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Mortal Kombat continues to hold numerous undisclosed elements and the ability to amaze, over three decades after its original launch in arcades. This latest compilation covering the brand's formative years, comprising a quartet of arcade releases, several home system versions, and related titles, is more than only a accurately simulated series of classics including less celebrated releases — it functions as a comprehensive historical account about the development of the legendary series.

As a dedicated devotee of the franchise who has carefully followed its creation and evolution, there was much to discover for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Constitutes 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. This compilation features digitally recreated editions 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 anthology additionally contains the franchise's attempts at spinoffs, like action games Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' worst entries.

The Legacy Kollection consequently doesn't represent a “best of” collection, but a study of the franchise's initial era, when the creators at Midway and franchise originators the visionary developers were determining how to make a fighting game, created from video recordings of actual people, as they went along. Watching the documentary — that features historical videos, new interviews, and digital copies of vintage posters, graphic novels, and even company memos — it's incredible to witness how Mortal Kombat went from simple starts to a worldwide phenomenon. It's frankly astounding to watch a handful of pioneering developers, working with minimal planning or oversight, channel their pop-culture interests into establishing an enduring gaming brand.

Educational Component

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of the combat franchise and its creators' careers at the now-defunct Midway. It then goes on to show how these identical developers contended with how to consistently surpass their achievements, experiencing considerable demand to replicate their triumphs. It's a fascinating time capsule constructed using video recordings and analog photographs and manual drawings, which showcase the DIY nature of Mortal Kombat's development and how personal recommendations helped spread its rumors and undisclosed elements of the series in its peak period in gaming halls. Presented in manageable segments, it's an eminently watchable series of documentary shorts that covers video games, graphic novels, movies and including the humorous real-world tour. The compilation also contains some unused moves and digital fighter representations among its archived development assets.

Interactive Experience

Interspersed along the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are prompts to play the games themselves. At various points, audience members can jump into a game of Mortal Kombat or a home system version to reexperience its mechanics and artistic style, simulated with remarkable precision on current technology.

I allocated the majority of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here stand the test of time, particularly during one-on-one local play. But playing against the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a reminder of how crude and unjust the coding existed in the series' initial installments. AI-managed characters obviously use unfair advantages or are alternatively incredibly stupid. If you don't have another person to compete with — online play is available in the majority of included games, but somewhat limited in options — the experience will be incomplete.

Visual Options

The twenty-three accessible Mortal Kombat titles in the compilation, a combination of arcade, console, and handheld games, are faithfully recreated, though I have noticed a few small quirks — mostly input lag and intermittent errors, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are mostly shown in their original form, developer Digital Eclipse has added several intelligent user experience improvements and visual presentation options. For example, you can choose to reveal combatant-unique actions on-screen and opt to have infinite time to execute finishing moves. Additionally available are settings for accessing hidden fighters, removing the requirement to complete obscure techniques to access them.

Graphically, the titles can be enjoyed with multiple visual enhancements and presentation styles. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic filters that mimic the CRT monitors of arcades or home televisions, or the monochrome green display of a Nintendo handheld. A particularly nice touch is the choice to enable arcade-like bezels framing the gameplay, with your selected Mortal Kombat title faithfully and subtly duplicating against the faux black plastic borders. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Additional Features

There are plenty of nice touches beyond the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, containing a soundtrack mode that lets you revisit the soundtracks of different fighting releases without the din of combatants violently defeating each other. Additionally included are character profiles that contain backgrounds and numerous narrative components presented by arcade games' attract mode screens and endings.

Historical Preservation

Among the most significant features for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the ability to access a piece of "lost media" in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This particular edition, a somewhat revised iteration of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an initial venture by the company at head-to-head network battles in coin-op establishments. This network version of the game is virtually identical to UMK3, but provided the ability to challenge online opponents and included some minor glitch repairs and refinements. However, this network version failed to achieve popularity, in part