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The Mortal Kombat series still possesses its share of secrets and the power to astonish, more than 30 years after its original launch in coin-op establishments. This latest compilation including the franchise's earliest days, featuring four original arcade titles, multiple console adaptations, and related titles, goes beyond just a well-emulated series of classics and not-so-classics — it's also a detailed chronicle about the making of the legendary series.

As a dedicated devotee of the franchise who has carefully followed its development and progression, there was plenty new for me to understand and value about the series.

What Constitutes the Historical Compilation

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to other retro collections from the development team Digital Eclipse, part documentary, part playable archive. This compilation features 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. This compilation also features the franchise's attempts at spin-off titles, like action games Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a greatest hits compilation, but an exploration into the series' formative period, when the creators at Midway and franchise originators Ed Boon and John Tobias were determining how to create a combat title, produced using film material of real actors, through experimentation. Watching the documentary — containing archival footage, recent conversations, and scans of old flyers, illustrated stories, and even interoffice faxes — it's astonishing to observe how Mortal Kombat went from modest origins to a global sensation. It's genuinely amazing to watch a handful of pioneering developers, developing without clear direction or oversight, direct their entertainment passions into creating a legendary video game series.

Historical Section

The educational segment 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 the very same individuals addressed how to consistently surpass their achievements, facing no small amount of stress to duplicate their success. It represents an intriguing historical record composed of video recordings and traditional photos and manual drawings, which reveal the self-made character of the franchise's production method and how personal recommendations helped circulate its mysteries and secrets of MK in its peak period in gaming halls. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's highly engaging set of brief historical films that includes titles, illustrated stories, cinematic adaptations and even the silly live-action tour. The collection additionally features some unreleased actions and character sprites among its previously unreleased material.

Interactive Gaming

Distributed throughout the five-part documentary's timeline are prompts to play the actual titles. At various points, audience members can jump into a game of Mortal Kombat or one of its home console ports to revisit its gameplay and artistic style, recreated with impressive accuracy on current technology.

I spent the bulk of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, especially Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Many of the games here remain enjoyable, especially in one-on-one local play. However, facing the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a demonstration of how basic and unfair the coding existed in the franchise's pioneering releases. CPU-controlled opponents obviously use unfair advantages or are alternatively incredibly stupid. Lacking a human opponent — network gaming is included in the majority of included games, but somewhat limited in options — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Display Features

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the collection, a mix of arcade, console, and handheld games, are faithfully recreated, though I detected a handful slight anomalies — mainly control latency and sporadic glitches, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are primarily displayed authentically, the creators has incorporated various clever convenience enhancements and graphical adjustment settings. For example, players have the option to reveal combatant-unique actions on the display and select to activate infinite time to complete lethal techniques. There are also options for unlocking secret characters, without having to perform obscure techniques to obtain them.

Graphically, the titles can be experienced with numerous graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic effects that reproduce the traditional television screens of arcades or household displays, or the monochrome green display of a Game Boy. An especially welcome feature is the choice to enable arcade-like bezels surrounding the screen, with the specific combat game you're playing precisely and gently mirroring against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Bonus Elements

The collection includes numerous appreciated elements beyond the documentary and emulated arcade classics, containing a soundtrack mode that enables players to reexperience the music from multiple combat titles excluding the sounds of combatants violently defeating each other. Additionally included are combatant descriptions that include bios and the various bits of lore displayed via arcade games' attract mode screens and conclusions.

Lost Media Recovery

Among the most significant features for committed franchise followers is the ability to access a example of historically missing material in the format of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This version of the game, a somewhat revised iteration of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an early attempt by Midway at head-to-head network battles in arcades. The online-enabled release of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but featured the capability to challenge online opponents and included some minor glitch repairs and refinements. But the Wavenet update never gained traction, in part