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Mortal Kombat continues to hold many hidden mysteries and the ability to amaze, more than 30 years after its first appearance in gaming halls. A new collection including the franchise's earliest days, which includes four original arcade titles, multiple console adaptations, and derivative games, transcends simply a faithfully reproduced series of classics and not-so-classics — it functions as a comprehensive historical account about the creation of the legendary series.

Even as a lifelong Mortal Kombat fan who has carefully followed its development and progression, there was plenty new for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Defines the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like previous classic compilations from developer Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, portion interactive museum. The anthology contains emulated versions of the first arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, along with home system and portable adaptations of certain releases. The collection even includes the brand's experiments at spin-off titles, like action-oriented titles Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — some of the brand's most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection consequently doesn't represent a highlight reel anthology, but a study of Mortal Kombat's early days, when developer Midway and brand founders Ed Boon and John Tobias were figuring out how to make a fighting game, digitized from footage of actual people, on the fly. Observing the archival material — containing archival footage, recent conversations, and scans of old flyers, comics, and even interoffice faxes — it's astonishing to observe how the series transformed from simple starts to a international craze. It's frankly astounding to see a group of pioneering developers, working with minimal planning or guidance, channel their pop-culture interests into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Historical Section

The documentary portion of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of the fighting series and the developers' professional journeys at the no-longer-operating Midway. It subsequently demonstrates how the very same individuals contended with how to consistently surpass their achievements, facing no small amount of demand to replicate their achievements. It's a fascinating time capsule constructed using analog films and analog photographs and pencil sketches, which showcase the DIY nature of the franchise's production method and how personal recommendations helped circulate its mysteries and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its arcade heyday. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's an eminently watchable set of brief historical films that includes titles, illustrated stories, cinematic adaptations and even the comical physical events. The collection additionally features some never-implemented techniques and character sprites among its archived development assets.

Interactive Gaming

Distributed throughout the five-part documentary's timeline are opportunities to engage with the original releases. At certain intervals, audience members can jump into a game of Mortal Kombat or one of its home console ports to revisit its gameplay and visual presentation, emulated nearly perfectly on modern hardware.

I allocated the majority of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, especially Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here remain enjoyable, especially in local multiplayer matches. However, facing the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a testament to how primitive and unfair the coding existed 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 — online play is available in numerous anthology releases, but too light on features — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Technical Presentation

The two dozen available combat games in the anthology, a combination of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are precisely simulated, though I've observed a couple minor issues — primarily delayed responses and intermittent errors, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are largely presented as-is, developer Digital Eclipse has included some smart user experience improvements and display customization choices. For instance, users can elect to display fighter-specific techniques on-screen and choose to enable infinite time to execute finishing moves. Additionally available are settings for revealing concealed combatants, eliminating the need to execute some esoteric trick to obtain them.

Artistically, the releases can be played with a variety of filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic options that simulate the traditional television screens of arcades or household displays, or the greenscale screen of a Nintendo handheld. A notably appreciated element is the choice to enable gaming hall-style borders surrounding the screen, 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 documentary and emulated arcade classics, containing a soundtrack mode that enables players to reexperience the soundtracks of different fighting releases absent the noise of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. Additionally included are combatant descriptions that feature histories and numerous narrative components shown through the idle displays of gaming hall releases and final sequences.

Archival Discovery

A particularly notable inclusion for committed franchise followers is the chance to experience a piece of "lost media" in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This particular edition, a slightly updated version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an initial venture by the company at head-to-head network battles in arcades. The online-enabled release of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but provided the ability to battle network competitors and included some minor bug fixes and balance. However, this network version never gained traction, in part