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This iconic fighting game continues to hold numerous undisclosed elements and the power to astonish, more than 30 years after its first appearance in coin-op establishments. The recent anthology including the brand's formative years, comprising four arcade games, several home system versions, and spinoffs, goes beyond simply a faithfully reproduced set of legendary games including less celebrated releases — it's also a comprehensive historical account about the development of the iconic franchise.

Even as a lifelong devotee of the franchise who has paid close attention its development and progression, there was much to discover for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Constitutes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to other vintage game anthologies from developer Digital Eclipse, part documentary, part playable archive. The anthology contains emulated versions 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 series' ventures at spinoffs, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — some of the brand's most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection thus isn't a highlight reel anthology, but an exploration into Mortal Kombat's early days, when the development team Midway and franchise originators the creative duo behind the series were figuring out how to make a fighting game, produced using film material of real actors, as they went along. Viewing the historical footage — containing historical videos, recent conversations, and reproductions of classic advertisements, graphic novels, and including internal communications — it's remarkable to see how the series transformed from modest origins to a worldwide phenomenon. It's truly remarkable to watch a handful of early video game creators, developing without clear direction or supervision, direct their entertainment passions into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Educational Component

The documentary portion of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of Mortal Kombat and its creators' careers at the now-defunct Midway. It then goes on to show how these identical developers addressed how to consistently surpass their achievements, encountering significant demand to replicate their achievements. It's a fascinating time capsule made from VHS tapes and film-based pictures and pencil sketches, which showcase the DIY nature of the franchise's production method and how oral tradition helped disseminate its secrets and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's thoroughly enjoyable collection of mini-documentaries that includes titles, illustrated stories, cinematic adaptations and including the humorous real-world tour. The compilation also contains some never-implemented techniques and game character images among its archived development assets.

Interactive Gaming

Distributed throughout the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are prompts to play the actual titles. During specific moments, audience members can jump into a Mortal Kombat title or a home system version to revisit its gameplay and visual presentation, emulated nearly perfectly on contemporary systems.

I allocated the majority of my time playing the arcade classics, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here hold up, especially in one-on-one local play. But playing against the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a reminder of how crude and unfair the development approached in the franchise's pioneering releases. AI-managed characters blatantly cheat to win or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. Lacking someone to play against — online play is available in most titles in the collection, but rather basic in functionality — you'll be missing out.

Display Features

The two dozen available combat games in the compilation, a blend of arcade, console, and handheld games, are faithfully recreated, though I have noticed a few small quirks — mainly control latency and intermittent errors, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. Even though the releases are mostly shown in their original form, the creators has added several intelligent user experience improvements and graphical adjustment settings. For example, users can elect to display fighter-specific techniques during gameplay and opt to have unlimited duration to complete lethal techniques. Also included are choices for accessing hidden fighters, removing the requirement to complete some esoteric trick to unlock them.

Artistically, the releases can be played with a variety of filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection includes remarkably accurate filters that mimic the cathode-ray tube displays of coin-op establishments or household displays, or the limited color monitor of a portable gaming device. An especially welcome feature is the setting to activate coin-op-inspired frames encircling the display, with the specific combat game you're playing accurately and softly reflecting against the artificial ebony plastic frames. It's very artistically charming.

Additional Features

Players will discover multiple nice touches beyond the documentary and emulated arcade classics, containing a soundtrack mode that lets you revisit the soundtracks of different fighting releases absent the noise of combatants violently defeating each other. Also present are character profiles that include bios and the various bits of lore displayed via the idle displays of gaming hall releases and conclusions.

Lost Media Recovery

One of the biggest highlights for dedicated series enthusiasts is the chance to experience a segment of previously unavailable content in the form of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This specific release, a slightly updated version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an pioneering effort from the developer 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 contained several small error corrections and adjustments. But the Wavenet update failed to achieve popularity, in part