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Mortal Kombat continues to hold many hidden mysteries and the ability to amaze, over three decades after its original launch in coin-op establishments. A new collection including the series' initial period, featuring four arcade games, multiple console adaptations, and spinoffs, is more than just a well-emulated set of legendary games along with lesser-known entries — it's also a comprehensive historical account about the creation of the legendary series.

As a dedicated enthusiast of the series who has carefully followed its creation and evolution, there was plenty new for me to understand and value about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to other vintage game anthologies from the development team Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, portion interactive museum. The anthology contains simulated releases of the original arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, plus console and handheld ports of several of these titles. 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 — some of the brand's worst entries.

The Legacy Kollection consequently doesn't represent a “best of” collection, but an exploration into the series' formative period, when developer Midway and brand founders the creative duo behind the series were discovering methods to create a combat title, created from video recordings of actual people, on the fly. Watching the documentary — containing vintage recordings, recent conversations, and reproductions of classic advertisements, graphic novels, and even interoffice faxes — it's incredible to witness how Mortal Kombat went from simple starts to a global sensation. It's genuinely amazing to watch a handful of young game developers, operating with virtually no plan or oversight, direct their entertainment passions into establishing an enduring gaming brand.

Documentary Portion

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of Mortal Kombat and the developers' professional journeys at the currently closed Midway. It then goes on to show how the very same individuals reckoned with how to regularly outdo their previous work, facing no small amount of stress to duplicate their success. It represents an intriguing historical record composed of analog films and traditional photos and hand-drawn illustrations, which reveal the self-made character of Mortal Kombat's development and how word of mouth helped circulate its mysteries and secrets of MK in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's thoroughly enjoyable set of brief historical films that includes titles, illustrated stories, cinematic adaptations and even the silly live-action tour. The compilation also contains some unreleased actions and game character images among its cutting-room-floor content.

Interactive Gaming

Interspersed along the five-segment historical film's chronology are invitations to experience the original releases. At various points, users can directly access a combat game session or a home system version to reexperience its mechanics and graphics, recreated with impressive accuracy on modern hardware.

I spent the bulk of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, specifically Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here stand the test of time, notably with one-on-one local play. However, facing the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a testament to how primitive and unjust the coding existed in the series' initial installments. CPU-controlled opponents blatantly cheat to win or are alternatively incredibly stupid. If you don't have another person to compete with — online play is available in numerous anthology releases, but too light on features — you'll be missing out.

Visual Options

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the compilation, a blend of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are precisely simulated, though I detected a few small quirks — primarily delayed responses and the occasional bug, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are primarily displayed authentically, the development team has added several intelligent quality-of-life features and display customization choices. As an illustration, players have the option to reveal combatant-unique actions during gameplay and opt to have infinite time to perform a Fatality. Additionally available are settings for revealing concealed combatants, eliminating the need to execute some esoteric trick to obtain them.

Artistically, the releases can be enjoyed with multiple filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic filters that mimic the traditional television screens of coin-op establishments or domestic TVs, or the monochrome green display of a portable gaming device. An especially welcome feature is the option to have coin-op-inspired frames surrounding the screen, with the MK game of your choice faithfully and subtly duplicating against the artificial ebony plastic frames. It's quite aesthetically pleasing.

Extra Content

Players will discover multiple appreciated elements beyond the documentary and emulated arcade classics, including a music player that enables players to reexperience the music from multiple fighting releases without the din of combatants violently defeating each other. Also present are combatant descriptions that include bios and numerous narrative components presented by the idle displays of gaming hall releases and endings.

Lost Media Recovery

One of the biggest highlights 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 specific release, a moderately improved edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an early attempt by Midway at direct online competitive gaming in gaming halls. The online-enabled release of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but featured the capability to battle network competitors and contained several small glitch repairs and refinements. But the Wavenet update didn't find widespread adoption, in part