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The Mortal Kombat series retains many hidden mysteries and the ability to amaze, more than 30 years after its first appearance in gaming halls. The recent anthology covering the series' initial period, which includes a quartet of arcade releases, various home ports, and related titles, transcends just a well-emulated set of legendary games along with lesser-known entries — it functions as a detailed chronicle about the creation of the renowned brand.

Even as a lifelong 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 Constitutes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to other vintage game anthologies from developer Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, part playable archive. The collection includes emulated versions of the pioneering arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, including television and mobile versions of some of those games. The anthology additionally contains the franchise's attempts at spinoffs, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection consequently doesn't represent a greatest hits compilation, but an examination of the series' formative period, when developer Midway and series co-creators Ed Boon and John Tobias were determining how to create a combat title, produced using film material of real actors, on the fly. Observing the archival material — which includes historical videos, new interviews, and digital copies of vintage posters, comics, and including internal communications — it's remarkable to see how Mortal Kombat went from modest origins to a worldwide phenomenon. It's frankly astounding to observe several early video game creators, working with minimal planning or guidance, channel their pop-culture interests into creating a legendary video game series.

Educational Component

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of Mortal Kombat and its creators' careers at the no-longer-operating Midway. It then goes on to show how those same creators reckoned with how to regularly outdo their previous work, experiencing considerable pressure to repeat their triumphs. It's a fascinating time capsule made from analog films and analog photographs and hand-drawn illustrations, which showcase the DIY nature of the franchise's production method and how word of mouth helped spread its rumors and undisclosed elements of the series in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's highly engaging series of documentary shorts that covers video games, graphic novels, movies and including the humorous real-world tour. The compilation also contains some unreleased actions and digital fighter representations among its cutting-room-floor content.

Playable Component

Interspersed along the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are prompts to play the games themselves. At various points, users can directly access 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, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here remain enjoyable, particularly during one-on-one local play. But playing against the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a demonstration of how basic and unbalanced the development approached in the franchise's pioneering releases. Computer-directed fighters clearly employ dishonest tactics 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.

Technical Presentation

The twenty-three accessible Mortal Kombat titles in the anthology, a mix of coin-op, home system, and portable titles, are precisely simulated, though I've observed a handful slight anomalies — mostly input lag and sporadic glitches, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. Even though the releases are largely presented as-is, developer Digital Eclipse has incorporated various clever convenience enhancements and display customization choices. For example, players have the option to display fighter-specific techniques on the display and opt to have endless periods to perform a Fatality. Also included are choices for unlocking secret characters, without having to perform obscure techniques to obtain them.

Visually, the games can be played with a variety of visual enhancements and presentation styles. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic filters that mimic the traditional television screens of arcades or domestic TVs, or the greenscale screen of a Nintendo handheld. An especially welcome feature is the choice to enable arcade-like bezels encircling the display, with your selected Mortal Kombat title precisely and gently mirroring against the faux black plastic borders. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Extra Content

There are plenty of welcome features besides the educational material and simulated classic games, featuring an audio component that allows users to rediscover the soundtracks of different Mortal Kombat games absent the noise of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. Also present are combatant descriptions that include bios and multiple story elements shown through arcade games' attract mode screens and final sequences.

Historical Preservation

One of the biggest highlights for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the ability to access a segment of previously unavailable content in the form of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This particular edition, a slightly updated version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an early attempt by Midway at one-on-one internet-based play in gaming halls. The Wavenet Edition of the game is virtually identical to UMK3, but provided the ability to compete against internet adversaries and included some minor error corrections and adjustments. But the Wavenet update failed to achieve popularity, in part