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Mortal Kombat continues to hold many hidden mysteries and the capacity to surprise, more than 30 years after its initial debut in gaming halls. A new collection spanning the brand's formative years, which includes four arcade games, various home ports, and derivative games, transcends simply a faithfully reproduced collection of iconic titles and not-so-classics — it functions as a comprehensive historical account about the development of the legendary series.

As a dedicated enthusiast of the series who has paid close attention its origins and transformation, there was plenty new for me to understand and value about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like other retro collections from the development team Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, part playable archive. The anthology contains simulated releases of the original arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, along with home system and portable adaptations of several of these titles. The anthology additionally contains the brand's experiments at spinoffs, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — two of the franchise's worst entries.

The Legacy Kollection consequently doesn't represent a greatest hits compilation, but an examination of the series' formative period, when the development team Midway and franchise originators the visionary developers were determining how to create a combat title, digitized from footage of actual people, through experimentation. Watching the documentary — that features archival footage, contemporary discussions, and digital copies of vintage posters, illustrated stories, and even interoffice faxes — it's remarkable to see how the series transformed from simple starts to a global sensation. It's frankly astounding to see a group of early video game creators, developing without clear direction or guidance, channel their pop-culture interests into establishing an enduring gaming brand.

Educational Component

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 then goes on to show how these identical developers addressed how to regularly outdo their previous work, experiencing considerable demand to replicate their triumphs. It serves as a compelling period piece constructed using analog films and film-based pictures and manual drawings, which reveal the self-made character of Mortal Kombat's development and how word of mouth helped spread its rumors and undisclosed elements of the series in its arcade heyday. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's an eminently watchable set of brief historical films that spans games, comics, films and even the silly live-action tour. The compilation also contains some unused moves and digital fighter representations among its previously unreleased material.

Interactive Experience

Placed within the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are prompts to play the actual titles. At various points, viewers can hop into a Mortal Kombat title or one of its home console ports to rediscover its combat system and visual presentation, simulated with remarkable precision on modern hardware.

I allocated the majority of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, especially Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here remain enjoyable, notably with one-on-one local play. But playing against the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a reminder of how crude and unfair the development approached in the franchise's pioneering releases. CPU-controlled opponents clearly employ dishonest tactics or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. If you don't have someone to play against — online play is available in most titles in the collection, but somewhat limited in options — the experience will be incomplete.

Display Features

The twenty-three accessible Mortal Kombat titles in the collection, a combination of arcade, console, and handheld games, are precisely simulated, though I detected a few small quirks — mainly control latency and the occasional bug, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are largely presented as-is, developer Digital Eclipse has included some smart quality-of-life features and graphical adjustment settings. For instance, players have the option to display fighter-specific techniques on the display and select to activate infinite time to perform a Fatality. Additionally available are settings for revealing concealed combatants, eliminating the need to execute obscure techniques to unlock them.

Graphically, the titles can be played with a variety of visual enhancements and presentation styles. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection includes remarkably accurate options that simulate the cathode-ray tube displays of coin-op establishments or domestic TVs, or the greenscale screen of a Nintendo handheld. A notably appreciated element is the choice to enable coin-op-inspired frames framing the gameplay, with the MK game of your choice precisely and gently mirroring against the artificial ebony plastic frames. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Extra Content

Players will discover multiple welcome features besides the documentary and emulated arcade classics, containing a soundtrack mode that enables players to reexperience the soundtracks of different fighting releases without the din of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. There are also combatant descriptions that include bios and multiple story elements shown through the idle displays of gaming hall releases and final sequences.

Historical Preservation

Among the most significant features for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the ability to access a segment of previously unavailable content 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 early attempt by Midway 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 contained several small bug fixes and balance. However, this network version never gained traction, in part