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Mortal Kombat continues to hold numerous undisclosed elements and the capacity to surprise, over three decades after its initial debut in arcades. A new collection including the series' initial period, featuring four original arcade titles, multiple console adaptations, and spinoffs, goes beyond simply a faithfully reproduced series of classics along with lesser-known entries — it functions as a detailed chronicle about the making of the iconic franchise.

As a dedicated devotee of the franchise who has paid close attention its creation and evolution, there was plenty new for me to understand and value about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to other retro collections from developer Digital Eclipse, part documentary, portion interactive museum. This compilation features digitally recreated editions of the first arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, including television and mobile versions of some of those games. The collection even includes the brand's experiments at spinoffs, like action-oriented titles Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' worst entries.

The Legacy Kollection thus isn't a greatest hits compilation, but an examination of Mortal Kombat's early days, when developer Midway and brand founders the creative duo behind the series were figuring out how to develop a battle series, digitized from footage of live performers, as they went along. Observing the archival material — which includes vintage recordings, new interviews, and digital copies of vintage posters, 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 observe several pioneering developers, developing without clear direction or guidance, channel their pop-culture interests into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Documentary Portion

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection documents the ascent of the fighting series and its creators' careers at the no-longer-operating Midway. It further illustrates how the very same individuals reckoned with how to consistently surpass their achievements, facing no small amount of stress to duplicate their success. It's a fascinating time capsule composed of analog films and traditional photos and pencil sketches, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of the franchise's production method and how oral tradition helped disseminate its secrets and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its arcade heyday. Presented in manageable segments, it's thoroughly enjoyable collection of mini-documentaries that spans games, comics, films and even the comical physical events. The collection additionally features some unused moves and game character images among its archived development assets.

Interactive Gaming

Placed within the five-part documentary's timeline are opportunities to engage with the actual titles. During specific moments, viewers can hop into a Mortal Kombat title or a console adaptation to rediscover its combat system and visual presentation, simulated with remarkable precision on contemporary systems.

I spent the bulk of my time experiencing the original arcade titles, specifically Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here remain enjoyable, especially in one-on-one local play. However, facing the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a demonstration of how basic and unjust the development approached in the franchise's pioneering releases. CPU-controlled opponents obviously use unfair advantages or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. If you don't have another person to compete with — internet multiplayer exists in most titles in the collection, but rather basic in functionality — you'll be missing out.

Visual Options

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the compilation, a mix of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are accurately emulated, though I detected a handful slight anomalies — primarily delayed responses and the occasional bug, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. Even though the releases are primarily displayed authentically, the development team has added several intelligent quality-of-life features and graphical adjustment settings. As an illustration, players have the option to show each character's special moves during gameplay and opt to have infinite time to execute finishing moves. There are also options for accessing hidden fighters, without having to perform complicated methods to access them.

Graphically, the titles can be experienced with numerous filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic effects that reproduce the CRT monitors of gaming halls or domestic TVs, or the monochrome green display of a portable gaming device. A notably appreciated element is the choice to enable gaming hall-style borders encircling the display, with your selected Mortal Kombat title precisely and gently mirroring against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's very artistically charming.

Extra Content

There are plenty of nice touches beyond the educational material and simulated classic games, featuring an audio component that allows users to rediscover the tunes of various combat titles absent the noise of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. Additionally included are combatant descriptions that feature histories and multiple story elements shown through the demo sequences of coin-op titles and conclusions.

Lost Media Recovery

One of the biggest highlights for committed franchise followers is the ability to access a piece of "lost media" 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 early attempt by Midway at one-on-one internet-based play in arcades. The online-enabled release of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but included the option to compete against internet adversaries and contained several small glitch repairs and refinements. But the Wavenet update failed to achieve popularity, in part