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This iconic fighting game still possesses its share of secrets and the capacity to surprise, over three decades after its original launch in arcades. The recent anthology including the brand's formative years, which includes four original arcade titles, multiple console adaptations, and derivative games, transcends just a well-emulated collection of iconic titles including less celebrated releases — it functions as a detailed chronicle about the creation of the iconic franchise.

As a dedicated enthusiast of the series who has closely monitored its development and progression, there was numerous fresh aspects for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to previous classic compilations from the creators at Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, portion interactive museum. This compilation features simulated releases of the pioneering arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, along with home system and portable adaptations of some of those games. The collection even includes the franchise's attempts at derivative games, like action games Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a “best of” collection, but an examination of Mortal Kombat's early days, when the development team Midway and franchise originators the visionary developers were determining how to create a combat title, produced using film material of real actors, on the fly. Observing the archival material — containing archival footage, recent conversations, and reproductions of classic advertisements, graphic novels, and even interoffice faxes — it's incredible to witness how Mortal Kombat went from simple starts to a worldwide phenomenon. It's truly remarkable to watch a handful of early video game creators, developing without clear direction or supervision, channel their pop-culture interests into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Documentary Portion

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of Mortal Kombat and the founders' vocational paths at the now-defunct Midway. It then goes on to show how these identical developers contended with how to routinely one-up themselves, experiencing considerable pressure to repeat their triumphs. It serves as a compelling period piece made from VHS tapes and analog photographs and pencil sketches, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of the franchise's production method and how personal recommendations helped disseminate its secrets and undisclosed elements of the series in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Presented in manageable segments, it's an eminently watchable set of brief historical films that spans games, comics, films and even the comical physical events. It also includes some unreleased actions and game character images among its previously unreleased material.

Interactive Experience

Interspersed along the five-segment historical film's chronology are prompts to play the games themselves. At certain intervals, audience members can jump into a game of Mortal Kombat or a home system version to revisit its gameplay and visual presentation, recreated with impressive accuracy on contemporary systems.

I dedicated most of my time experiencing the original arcade titles, specifically Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here hold up, particularly during one-on-one local play. However, facing the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a demonstration of how basic and unbalanced the coding existed in the franchise's pioneering releases. AI-managed characters blatantly cheat to win or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. Without having a human opponent — online play is available in the majority of included games, but too light on features — the experience will be incomplete.

Visual Options

The two dozen available combat games in the anthology, a blend of arcade, console, and handheld games, are precisely simulated, though I detected a couple minor issues — mostly input lag and sporadic glitches, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are primarily displayed authentically, the development team has added several intelligent quality-of-life features and display customization choices. For instance, users can elect to show each character's special moves during gameplay and opt to have unlimited duration to execute finishing moves. Also included are choices for accessing hidden fighters, without having to perform complicated methods to access them.

Graphically, the titles can be enjoyed with multiple filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic filters that mimic the CRT monitors of arcades or home televisions, or the monochrome green display of a portable gaming device. A particularly nice touch is the choice to enable arcade-like bezels encircling the display, with the specific combat game you're playing faithfully and subtly duplicating against the artificial ebony plastic frames. It's quite aesthetically pleasing.

Additional Features

Players will discover multiple nice touches beyond the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, featuring an audio component that lets you revisit the soundtracks of different Mortal Kombat games excluding the sounds of combatants violently defeating each other. There are also character profiles that include bios and numerous narrative components presented by the demo sequences of coin-op titles and conclusions.

Historical Preservation

One of the biggest highlights for committed franchise followers is the opportunity to play a piece of "lost media" in the form 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 arcades. This network version of the game is virtually identical to UMK3, but featured the capability to compete against internet adversaries and contained several small error corrections and adjustments. However, this network version failed to achieve popularity, in part