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This iconic fighting game still possesses its share of secrets and the power to astonish, more than 30 years after its initial debut in gaming halls. The recent anthology spanning the franchise's earliest days, featuring a quartet of arcade releases, multiple console adaptations, and spinoffs, goes beyond just a well-emulated collection of iconic titles along with lesser-known entries — it additionally serves as a rich documentary about the making of the renowned brand.

Even as a lifelong devotee of the franchise who has closely monitored its development and progression, there was plenty new for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Constitutes the Historical Compilation

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like other vintage game anthologies from developer Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, section playable historical record. This compilation features simulated releases of the pioneering 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 brand's experiments at spinoffs, like action-oriented titles Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection thus isn't a highlight reel anthology, but an exploration into the series' formative period, when the creators at Midway and series co-creators Ed Boon and John Tobias were determining how to develop a battle series, digitized from footage of real actors, on the fly. Observing the archival material — that features archival footage, new interviews, and scans of old flyers, illustrated stories, and even interoffice faxes — it's remarkable to see how the series transformed from modest origins to a international craze. It's genuinely amazing to see a group of young game developers, developing without clear direction or supervision, focus their cultural enthusiasms into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Educational Component

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of the combat franchise and the developers' professional journeys at the no-longer-operating Midway. It further illustrates how these identical developers addressed how to consistently surpass their achievements, experiencing considerable demand to replicate their achievements. It represents an intriguing historical record made from video recordings and traditional photos and hand-drawn illustrations, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of the series' creation process and how word of mouth helped spread its rumors and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its arcade heyday. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's highly engaging collection of mini-documentaries that includes titles, illustrated stories, cinematic adaptations and even the comical physical events. It also includes some unreleased actions and game character images among its cutting-room-floor content.

Interactive Experience

Distributed throughout the five-segment historical film's chronology are invitations to experience the games themselves. At certain intervals, viewers can hop into a game of Mortal Kombat or one of its home console ports to rediscover its combat system and artistic style, emulated nearly perfectly on modern hardware.

I spent the bulk of my time playing the arcade classics, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here stand the test of time, particularly during local multiplayer matches. However, facing the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a testament to how primitive and unfair the coding existed in early Mortal Kombat games. AI-managed characters obviously use unfair advantages or are alternatively incredibly stupid. Without having a human opponent — network gaming is included in numerous anthology releases, but rather basic in functionality — the experience will be incomplete.

Display Features

The twenty-three accessible Mortal Kombat titles in the compilation, a combination of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are precisely simulated, though I detected a couple minor issues — primarily delayed responses and the occasional bug, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. Even though the releases are mostly shown in their original form, developer Digital Eclipse has incorporated various clever convenience enhancements and graphical adjustment settings. For example, you can choose to reveal combatant-unique actions on the display and choose to enable infinite time to complete lethal techniques. Additionally available are settings for accessing hidden fighters, eliminating the need to execute complicated methods to unlock them.

Visually, the games can be played with a variety of filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic options that simulate the CRT monitors of gaming halls or domestic TVs, or the limited color monitor of a Nintendo handheld. A notably appreciated element is the option to have coin-op-inspired frames surrounding the screen, with the specific combat game you're playing precisely and gently mirroring against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Bonus Elements

Players will discover multiple welcome features besides the educational material and simulated classic games, including a music player that lets you revisit the tunes of various fighting releases absent the noise of combatants violently defeating each other. Also present are character profiles that include bios and multiple story elements shown through the idle displays of gaming hall releases and endings.

Lost Media Recovery

A particularly notable inclusion for dedicated series enthusiasts is the chance to experience a segment of previously unavailable content in the format 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 direct online competitive gaming in coin-op establishments. The online-enabled release of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but included the option to challenge online opponents and contained several small bug fixes and balance. But the Wavenet update failed to achieve popularity, in part