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Mortal Kombat retains its share of secrets and the power to astonish, well past its 30th anniversary after its original launch in gaming halls. A new collection including the series' initial period, featuring four arcade games, multiple console adaptations, and spinoffs, is more than simply a faithfully reproduced set of legendary games including less celebrated releases — it additionally serves as a comprehensive historical account about the making of the legendary series.

As a dedicated enthusiast of the series who has closely monitored its origins and transformation, there was numerous fresh aspects for me to understand and value about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to other vintage game anthologies from the development team Digital Eclipse, part documentary, section playable historical record. This compilation features simulated releases of the original arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, including television and mobile versions of several of these titles. This compilation also features the franchise's attempts at spinoffs, like action games Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — two of the franchise's worst entries.

The Legacy Kollection thus isn't a greatest hits compilation, but a study of the franchise's initial era, when developer Midway and franchise originators the creative duo behind the series were figuring out how to make a fighting game, created from video recordings of actual people, as they went along. Observing the archival material — that features historical videos, contemporary discussions, and digital copies of vintage posters, comics, and even interoffice faxes — it's remarkable to see how the series transformed from simple starts to a global sensation. It's truly remarkable to watch a handful of young game developers, developing without clear direction or oversight, focus their cultural enthusiasms into creating a legendary video game series.

Historical Section

The documentary portion of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of the fighting series and its creators' careers at the now-defunct Midway. It subsequently demonstrates how those same creators addressed how to consistently surpass their achievements, encountering significant stress to duplicate their triumphs. It represents an intriguing historical record composed of analog films and traditional photos and manual drawings, which reveal the self-made character of the series' creation process and how oral tradition helped circulate its mysteries and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its peak period in gaming halls. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's highly engaging series of documentary shorts that spans games, comics, films and including the humorous real-world tour. It also includes some never-implemented techniques and digital fighter representations among its cutting-room-floor content.

Interactive Experience

Placed within the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are opportunities to engage with the games themselves. At certain intervals, users can directly access a combat game session or a home system version to revisit its gameplay and graphics, simulated with remarkable precision on contemporary systems.

I spent the bulk of my time playing the arcade classics, especially Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Many of the games here remain enjoyable, notably with direct competitive sessions. Yet competing with the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a reminder of how crude and unfair the programming was in early Mortal Kombat games. CPU-controlled opponents clearly employ dishonest tactics or are otherwise dumb as rocks. If you don't have a human opponent — internet multiplayer exists in the majority of included games, but somewhat limited in options — you'll be missing out.

Display Features

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the collection, a combination of coin-op, home system, and portable titles, are accurately emulated, though I've observed a couple minor issues — mainly control latency and intermittent errors, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are primarily displayed authentically, the creators has included some smart convenience enhancements and graphical adjustment settings. For example, users can elect to show each character's special moves on the display and select to activate infinite time to perform a Fatality. Also included are choices for unlocking secret characters, eliminating the need to execute obscure techniques to access them.

Graphically, the titles can be experienced with numerous filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic options that simulate the traditional television screens of gaming halls or home televisions, or the limited color monitor of a portable gaming device. A particularly nice touch is the choice to enable coin-op-inspired frames encircling the display, with the specific combat game you're playing faithfully and subtly duplicating against the faux black plastic borders. It's quite aesthetically pleasing.

Additional Features

Players will discover multiple appreciated elements beyond the educational material and simulated classic games, featuring an audio component that enables players to reexperience the music from multiple Mortal Kombat games without the din of combatants violently defeating each other. Additionally included are combatant descriptions that contain backgrounds and numerous narrative components presented by the demo sequences of coin-op titles and endings.

Archival Discovery

One of the biggest highlights for dedicated series enthusiasts is the chance to experience a example of historically missing material in the form of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This version of the game, a slightly updated version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an pioneering effort from the developer at head-to-head network battles in gaming halls. The online-enabled release of the game is virtually identical to UMK3, but included the option to compete against internet adversaries and featured various slight glitch repairs and refinements. However, this network version didn't find widespread adoption, in part