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This iconic fighting game still possesses numerous undisclosed elements and the capacity to surprise, over three decades after its original launch in arcades. A new collection including the brand's formative years, which includes a quartet of arcade releases, multiple console adaptations, and derivative games, goes beyond only a accurately simulated series of classics and not-so-classics — it additionally serves as a rich documentary about the creation of the iconic franchise.

Even as a lifelong Mortal Kombat fan who has paid close attention its development and progression, there was numerous fresh aspects for me to understand and value about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like other vintage game anthologies from the development team Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, part playable archive. The anthology contains simulated releases of the first 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 brand's experiments at spin-off titles, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' worst entries.

The Legacy Kollection thus isn't a greatest hits compilation, but a study of the franchise's initial era, when the development team Midway and franchise originators Ed Boon and John Tobias were figuring out how to create a combat title, digitized from footage of actual people, through experimentation. Watching the documentary — containing vintage recordings, contemporary discussions, and reproductions of classic advertisements, illustrated stories, and even interoffice faxes — it's incredible to witness how the franchise evolved from humble beginnings to a worldwide phenomenon. It's truly remarkable to observe several young game developers, developing without clear direction or guidance, channel their pop-culture interests into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Documentary Portion

The documentary portion of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection documents the ascent of the fighting series and the developers' professional journeys at the now-defunct Midway. It further illustrates how these identical developers addressed how to regularly outdo their previous work, facing no small amount of stress to duplicate their success. It represents an intriguing historical record made from analog films and traditional photos and pencil sketches, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of the series' creation process and how word of mouth helped disseminate its secrets and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its peak period in gaming halls. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's highly engaging series of documentary shorts that includes titles, illustrated stories, cinematic adaptations and even the silly live-action tour. It also includes some unreleased actions and character sprites among its previously unreleased material.

Playable Component

Interspersed along the five-part documentary's timeline are invitations to experience the games themselves. At various points, audience members can jump into a combat game session or one of its home console ports to reexperience its mechanics and visual presentation, 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. Numerous titles here remain enjoyable, especially in one-on-one local play. Yet competing with the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a demonstration of how basic and unbalanced the development approached in the series' initial installments. AI-managed characters clearly employ dishonest tactics or are otherwise dumb as rocks. Without having a human opponent — online play is available in numerous anthology releases, but too light on features — the experience will be incomplete.

Display Features

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the anthology, a mix of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are precisely simulated, though I have noticed a couple minor issues — mainly control latency and sporadic glitches, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. Even though the releases are largely presented as-is, developer Digital Eclipse has incorporated various clever user experience improvements and display customization choices. For example, you can choose to reveal combatant-unique actions on-screen and choose to enable infinite time to perform a Fatality. There are also options for revealing concealed combatants, removing the requirement to complete obscure techniques to obtain them.

Visually, the games can be played with a variety of filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection includes remarkably accurate effects that reproduce the CRT monitors of gaming halls or household displays, or the limited color monitor of a portable gaming device. A particularly nice touch is the setting to activate coin-op-inspired frames encircling the display, with your selected Mortal Kombat title faithfully and subtly duplicating against the artificial ebony plastic frames. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Additional Features

The collection includes numerous appreciated elements beyond the educational material and simulated classic games, featuring an audio component that lets you revisit the tunes of various combat titles absent the noise of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. There are also fighter biographies that feature histories and the various bits of lore displayed via the idle displays of gaming hall releases and conclusions.

Lost Media Recovery

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 specific release, a somewhat revised iteration of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an early attempt by Midway at one-on-one internet-based play in gaming halls. The online-enabled release of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but provided the ability to challenge online opponents and contained several small bug fixes and balance. But the Wavenet update didn't find widespread adoption, in part