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Mortal Kombat continues to hold many hidden mysteries and the power to astonish, over three decades after its original launch in coin-op establishments. A new collection covering the series' initial period, comprising four arcade games, multiple console adaptations, and derivative games, goes beyond simply a faithfully reproduced collection of iconic titles along with lesser-known entries — it's also a rich documentary about the making of the legendary series.

Being a long-time devotee of the franchise who has paid close attention its development and progression, there was plenty new for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like previous classic compilations from the creators at Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, 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. The collection even includes the series' ventures at spinoffs, like action games Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' least successful installments.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a greatest hits compilation, but an exploration into Mortal Kombat's early days, when developer Midway and franchise originators Ed Boon and John Tobias were discovering methods to make a fighting game, produced using film material of live performers, as they went along. Watching the documentary — which includes vintage recordings, recent conversations, and scans of old flyers, illustrated stories, and even interoffice faxes — it's astonishing to observe how the series transformed from humble beginnings to a international craze. It's frankly astounding to watch a handful of early video game creators, working with minimal planning or guidance, channel their pop-culture interests into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Documentary Portion

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection documents the ascent of the combat franchise and the developers' professional journeys at the currently closed Midway. It further illustrates how these identical developers reckoned with how to routinely one-up themselves, encountering significant demand to replicate their success. It represents an intriguing historical record constructed using video recordings and traditional photos and manual drawings, which reveal the self-made character of the series' creation process and how word of mouth helped disseminate its secrets and secrets of MK in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's thoroughly enjoyable collection of mini-documentaries that spans games, comics, films and even the comical physical events. It also includes some unused moves and digital fighter representations among its previously unreleased material.

Playable Component

Placed within the five-part documentary's timeline are invitations to experience the actual titles. During specific moments, viewers can hop into a Mortal Kombat title or a console adaptation to revisit its gameplay and graphics, recreated with impressive accuracy on modern hardware.

I allocated the majority of my time experiencing the original arcade titles, specifically Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here hold up, particularly during local multiplayer matches. But playing against the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a demonstration of how basic and unbalanced the coding existed in early Mortal Kombat games. Computer-directed fighters clearly employ dishonest tactics or are otherwise dumb as rocks. Lacking someone to play against — online play is available in most titles in the collection, but too light on features — you'll be missing out.

Visual Options

The two dozen available combat games in the collection, a mix of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are accurately emulated, though I have noticed a few small quirks — primarily delayed responses and the occasional bug, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are primarily displayed authentically, the development team has included some smart quality-of-life features and display customization choices. For example, players have the option to show each character's special moves during gameplay and select to activate endless periods to perform a Fatality. Also included are choices for revealing concealed combatants, eliminating the need to execute obscure techniques to access them.

Visually, the games can be experienced with numerous graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection includes remarkably accurate options that simulate the CRT monitors of gaming halls or domestic TVs, or the limited color monitor of a Game Boy. A particularly nice touch is the choice to enable arcade-like bezels surrounding the screen, with the MK game of your choice precisely and gently mirroring against the faux black plastic borders. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Extra Content

There are plenty of nice touches beyond the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, containing a soundtrack mode that enables players to reexperience the tunes of various Mortal Kombat games absent the noise of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. Additionally included are character profiles that include bios and the various bits of lore shown through arcade games' attract mode screens and final sequences.

Historical Preservation

One of the biggest highlights for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the ability to access a segment of previously unavailable content in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This version of the game, a somewhat revised iteration of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an pioneering effort from the developer at head-to-head network battles in coin-op establishments. This network version of the game is virtually identical to UMK3, but provided the ability to compete against internet adversaries and contained several small bug fixes and balance. However, this network version failed to achieve popularity, in part