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This iconic fighting game retains many hidden mysteries and the power to astonish, well past its 30th anniversary after its first appearance in arcades. The recent anthology including the series' initial period, comprising a quartet of arcade releases, various home ports, and related titles, transcends simply a faithfully reproduced set of legendary games and not-so-classics — it's also a detailed chronicle about the development of the iconic franchise.

Being a long-time enthusiast of the series who has carefully followed its origins and transformation, there was numerous fresh aspects for me to understand and value about the series.

What Defines the Historical Compilation

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like other vintage game anthologies from the creators at Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, portion interactive museum. The collection includes simulated releases of the original arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, plus console and handheld ports of some of those games. The collection even includes the series' ventures at spinoffs, like action games Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — some of the brand's worst entries.

The Legacy Kollection thus isn't a greatest hits compilation, but an examination of Mortal Kombat's early days, when the creators at Midway and series co-creators the creative duo behind the series were determining how to make a fighting game, produced using film material of real actors, through experimentation. Observing the archival material — containing historical videos, new interviews, and scans of old flyers, illustrated stories, and even company memos — it's astonishing to observe how Mortal Kombat went from simple starts to a global sensation. It's frankly astounding to see a group of young game developers, developing without clear direction or guidance, channel their pop-culture interests into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Historical Section

The documentary portion of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of the combat franchise and the founders' vocational paths at the now-defunct Midway. It further illustrates how the very same individuals contended with how to routinely one-up themselves, encountering significant stress to duplicate their triumphs. It's a fascinating time capsule made from VHS tapes and analog photographs and manual drawings, which reveal the self-made character of Mortal Kombat's development and how personal recommendations helped circulate its mysteries and undisclosed elements of the series in its peak period in gaming halls. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's highly engaging series of documentary shorts that includes titles, illustrated stories, cinematic adaptations and including the humorous real-world tour. It also includes some unreleased actions and character sprites among its previously unreleased material.

Interactive Experience

Interspersed along the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are prompts to play the games themselves. During specific moments, audience members can jump into a Mortal Kombat title or a console adaptation to rediscover its combat system and artistic style, simulated with remarkable precision on modern hardware.

I allocated the majority of my time experiencing the original arcade titles, specifically Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Many of the games here hold up, particularly during direct competitive sessions. But playing against the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a demonstration of how basic and unfair the coding existed in the series' initial installments. CPU-controlled opponents blatantly cheat to win or are alternatively incredibly stupid. If you don't have someone to play against — network gaming is included in the majority of included games, but rather basic in functionality — the experience will be incomplete.

Visual Options

The two dozen available combat games in the anthology, a mix of arcade, console, and handheld games, are accurately emulated, though I detected a few small quirks — mostly input lag and intermittent errors, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. Even though the releases are mostly shown in their original form, the development team has added several intelligent convenience enhancements and display customization choices. For instance, users can elect to reveal combatant-unique actions on-screen and select to activate endless periods 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 filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic filters that mimic the cathode-ray tube displays of arcades or domestic TVs, or the limited color monitor of a Nintendo handheld. An especially welcome feature is the setting to activate arcade-like bezels encircling the display, with the MK game of your choice faithfully and subtly duplicating against the simulated dark plastic edges. 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 Mortal Kombat games without the din of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. Also present are combatant descriptions that include bios and the various bits of lore shown through the demo sequences of coin-op titles and final sequences.

Historical Preservation

A particularly notable inclusion for committed franchise followers is the opportunity to play a segment of previously unavailable content in the form of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This version of the game, a moderately improved edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an initial venture by the company at direct online competitive gaming in coin-op establishments. The Wavenet Edition of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but featured the capability to challenge online opponents and included some minor error corrections and adjustments. But the Wavenet update didn't find widespread adoption, in part