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This iconic fighting game retains numerous undisclosed elements and the power to astonish, over three decades after its original launch in gaming halls. A new collection including the franchise's earliest days, featuring four arcade games, 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 creation of the legendary series.

As a dedicated enthusiast of the series who has carefully followed its development and progression, there was plenty new for me to discover and admire about the series.

What Defines the Historical Compilation

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like previous classic compilations from the creators at Digital Eclipse, part documentary, part playable archive. The anthology contains digitally recreated editions 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 collection even includes the brand's experiments at spinoffs, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — two of the franchise's worst entries.

The Legacy Kollection thus isn't a highlight reel anthology, but an examination of Mortal Kombat's early days, when the development team Midway and franchise originators the visionary developers were discovering methods to develop a battle series, digitized from footage of real actors, on the fly. Watching the documentary — which includes archival footage, new interviews, and reproductions of classic advertisements, comics, and even company memos — it's incredible to witness how the franchise evolved from humble beginnings to a international craze. It's truly remarkable to see a group of young game developers, working with minimal planning or supervision, channel their pop-culture interests into creating a legendary video game series.

Documentary Portion

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of the combat franchise and the founders' vocational paths at the now-defunct Midway. It then goes on to show how those same creators reckoned with how to consistently surpass their achievements, facing no small amount of stress to duplicate their achievements. It serves as a compelling period piece constructed using VHS tapes and analog photographs and pencil sketches, which reveal the self-made character of the franchise's production method and how word of mouth helped circulate its mysteries and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its arcade heyday. Presented in manageable segments, it's highly engaging collection of mini-documentaries that includes titles, illustrated stories, cinematic adaptations and even the silly live-action tour. The compilation also contains some never-implemented techniques and digital fighter representations among its cutting-room-floor content.

Interactive Gaming

Distributed throughout the five-segment historical film's chronology are invitations to experience the games themselves. During specific moments, audience members can jump into a combat game session or one of its home console ports to revisit its gameplay and artistic style, emulated nearly perfectly on current technology.

I dedicated most of my time playing the arcade classics, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here stand the test of time, notably with local multiplayer matches. However, facing the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a demonstration of how basic and unfair the coding existed in the franchise's pioneering releases. Computer-directed fighters clearly employ dishonest tactics or are alternatively incredibly stupid. If you don't have someone to play against — internet multiplayer exists in the majority of included games, but rather basic in functionality — the experience will be incomplete.

Display Features

The two dozen available combat games in the compilation, a blend of coin-op, home system, and portable titles, are accurately emulated, though I have noticed a couple minor issues — mainly control latency and the occasional bug, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are mostly shown in their original form, developer Digital Eclipse has added several intelligent user experience improvements and graphical adjustment settings. As an illustration, players have the option to show each character's special moves 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 obtain them.

Graphically, the titles can be enjoyed with multiple filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection includes remarkably accurate effects that reproduce the traditional television screens of coin-op establishments or household displays, or the limited color monitor of a Game Boy. An especially welcome feature is the option to have gaming hall-style borders framing the gameplay, with the specific combat game you're playing faithfully and subtly duplicating against the faux black plastic borders. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Additional Features

There are plenty of appreciated elements beyond the documentary and emulated arcade classics, featuring an audio component that enables players to reexperience the music from multiple combat titles absent the noise of combatants violently defeating each other. Also present are combatant descriptions that contain backgrounds and the various bits of lore shown through the demo sequences of coin-op titles and endings.

Archival Discovery

A particularly notable inclusion for dedicated series enthusiasts is the ability to access a piece of "lost media" in the form of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This specific release, a slightly updated version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an early attempt by Midway at one-on-one internet-based play in gaming halls. The Wavenet Edition of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but featured the capability to battle network competitors and included some minor glitch repairs and refinements. Yet this online edition failed to achieve popularity, in part