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The Mortal Kombat series continues to hold numerous undisclosed elements and the capacity to surprise, well past its 30th anniversary after its first appearance in arcades. A new collection spanning the series' initial period, which includes a quartet of arcade releases, multiple console adaptations, and related titles, is more than only a accurately simulated set of legendary games including less celebrated releases — it additionally serves as a comprehensive historical account about the development of the renowned brand.

As a dedicated Mortal Kombat fan who has closely monitored its creation and evolution, there was plenty new for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Makes the Historical Compilation

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like other retro collections from developer Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, part playable archive. The anthology contains emulated versions of the original arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, plus console and handheld ports of several of these titles. The collection even includes the brand's experiments at spinoffs, like action-oriented titles Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — some of the brand's least successful installments.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a greatest hits compilation, but an exploration into the series' formative period, when the creators at Midway and series co-creators the creative duo behind the series were determining how to create a combat title, created from video recordings of live performers, on the fly. Viewing the historical footage — that features historical videos, recent conversations, and scans of old flyers, illustrated stories, and even interoffice faxes — it's remarkable to see how the series transformed from simple starts to a global sensation. It's truly remarkable to see a group of young game developers, operating with virtually no plan or supervision, focus their cultural enthusiasms into establishing an enduring gaming brand.

Historical Section

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of the combat franchise and the developers' professional journeys at the no-longer-operating Midway. It further illustrates how those same creators reckoned with how to routinely one-up themselves, encountering significant pressure to repeat their triumphs. It serves as a compelling period piece constructed using video recordings and film-based pictures and pencil sketches, which reveal the self-made character of Mortal Kombat's development and how word of mouth helped circulate its mysteries and undisclosed elements of the series in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Presented in manageable segments, 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 unreleased actions and game character images among its previously unreleased material.

Playable Component

Interspersed along the five-part documentary's timeline are opportunities to engage with the actual titles. During specific moments, viewers can hop into a game of Mortal Kombat or a home system version to rediscover its combat system and artistic style, simulated with remarkable precision on modern hardware.

I allocated the majority of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, specifically Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here remain enjoyable, particularly during local multiplayer matches. But playing against the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a testament to how primitive and unjust the development approached in early Mortal Kombat games. CPU-controlled opponents obviously use unfair advantages or are alternatively incredibly stupid. Without having a human opponent — network gaming is included in most titles in the collection, but too light on features — you'll be missing out.

Technical Presentation

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the anthology, a combination of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are accurately emulated, though I've observed a few small quirks — primarily delayed responses and intermittent errors, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are primarily displayed authentically, the development team has added several intelligent user experience improvements and visual presentation options. As an illustration, users can elect to show each character's special moves on-screen and choose to enable infinite time to perform a Fatality. Also included are choices for unlocking secret characters, eliminating the need to execute some esoteric trick to obtain them.

Visually, the games can be played with a variety of filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic effects that reproduce the CRT monitors of gaming halls or household displays, or the monochrome green display of a Game Boy. An especially welcome feature is the option to have gaming hall-style borders surrounding the screen, with the specific combat game you're playing accurately and softly reflecting against the faux black plastic borders. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Additional Features

There are plenty of appreciated elements beyond the educational material and simulated classic games, featuring an audio component that enables players to reexperience the tunes of various Mortal Kombat games excluding the sounds of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. Also present are fighter biographies that contain backgrounds and multiple story elements displayed via the idle displays of gaming hall releases and endings.

Historical Preservation

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 specific release, a somewhat revised iteration of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an initial venture by the company at direct online competitive gaming in coin-op establishments. This network version of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but featured the capability to compete against internet adversaries and featured various slight glitch repairs and refinements. But the Wavenet update failed to achieve popularity, in part