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Mortal Kombat retains numerous undisclosed elements and the capacity to surprise, over three decades after its first appearance in coin-op establishments. A new collection spanning the franchise's earliest days, comprising four original arcade titles, various home ports, and derivative games, goes beyond only a accurately simulated collection of iconic titles and not-so-classics — it's also a rich documentary about the development of the legendary series.

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

What Makes the Historical Compilation

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like other vintage game anthologies from the creators at Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, part playable archive. This compilation features emulated versions of the pioneering arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, plus console and handheld ports of some of those games. The anthology additionally contains the franchise's attempts at spin-off titles, like action games Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — two of the franchise's least successful installments.

The Legacy Kollection consequently doesn't represent a greatest hits compilation, but an examination of Mortal Kombat's early days, when the development team Midway and series co-creators the creative duo behind the series were figuring out how to create a combat title, produced using film material of live performers, through experimentation. Viewing the historical footage — containing historical videos, new interviews, and reproductions of classic advertisements, comics, and even interoffice faxes — it's incredible to witness how the franchise evolved from modest origins to a international craze. It's frankly astounding to see a group of young game developers, operating with virtually no plan or guidance, focus their cultural enthusiasms into creating a legendary video game series.

Documentary Portion

The documentary portion of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection documents the ascent of the combat franchise and the developers' professional journeys at the now-defunct Midway. It then goes on to show how these identical developers contended with how to routinely one-up themselves, facing no small amount of demand to replicate their triumphs. It serves as a compelling period piece made from video recordings and analog photographs and manual drawings, which showcase the DIY nature of the franchise's production method and how word of mouth helped circulate its mysteries and undisclosed elements of the series in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's highly engaging set of brief historical films that covers video games, graphic novels, movies and even the comical physical events. The collection additionally features some never-implemented techniques and digital fighter representations among its archived development assets.

Playable Component

Distributed throughout the five-segment historical film's chronology are prompts to play the games themselves. At certain intervals, viewers can hop into a combat game session or one of its home console ports to revisit its gameplay and graphics, simulated with remarkable precision on contemporary systems.

I spent the bulk of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here stand the test of time, particularly during one-on-one local play. However, facing the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a reminder of how crude and unfair the development approached in early Mortal Kombat games. Computer-directed fighters blatantly cheat to win or are otherwise dumb as rocks. Lacking a human opponent — network gaming is included in the majority of included games, but somewhat limited in options — you'll be missing out.

Visual Options

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the anthology, a blend of coin-op, home system, and portable titles, are faithfully recreated, though I've observed a handful slight anomalies — mainly control latency and the occasional bug, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are mostly shown in their original form, the development team has incorporated various clever convenience enhancements and visual presentation options. For example, players have the option to reveal combatant-unique actions on-screen and opt to have infinite time to perform a Fatality. Also included are choices for unlocking secret characters, removing the requirement to complete obscure techniques to unlock them.

Visually, the games can be experienced with numerous visual enhancements and presentation styles. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic options that simulate the traditional television screens of gaming halls or household displays, or the greenscale screen 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 simulated dark plastic edges. It's quite aesthetically pleasing.

Bonus Elements

The collection includes numerous nice touches beyond the documentary and emulated arcade classics, containing a soundtrack mode that lets you revisit the soundtracks of different Mortal Kombat games absent the noise of combatants violently defeating each other. Also present are fighter biographies that feature histories and multiple story elements shown through arcade games' attract mode screens and endings.

Archival Discovery

Among the most significant features for dedicated series enthusiasts is the ability to access a segment of previously unavailable content in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This particular edition, a somewhat revised iteration of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an pioneering effort from the developer at head-to-head network battles in arcades. The Wavenet Edition of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but featured the capability to challenge online opponents and included some minor error corrections and adjustments. Yet this online edition failed to achieve popularity, in part