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Mortal Kombat still possesses many hidden mysteries and the ability to amaze, well past its 30th anniversary after its first appearance in gaming halls. This latest compilation covering the brand's formative years, comprising four arcade games, several home system versions, and derivative games, is more than just a well-emulated set of legendary games and not-so-classics — it functions as a rich documentary about the making of the legendary series.

Being a long-time enthusiast of the series who has carefully followed its creation and evolution, there was plenty new for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Constitutes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like previous classic compilations from the creators at Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, section playable historical record. The anthology contains simulated releases of the original 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 franchise's attempts at spin-off titles, like action games Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' least successful installments.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a “best of” collection, but a study of the series' formative period, when the development team Midway and series co-creators the visionary developers were determining how to make a fighting game, digitized from footage of actual people, on the fly. Viewing the historical footage — containing archival footage, recent conversations, and scans of old flyers, illustrated stories, and even interoffice faxes — it's incredible to witness how the series transformed from modest origins to a international craze. It's truly remarkable to see a group of young game developers, working with minimal planning or supervision, direct their entertainment passions into establishing an enduring gaming brand.

Educational Component

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of the fighting series and the developers' professional journeys at the no-longer-operating Midway. It then goes on to show how the very same individuals contended with how to regularly outdo their previous work, encountering significant stress to duplicate their success. It's a fascinating time capsule composed of video recordings and traditional photos and hand-drawn illustrations, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of the series' creation process and how personal recommendations helped spread its rumors and secrets of MK in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's thoroughly enjoyable set of brief historical films that spans games, comics, films and even the comical physical events. It also includes some unused moves and game character images among its cutting-room-floor content.

Interactive Experience

Interspersed along the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are prompts to play the original releases. During specific moments, audience members can jump into a combat game session or one of its home console ports to reexperience its mechanics and artistic style, simulated with remarkable precision on contemporary systems.

I allocated the majority of my time experiencing the original arcade titles, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Many of the games here remain enjoyable, particularly during one-on-one local play. Yet competing with the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a demonstration of how basic and unbalanced the development approached in the series' initial installments. AI-managed characters clearly employ dishonest tactics or are otherwise dumb as rocks. If you don't have someone to play against — internet multiplayer exists in most titles in the collection, but rather basic in functionality — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Technical Presentation

The two dozen available combat games in the compilation, a combination of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are precisely simulated, though I detected a few small quirks — mainly control latency and the occasional bug, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are largely presented as-is, developer Digital Eclipse has added several intelligent user experience improvements and visual presentation options. For example, players have the option to display fighter-specific techniques on the display and choose to enable infinite time to execute finishing moves. There are also options for accessing hidden fighters, removing the requirement to complete obscure techniques to obtain them.

Graphically, the titles can be experienced with numerous filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection includes remarkably accurate filters that mimic the CRT monitors of arcades or household displays, or the limited color monitor of a Game Boy. A notably appreciated element is the choice to enable arcade-like bezels encircling the display, with the specific combat game you're playing faithfully and subtly duplicating against the artificial ebony plastic frames. It's quite aesthetically pleasing.

Bonus Elements

Players will discover multiple nice touches beyond the educational material and simulated classic games, featuring an audio component that allows users to rediscover the soundtracks of different combat titles excluding the sounds of combatants violently defeating each other. Additionally included are combatant descriptions that feature histories and the various bits of lore presented by arcade games' attract mode screens and final sequences.

Archival Discovery

One of the biggest highlights for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the ability to access a piece of "lost media" in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This specific release, a somewhat revised iteration of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an pioneering effort from the developer at one-on-one internet-based play in arcades. The Wavenet Edition of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but featured the capability to battle network competitors and included some minor error corrections and adjustments. However, this network version failed to achieve popularity, in part