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The Mortal Kombat series still possesses its share of secrets and the power to astonish, well past its 30th anniversary after its first appearance in gaming halls. The recent anthology covering the brand's formative years, which includes four original arcade titles, several home system versions, and derivative games, transcends only a accurately simulated collection of iconic titles including less celebrated releases — it functions as a comprehensive historical account about the creation of the legendary series.

Even as a lifelong Mortal Kombat fan who has carefully followed its creation and evolution, there was numerous fresh aspects for me to discover and admire about the series.

What Constitutes the Historical Compilation

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to other vintage game anthologies from the creators at Digital Eclipse, part documentary, portion interactive museum. This compilation features digitally recreated editions of the pioneering arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, plus console and handheld ports of several of these titles. The collection even includes the series' ventures at spin-off titles, like action-oriented titles 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 series' formative period, when the creators at Midway and series co-creators Ed Boon and John Tobias were discovering methods to make a fighting game, produced using film material of live performers, as they went along. Watching the documentary — containing archival footage, recent conversations, and scans of old flyers, illustrated stories, and including internal communications — it's remarkable to see how the franchise evolved from modest origins to a international craze. It's frankly astounding to observe several young game developers, developing without clear direction or guidance, direct their entertainment passions into establishing an enduring gaming brand.

Educational Component

The documentary portion of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection documents the ascent of the combat franchise and the developers' professional journeys at the currently closed Midway. It then goes on to show how those same creators contended with how to regularly outdo their previous work, encountering significant pressure to repeat their success. It represents an intriguing historical record made from video recordings and film-based pictures and pencil sketches, which showcase the DIY nature of the series' creation process and how personal recommendations helped spread its rumors and secrets of MK in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's an eminently watchable collection of mini-documentaries that covers video games, graphic novels, movies and including the humorous real-world tour. The compilation also contains some unreleased actions and character sprites among its archived development assets.

Interactive Experience

Interspersed along the five-part documentary's timeline are invitations to experience the original releases. At certain intervals, viewers can hop into a combat game session or a home system version to reexperience its mechanics and visual presentation, emulated nearly perfectly on contemporary systems.

I allocated the majority of my time experiencing the original arcade titles, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here hold up, notably with local multiplayer matches. However, facing the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a testament to how primitive and unfair the development approached in early Mortal Kombat games. AI-managed characters clearly employ dishonest tactics or are otherwise dumb as rocks. Without having someone to play against — network gaming is included in most titles in the collection, but rather basic in functionality — you'll be missing out.

Display Features

The twenty-three accessible Mortal Kombat titles in the anthology, a combination of coin-op, home system, and portable titles, are faithfully recreated, though I detected a handful slight anomalies — mainly control latency and sporadic glitches, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are mostly shown in their original form, developer Digital Eclipse has incorporated various clever user experience improvements and display customization choices. For example, you can choose to show each character's special moves during gameplay and select to activate infinite time to complete lethal techniques. Also included are choices for accessing hidden fighters, removing the requirement to complete complicated methods to unlock them.

Graphically, the titles can be enjoyed with multiple graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection includes remarkably accurate options that simulate the traditional television screens of arcades or household displays, or the limited color monitor of a Nintendo handheld. A notably appreciated element is the option to have coin-op-inspired frames encircling the display, with the specific combat game you're playing precisely and gently mirroring against the artificial ebony plastic frames. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Extra Content

Players will discover multiple appreciated elements beyond the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, including a music player that allows users to rediscover the tunes of various combat titles absent the noise of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. There are also combatant descriptions that include bios and multiple story elements shown through arcade games' attract mode screens and conclusions.

Archival Discovery

Among the most significant features for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the opportunity to play a example of historically missing material in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This specific release, a somewhat revised iteration of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an pioneering effort from the developer at head-to-head network battles in coin-op establishments. The Wavenet Edition of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but provided the ability to compete against internet adversaries and featured various slight error corrections and adjustments. But the Wavenet update didn't find widespread adoption, in part