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Mortal Kombat retains its share of secrets and the capacity to surprise, well past its 30th anniversary after its initial debut in gaming halls. The recent anthology including the brand's formative years, which includes a quartet of arcade releases, several home system versions, and related titles, transcends only a accurately simulated set of legendary games including less celebrated releases — it functions as a comprehensive historical account about the development of the legendary series.

Even as a lifelong Mortal Kombat fan who has closely monitored its development and progression, there was much to discover for me to discover and admire about the series.

What Defines the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like other retro collections from the development team Digital Eclipse, part documentary, 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 certain releases. This compilation also features the franchise's attempts at spinoffs, like action-oriented titles Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — some of the brand's least successful installments.

The Legacy Kollection consequently doesn't represent a highlight reel anthology, but a study of Mortal Kombat's early days, when the creators at Midway and series co-creators Ed Boon and John Tobias were determining how to create a combat title, created from video recordings of actual people, through experimentation. Watching the documentary — which includes archival footage, new interviews, and digital copies of vintage posters, illustrated stories, and even interoffice faxes — it's incredible to witness how the series transformed from simple starts to a international craze. It's truly remarkable to see a group of young game developers, developing without clear direction or supervision, channel their pop-culture interests into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Educational Component

The documentary portion of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of the fighting series and its creators' careers at the currently closed Midway. It then goes on to show how those same creators reckoned with how to routinely one-up themselves, facing no small amount of demand to replicate their achievements. It's a fascinating time capsule made from analog films and film-based pictures and manual drawings, which reveal the self-made character of Mortal Kombat's development and how oral tradition helped spread its rumors and undisclosed elements of the series 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 even the comical physical events. The compilation also contains some unused moves and digital fighter representations among its cutting-room-floor content.

Interactive Gaming

Placed within the five-segment historical film's chronology are prompts to play the actual titles. At various points, viewers can hop into a Mortal Kombat title or a home system version to revisit its gameplay and visual presentation, recreated with impressive accuracy on modern hardware.

I dedicated most of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, especially Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here remain enjoyable, particularly during local multiplayer matches. But playing against the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a testament to how primitive and unjust the development approached in the series' initial installments. Computer-directed fighters obviously use unfair advantages or are alternatively incredibly stupid. Without having another person to compete with — internet multiplayer exists in numerous anthology releases, but too light on features — you'll be missing out.

Technical Presentation

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the compilation, a blend of coin-op, home system, and portable titles, are precisely simulated, though I have noticed a couple minor issues — primarily delayed responses and intermittent errors, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are mostly shown in their original form, developer Digital Eclipse has incorporated various clever user experience improvements and graphical adjustment settings. As an illustration, users can elect to show each character's special moves on the display and opt to have infinite time to complete lethal techniques. Additionally available are settings for accessing hidden fighters, without having to perform complicated methods to obtain them.

Artistically, the releases can be enjoyed with multiple filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection includes remarkably accurate options that simulate the cathode-ray tube displays of arcades or home televisions, or the limited color monitor of a Nintendo handheld. An especially welcome feature is the setting to activate arcade-like bezels surrounding the screen, with the MK game of your choice precisely and gently mirroring against the artificial ebony plastic frames. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Bonus Elements

The collection includes numerous appreciated elements beyond the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, featuring an audio component that enables players to reexperience the music from multiple combat titles absent the noise of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. Also present are combatant descriptions that include bios and the various bits of lore displayed via the demo sequences of coin-op titles and final sequences.

Historical Preservation

A particularly notable inclusion for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the ability to access a example of historically missing material in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This specific release, a moderately improved edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an initial venture by the company at direct online competitive gaming in gaming halls. The online-enabled release of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but provided the ability to compete against internet adversaries and contained several small bug fixes and balance. Yet this online edition never gained traction, in part