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Mortal Kombat continues to hold numerous undisclosed elements and the power to astonish, well past its 30th anniversary after its first appearance in gaming halls. A new collection spanning the series' initial period, featuring four original arcade titles, several home system versions, and related titles, goes beyond only a accurately simulated set of legendary games and not-so-classics — it functions as a detailed chronicle about the creation of the iconic franchise.

Being a long-time Mortal Kombat fan who has paid close attention its creation and evolution, 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, portion educational film, portion interactive museum. 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 brand's experiments at spin-off titles, 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 is therefore not a highlight reel anthology, but an exploration into Mortal Kombat's early days, when the development team Midway and brand founders Ed Boon and John Tobias were figuring out how to develop a battle series, created from video recordings of real actors, through experimentation. Watching the documentary — containing vintage recordings, recent conversations, and digital copies of vintage posters, comics, and even company memos — it's remarkable to see how the franchise evolved from simple starts to a international craze. It's truly remarkable to observe several early video game creators, working with minimal planning or guidance, direct their entertainment passions into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Educational Component

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of the fighting series and the founders' vocational paths at the now-defunct Midway. It subsequently demonstrates how these identical developers reckoned with how to routinely one-up themselves, facing no small amount of pressure to repeat their triumphs. It's a fascinating time capsule made from video recordings and traditional photos and pencil sketches, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of Mortal Kombat's development and how word of mouth helped disseminate its secrets and undisclosed elements of the series in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Presented in manageable segments, it's an eminently watchable set of brief historical films that covers video games, graphic novels, movies and even the comical physical events. The collection additionally features some never-implemented techniques 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 various points, users can directly access a game of Mortal Kombat or a home system version to revisit its gameplay and graphics, simulated with remarkable precision on modern hardware.

I dedicated most of my time playing the arcade classics, especially Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here remain enjoyable, notably with one-on-one local play. However, facing the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a reminder of how crude and unjust the coding existed in the franchise's pioneering releases. CPU-controlled opponents blatantly cheat to win or are alternatively incredibly stupid. Without having someone to play against — network gaming is included in most titles in the collection, but too light on features — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Display Features

The twenty-three accessible Mortal Kombat titles in the collection, a mix of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are accurately emulated, though I've observed a few small quirks — mainly control latency and intermittent errors, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are mostly shown in their original form, the development team has included some smart quality-of-life features and visual presentation options. For example, users can elect to show each character's special moves during gameplay and choose to enable infinite time to perform a Fatality. There are also options for unlocking secret characters, removing the requirement to complete some esoteric trick to obtain them.

Graphically, the titles can be played with a variety of filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection includes remarkably accurate effects that reproduce the cathode-ray tube displays of gaming halls or domestic TVs, or the greenscale screen of a Game Boy. An especially welcome feature is the option to have arcade-like bezels surrounding the screen, with your selected Mortal Kombat title precisely and gently mirroring against the artificial ebony plastic frames. It's very artistically charming.

Bonus Elements

There are plenty of welcome features besides the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, including a music player that allows users to rediscover the tunes of various fighting releases without the din of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. There are also fighter biographies that include bios and multiple story elements presented by the idle displays of gaming hall releases and final sequences.

Lost Media Recovery

One of the biggest highlights for dedicated series enthusiasts 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 early attempt by Midway at direct online competitive gaming in coin-op establishments. The Wavenet Edition of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but included the option to battle network competitors and included some minor glitch repairs and refinements. But the Wavenet update didn't find widespread adoption, in part