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The Mortal Kombat series continues to hold its share of secrets and the power to astonish, more than 30 years after its original launch in coin-op establishments. A new collection covering the series' initial period, comprising a quartet of arcade releases, several home system versions, and related titles, transcends only a accurately simulated series of classics along with lesser-known entries — it's also a comprehensive historical account about the making of the renowned brand.

As a dedicated Mortal Kombat fan who has closely monitored its creation and evolution, there was numerous fresh aspects for me to understand and value about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to other retro collections from the creators at Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, section playable historical record. The collection includes emulated versions of the first arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, including television and mobile versions of several of these titles. The anthology additionally contains the franchise's attempts at derivative games, like action-oriented titles Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — two of the franchise's worst entries.

The Legacy Kollection thus isn't a greatest hits compilation, but a study of the franchise's initial era, when the creators at Midway and series co-creators Ed Boon and John Tobias were discovering methods to make a fighting game, digitized from footage of live performers, through experimentation. Observing the archival material — containing archival footage, new interviews, and reproductions of classic advertisements, comics, and including internal communications — it's incredible to witness how the series transformed from modest origins to a worldwide phenomenon. It's truly remarkable to observe several early video game creators, developing without clear direction or supervision, channel their pop-culture interests into creating a legendary video game series.

Historical Section

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection documents the ascent of the fighting series and the founders' vocational paths at the no-longer-operating Midway. It then goes on to show how those same creators reckoned with how to consistently surpass their achievements, facing no small amount of stress to duplicate their triumphs. It represents an intriguing historical record composed of analog films and analog photographs and hand-drawn illustrations, which reveal the self-made character of Mortal Kombat's development and how personal recommendations helped disseminate its secrets and undisclosed elements of the series in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's an eminently watchable set of brief historical films that spans games, comics, films and including the humorous real-world tour. The compilation also contains some never-implemented techniques and game character images among its previously unreleased material.

Interactive Experience

Placed within the five-part documentary's timeline are prompts to play the actual titles. At various points, viewers can hop into a combat game session or one of its home console ports to revisit its gameplay and graphics, recreated with impressive accuracy on contemporary systems.

I allocated the majority of my time playing the arcade classics, specifically Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here hold up, particularly during one-on-one local play. Yet competing with the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a reminder of how crude and unjust the programming was in the series' initial installments. AI-managed characters obviously use unfair advantages or are alternatively incredibly stupid. Lacking another person to compete with — online play is available in numerous anthology releases, but somewhat limited in options — you'll be missing out.

Visual Options

The twenty-three accessible Mortal Kombat titles in the anthology, a combination of arcade, console, and handheld games, are accurately emulated, though I detected a couple minor issues — primarily delayed responses and sporadic glitches, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are largely presented as-is, the creators has included some smart user experience improvements and visual presentation options. For instance, users can elect to display fighter-specific techniques during gameplay and opt to have unlimited duration to execute finishing moves. Also included are choices for revealing concealed combatants, removing the requirement to complete some esoteric trick to access them.

Visually, the games can be enjoyed with multiple filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection includes remarkably accurate effects that reproduce the traditional television screens of gaming halls or household displays, or the greenscale screen of a portable gaming device. An especially welcome feature is the option to have gaming hall-style borders encircling the display, with the specific combat game you're playing faithfully and subtly duplicating against the artificial ebony plastic frames. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Bonus Elements

The collection includes numerous nice touches beyond the educational material and simulated classic games, including a music player that enables players to reexperience the tunes of various fighting releases absent the noise of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. Additionally included are fighter biographies that include bios and the various bits of lore displayed via the idle displays of gaming hall releases and conclusions.

Historical Preservation

A particularly notable inclusion for committed franchise followers is the ability to access a example of historically missing material in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This specific release, 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. The online-enabled release of the game is virtually identical to UMK3, but included the option to compete against internet adversaries and contained several small error corrections and adjustments. Yet this online edition failed to achieve popularity, in part