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Mortal Kombat continues to hold its share of secrets and the capacity to surprise, over three decades after its initial debut in arcades. The recent anthology including the series' initial period, comprising four original arcade titles, multiple console adaptations, and spinoffs, is more than just a well-emulated set of legendary games along with lesser-known entries — it additionally serves as a rich documentary about the development of the renowned brand.

As a dedicated enthusiast of the series who has paid close attention its origins and transformation, there was numerous fresh aspects for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Defines the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to other vintage game anthologies from the creators at Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, part playable archive. The anthology contains simulated releases of the first arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, along with home system and portable adaptations of several of these titles. The collection even includes the franchise's attempts at derivative games, like action games Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — two of the franchise's most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection consequently doesn't represent a “best of” collection, but an exploration into Mortal Kombat's early days, when the development team Midway and franchise originators the creative duo behind the series were discovering methods to create a combat title, produced using film material of real actors, on the fly. Observing the archival material — that features archival footage, recent conversations, and digital copies of vintage posters, comics, and even interoffice faxes — it's remarkable to see how Mortal Kombat went from simple starts to a worldwide phenomenon. It's truly remarkable to watch a handful of pioneering developers, operating with virtually no plan or oversight, direct their entertainment passions into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Documentary Portion

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of the fighting series and the developers' professional journeys at the no-longer-operating Midway. It subsequently demonstrates how these identical developers addressed how to routinely one-up themselves, facing no small amount of pressure to repeat their achievements. It's a fascinating time capsule made from analog films and film-based pictures and manual drawings, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of Mortal Kombat's development and how personal recommendations helped circulate its mysteries and undisclosed elements of the series in its peak period in gaming halls. Presented in manageable segments, it's thoroughly enjoyable collection of mini-documentaries that includes titles, illustrated stories, cinematic adaptations and even the comical physical events. It also includes some unused moves and character sprites among its previously unreleased material.

Interactive Gaming

Placed within the five-part documentary's timeline are opportunities to engage with the games themselves. At certain intervals, viewers can hop into a combat game session or a home system version to reexperience its mechanics and visual presentation, emulated nearly perfectly on modern hardware.

I dedicated most of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, specifically 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 aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a reminder of how crude and unfair the development approached in the franchise's pioneering releases. AI-managed characters obviously use unfair advantages or are otherwise dumb as rocks. Without having 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 anthology, a blend of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are accurately emulated, though I detected a couple minor issues — mostly input lag and sporadic glitches, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are primarily displayed authentically, the development team has added several intelligent user experience improvements and visual presentation options. For instance, users can elect to show each character's special moves on the display and select to activate unlimited duration to complete lethal techniques. There are also options for revealing concealed combatants, removing the requirement to complete some esoteric trick to unlock them.

Artistically, the releases can be enjoyed with multiple visual enhancements and presentation styles. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic filters that mimic the CRT monitors of gaming halls or domestic TVs, or the greenscale screen of a portable gaming device. An especially welcome feature is the option to have arcade-like bezels framing the gameplay, with the MK game of your choice accurately and softly reflecting against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Bonus Elements

There are plenty of nice touches beyond the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, containing a soundtrack mode that lets you revisit the music from multiple combat titles without the din of combatants violently defeating each other. There are also character profiles that contain backgrounds and multiple story elements shown through the idle displays of gaming hall releases and endings.

Historical Preservation

Among the most significant features for dedicated series enthusiasts is the ability to access a segment of previously unavailable content in the format of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This particular edition, a moderately improved edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an pioneering effort from the developer at one-on-one internet-based play in gaming halls. The Wavenet Edition of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but provided the ability to challenge online opponents and featured various slight error corrections and adjustments. Yet this online edition failed to achieve popularity, in part