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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 arcades. This latest compilation including the brand's formative years, comprising a quartet of arcade releases, multiple console adaptations, and derivative games, goes beyond simply a faithfully reproduced set of legendary games along with lesser-known entries — it functions as a comprehensive historical account about the making of the renowned brand.

Being a long-time enthusiast of the series who has paid close attention its creation and evolution, there was numerous fresh aspects for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to other retro collections from developer Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, section playable historical record. 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 brand's experiments at spinoffs, like action games Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' worst entries.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a greatest hits compilation, but an examination of the series' formative period, when the development team Midway and franchise originators Ed Boon and John Tobias were determining how to create a combat title, digitized from footage of real actors, through experimentation. Viewing the historical footage — which includes vintage recordings, contemporary discussions, and reproductions of classic advertisements, illustrated stories, and including internal communications — it's astonishing to observe how Mortal Kombat went from modest origins to a international craze. It's truly remarkable to watch a handful of early video game creators, working with minimal planning or supervision, direct their entertainment passions into creating a legendary video game series.

Educational Component

The documentary portion of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of the combat franchise and the founders' vocational paths at the no-longer-operating Midway. It further illustrates how these identical developers reckoned with how to consistently surpass their achievements, experiencing considerable demand to replicate their success. It's a fascinating time capsule constructed using video recordings and film-based pictures and pencil sketches, which reveal the self-made character of Mortal Kombat's development and how word of mouth helped circulate its mysteries and undisclosed elements of the series in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's thoroughly enjoyable series of documentary shorts that includes titles, illustrated stories, cinematic adaptations and even the silly live-action tour. The collection additionally features some unused moves and digital fighter representations among its cutting-room-floor content.

Interactive Gaming

Interspersed along the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are opportunities to engage with the actual titles. At certain intervals, users can directly access a combat game session or one of its home console ports to rediscover its combat system and graphics, recreated with impressive accuracy on modern hardware.

I dedicated most of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, specifically Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Many of the games here remain enjoyable, particularly during direct competitive sessions. Yet competing with the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a reminder of how crude and unfair the development approached in the series' initial installments. Computer-directed fighters clearly employ dishonest tactics or are alternatively incredibly stupid. If you don't have another person to compete with — online play is available in numerous anthology releases, but too light on features — you'll be missing out.

Technical Presentation

The two dozen available combat games in the anthology, a mix of arcade, console, and handheld games, are faithfully recreated, though I've observed a couple minor issues — mainly control latency and intermittent errors, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are largely presented as-is, the development team has incorporated various clever convenience enhancements and visual presentation options. For instance, users can elect to display fighter-specific techniques on the display and choose to enable endless periods to execute finishing moves. There are also options for revealing concealed combatants, without having to perform complicated methods to unlock them.

Graphically, the titles can be played with a variety of filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic options that simulate the CRT monitors of gaming halls or household displays, or the limited color monitor of a Nintendo handheld. A notably appreciated element is the choice to enable arcade-like bezels encircling the display, with your selected Mortal Kombat title faithfully and subtly duplicating against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Bonus Elements

The collection includes numerous appreciated elements beyond the educational material and simulated classic games, including a music player that allows users to rediscover the tunes of various fighting releases without the din of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. Also present are fighter biographies that include bios and multiple story elements shown through the idle displays of gaming hall releases and endings.

Lost Media Recovery

A particularly notable inclusion for dedicated series enthusiasts is the opportunity to play a piece of "lost media" in the guise 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 head-to-head network battles in gaming halls. The Wavenet Edition of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but featured the capability to battle network competitors and contained several small bug fixes and balance. Yet this online edition didn't find widespread adoption, in part