporary systems.

I allocated the majority 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 direct competitive sessions. However, facing the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a demonstration of how basic and unjust the coding existed in the franchise's pioneering releases. CPU-controlled opponents blatantly cheat to win or are alternatively incredibly stupid. Without having a human opponent — online play is available in the majority of included games, but too light on features — the experience will be incomplete.

Visual Options

The two dozen available combat games in the compilation, a blend of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are precisely simulated, though I have noticed a few small quirks — mainly control latency and sporadic glitches, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are largely presented as-is, the development team has incorporated various clever user experience improvements and graphical adjustment settings. As an illustration, you can choose to display fighter-specific techniques on-screen and select to activate infinite time to complete lethal techniques. Also included are choices for unlocking secret characters, removing the requirement to complete obscure techniques to access them.

Graphically, the titles can be enjoyed with multiple visual enhancements and presentation styles. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection includes remarkably accurate options that simulate the cathode-ray tube displays of arcades or household displays, or the monochrome green display of a Nintendo handheld. A notably appreciated element is the setting to activate coin-op-inspired frames encircling the display, with your selected Mortal Kombat title faithfully and subtly duplicating against the faux black plastic borders. It's quite aesthetically pleasing.

Extra Content

The collection includes numerous nice touches beyond the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, featuring an audio component that lets you revisit the soundtracks of different Mortal Kombat games absent the noise of combatants violently defeating each other. Also present are character profiles that feature histories and numerous narrative components presented by arcade games' attract mode screens and conclusions.

Archival Discovery

Among the most significant features for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the opportunity to play a segment of previously unavailable content in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This particular edition, a somewhat revised iteration of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an pioneering effort from the developer at head-to-head network battles in arcades. This network version of the game is virtually identical to UMK3, but provided the ability to battle network competitors and included some minor bug fixes and balance. But the Wavenet update didn't find widespread adoption, in part