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The Mortal Kombat series continues to hold many hidden mysteries and the ability to amaze, over three decades after its original launch in arcades. A new collection spanning the franchise's earliest days, comprising a quartet of arcade releases, various home ports, and spinoffs, goes beyond just a well-emulated collection of iconic titles along with lesser-known entries — it's also a comprehensive historical account about the making of the legendary series.

Even as a lifelong enthusiast of the series who has paid close attention its creation and evolution, there was numerous fresh aspects for me to discover and admire about the series.

What Defines the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like other retro collections from the creators at 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, plus console and handheld ports of several of these titles. 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 — two of the franchise's worst entries.

The Legacy Kollection consequently doesn't represent a greatest hits compilation, but an examination of the series' formative period, when the creators at Midway and series co-creators the visionary developers were determining how to develop a battle series, created from video recordings of live performers, as they went along. Observing the archival material — containing archival footage, contemporary discussions, and reproductions of classic advertisements, graphic novels, and even interoffice faxes — it's incredible to witness how the franchise evolved from simple starts to a global sensation. It's frankly astounding to see a group of pioneering developers, developing without clear direction or oversight, focus their cultural enthusiasms into creating a legendary video game series.

Historical Section

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of the combat franchise and the developers' professional journeys at the currently closed Midway. It further illustrates how those same creators addressed how to consistently surpass their achievements, facing no small amount of demand to replicate their success. It's a fascinating time capsule made from video recordings and traditional photos and manual drawings, which reveal the self-made character of Mortal Kombat's development and how personal recommendations helped circulate its mysteries and undisclosed elements of the series in its arcade heyday. Presented in manageable segments, it's highly engaging series of documentary shorts that spans games, comics, films and even the comical physical events. The collection additionally features some unused moves and digital fighter representations among its cutting-room-floor content.

Interactive Gaming

Interspersed along the five-segment historical film's chronology are invitations to experience the games themselves. During specific moments, users can directly access a Mortal Kombat title or a console adaptation to reexperience its mechanics and graphics, simulated with remarkable precision on modern hardware.

I spent the bulk of my time playing the arcade classics, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here hold up, particularly during local multiplayer matches. But playing against the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a reminder of how crude and unjust the development approached in the series' initial installments. AI-managed characters clearly employ dishonest tactics or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. If you don't have someone to play against — network gaming is included in the majority of included games, but too light on features — you'll be missing out.

Display Features

The twenty-three accessible Mortal Kombat titles in the compilation, a mix of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are accurately emulated, though I have noticed a few small quirks — mostly input lag and sporadic glitches, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are largely presented as-is, the creators has incorporated various clever quality-of-life features and display customization choices. As an illustration, you can choose to display fighter-specific techniques during gameplay and opt to have unlimited duration to complete lethal techniques. Additionally available are settings for revealing concealed combatants, without having to perform complicated methods to unlock them.

Artistically, the releases can be enjoyed with multiple visual enhancements and presentation styles. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection includes remarkably accurate effects that reproduce the traditional television screens of arcades or domestic TVs, 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 the specific combat game you're playing precisely and gently mirroring against the artificial ebony plastic frames. It's quite aesthetically pleasing.

Extra Content

There are plenty of nice touches beyond the educational material and simulated classic games, including a music player that lets you revisit the music from multiple combat titles without the din of combatants violently defeating each other. Also present are fighter biographies that include bios and numerous narrative components displayed via the demo sequences of coin-op titles and final sequences.

Lost Media Recovery

One of the biggest highlights for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the chance to experience a piece of "lost media" in the form of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This specific release, a moderately improved edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an early attempt by Midway at direct online competitive gaming in gaming halls. The online-enabled release of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but included the option to challenge online opponents and included some minor error corrections and adjustments. But the Wavenet update failed to achieve popularity, in part