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The Mortal Kombat series retains its share of secrets and the capacity to surprise, more than 30 years after its initial debut in arcades. The recent anthology including the franchise's earliest days, featuring a quartet of arcade releases, multiple console adaptations, and derivative games, transcends just a well-emulated collection of iconic titles along with lesser-known entries — it functions as a comprehensive historical account about the creation of the iconic franchise.

Even as a lifelong enthusiast of the series who has carefully followed its development and progression, there was much to discover for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Defines the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to other retro collections from the development team Digital Eclipse, part documentary, portion interactive museum. The collection includes emulated versions of the original arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, plus console and handheld ports of certain releases. This compilation also features the series' ventures at derivative games, 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 franchise's initial era, when the development team Midway and series co-creators Ed Boon and John Tobias were discovering methods to make a fighting game, produced using film material of live performers, through experimentation. Watching the documentary — which includes archival footage, recent conversations, and reproductions of classic advertisements, graphic novels, 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 see a group of early video game creators, operating with virtually no plan or guidance, channel their pop-culture interests into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Documentary Portion

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of the combat franchise and the developers' professional journeys at the now-defunct Midway. It subsequently demonstrates how those same creators addressed how to consistently surpass their achievements, experiencing considerable stress to duplicate their achievements. It's a fascinating time capsule constructed using analog films and film-based pictures and pencil sketches, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of the franchise's production method and how personal recommendations helped spread its rumors and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's an eminently watchable collection of mini-documentaries that spans games, comics, films and even the silly live-action tour. The collection additionally features some unused moves and character sprites among its previously unreleased material.

Interactive Experience

Placed within the five-part documentary's timeline are opportunities to engage with the original releases. At various points, audience members can jump into a combat game session or a home system version to reexperience its mechanics and graphics, simulated with remarkable precision on contemporary systems.

I dedicated most of my time experiencing the original arcade titles, especially Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here hold up, notably with local multiplayer matches. However, facing the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a testament to how primitive and unjust the programming was in the series' initial installments. CPU-controlled opponents 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 — the experience will be incomplete.

Technical Presentation

The two dozen available combat games in the compilation, a mix of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are faithfully recreated, though I detected a couple minor issues — primarily delayed responses and the occasional bug, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are primarily displayed authentically, developer Digital Eclipse has included some smart quality-of-life features and visual presentation options. For example, players have the option to show each character's special moves on the display and opt to have infinite time to perform a Fatality. Additionally available are settings for accessing hidden fighters, removing the requirement to complete some esoteric trick to unlock them.

Artistically, the releases can be played with a variety of filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic filters that mimic the traditional television screens of gaming halls or home televisions, or the monochrome green display of a Nintendo handheld. A particularly nice touch is the choice to enable coin-op-inspired frames surrounding the screen, with your selected Mortal Kombat title faithfully and subtly duplicating against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's very artistically charming.

Bonus Elements

Players will discover multiple welcome features besides the educational material and simulated classic games, containing a soundtrack mode that enables players to reexperience the soundtracks of different fighting releases excluding the sounds of combatants violently defeating each other. Also present are fighter biographies that contain backgrounds and multiple story elements displayed via arcade games' attract mode screens and final sequences.

Historical Preservation

A particularly notable inclusion for committed franchise followers is the opportunity to play a piece of "lost media" in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This specific release, a moderately improved edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an pioneering effort from the developer at direct online competitive gaming in arcades. This network version of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but featured the capability to challenge online opponents and contained several small bug fixes and balance. However, this network version never gained traction, in part