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The Mortal Kombat series retains many hidden mysteries and the ability to amaze, over three decades after its initial debut in coin-op establishments. A new collection including the brand's formative years, which includes four original arcade titles, various home ports, and spinoffs, is more than only a accurately simulated series of classics including less celebrated releases — it additionally serves as a comprehensive historical account about the development of the legendary series.

As a dedicated Mortal Kombat fan who has paid close attention its development and progression, there was much to discover for me to discover and admire about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to other retro collections from the creators at Digital Eclipse, part documentary, portion interactive museum. The collection includes digitally recreated editions of the original arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, including television and mobile versions of certain releases. This compilation also features the franchise's attempts at spin-off titles, like action-oriented titles Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' least successful installments.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a highlight reel anthology, but a study of Mortal Kombat's early days, when the development team Midway and brand founders the visionary developers were discovering methods to make a fighting game, produced using film material of live performers, through experimentation. Watching the documentary — containing archival footage, recent conversations, and scans of old flyers, graphic novels, and even interoffice faxes — it's astonishing to observe how Mortal Kombat went from modest origins to a international craze. It's genuinely amazing to see a group of pioneering developers, operating with virtually no plan or guidance, channel their pop-culture interests into creating a legendary video game series.

Historical Section

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of the combat franchise and the founders' vocational paths at the no-longer-operating Midway. It subsequently demonstrates how these identical developers contended with how to regularly outdo their previous work, encountering significant pressure to repeat their triumphs. It serves as a compelling period piece made from video recordings and traditional photos and pencil sketches, which showcase the DIY nature of the series' creation process and how word of mouth helped disseminate its secrets and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its peak period in gaming halls. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's thoroughly enjoyable set of brief historical films that covers video games, graphic novels, movies and including the humorous real-world tour. It also includes some never-implemented techniques and digital fighter representations among its archived development assets.

Interactive Experience

Distributed throughout the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are prompts to play the games themselves. At certain intervals, viewers can hop into a game of Mortal Kombat or a console adaptation to revisit its gameplay and artistic style, recreated with impressive accuracy on modern hardware.

I allocated the majority of my time playing the arcade classics, especially Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here stand the test of time, notably with local multiplayer matches. Yet competing with the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a reminder of how crude and unbalanced the programming was in the series' initial installments. CPU-controlled opponents obviously use unfair advantages or are alternatively incredibly stupid. Without having a human opponent — network gaming is included in numerous anthology releases, but too light on features — you'll be missing out.

Visual Options

The two dozen available combat games in the anthology, a combination of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are precisely simulated, though I've observed a few small quirks — mainly control latency and the occasional bug, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. Even though the releases are mostly shown in their original form, the creators has incorporated various clever convenience enhancements and graphical adjustment settings. For example, players have the option to reveal combatant-unique actions during gameplay and choose to enable endless periods to perform a Fatality. Also included are choices for accessing hidden fighters, removing the requirement to complete obscure techniques to access them.

Graphically, the titles can be enjoyed with multiple graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic filters that mimic the cathode-ray tube displays of arcades or home televisions, or the limited color monitor of a Game Boy. An especially welcome feature is the option to have arcade-like bezels encircling the display, with the specific combat game you're playing precisely and gently mirroring against the faux black plastic borders. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Additional Features

Players will discover multiple appreciated elements beyond the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, containing a soundtrack mode that allows users to rediscover the soundtracks of different Mortal Kombat games without the din of combatants violently defeating each other. Additionally included are character profiles that feature histories and multiple story elements shown through the demo sequences of coin-op titles and conclusions.

Historical Preservation

One of the biggest highlights for dedicated series enthusiasts is the ability to access a piece of "lost media" in the format 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 almost exactly the same to UMK3, but included the option to battle network competitors and featured various slight glitch repairs and refinements. Yet this online edition never gained traction, in part