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This iconic fighting game continues to hold its share of secrets and the power to astonish, over three decades after its first appearance in coin-op establishments. The recent anthology spanning the series' initial period, featuring four original arcade titles, several home system versions, and related titles, is more than just a well-emulated set of legendary games including less celebrated releases — it's also a detailed chronicle about the making of the iconic franchise.

Even as a lifelong devotee of the franchise who has closely monitored its creation and evolution, there was plenty new for me to understand and value about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like other retro collections from the creators at Digital Eclipse, part documentary, 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 several of these titles. The collection even includes the franchise's attempts at spinoffs, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' least successful installments.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a highlight reel anthology, but a study of Mortal Kombat's early days, when developer Midway and series co-creators the creative duo behind the series were figuring out how to develop a battle series, created from video recordings of actual people, on the fly. Watching the documentary — which includes archival footage, contemporary discussions, and digital copies of vintage posters, comics, and including internal communications — it's incredible to witness how Mortal Kombat went from humble beginnings to a global sensation. It's frankly astounding to watch a handful of early video game creators, working with minimal planning or supervision, channel their pop-culture interests into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Documentary Portion

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of Mortal Kombat and the developers' professional journeys at the now-defunct Midway. It subsequently demonstrates how these identical developers addressed how to regularly outdo their previous work, experiencing considerable stress to duplicate their triumphs. It's a fascinating time capsule constructed using video recordings and traditional photos and pencil sketches, which reveal the self-made character of the franchise's production method and how personal recommendations helped circulate its mysteries and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its peak period in gaming halls. Presented in manageable segments, it's thoroughly enjoyable set of brief historical films that covers video games, graphic novels, movies and even the silly live-action tour. The collection additionally features some unreleased actions and game character images among its previously unreleased material.

Playable Component

Interspersed along the five-part documentary's timeline are prompts to play the games themselves. At various points, viewers can hop into a game of Mortal Kombat or a home system version to reexperience its mechanics and visual presentation, simulated with remarkable precision on modern hardware.

I allocated the majority of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Many of the games here remain enjoyable, especially in direct competitive sessions. However, facing the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a reminder of how crude and unfair the programming was in early Mortal Kombat games. Computer-directed fighters clearly employ dishonest tactics or are alternatively incredibly stupid. If you don't have another person to compete with — online play is available in most titles in the collection, but too light on features — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Visual Options

The two dozen available combat games in the anthology, a blend of arcade, console, and handheld games, are accurately emulated, though I've observed a handful slight anomalies — mostly input lag and sporadic glitches, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. Even though the releases are primarily displayed authentically, the development team has added several intelligent quality-of-life features and visual presentation options. For instance, you can choose to reveal combatant-unique actions on the display and opt to have endless periods to complete lethal techniques. Additionally available are settings for revealing concealed combatants, without having to perform complicated methods to unlock 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 cathode-ray tube displays of coin-op establishments or home televisions, or the limited color monitor of a portable gaming device. A particularly nice touch is the choice to enable coin-op-inspired frames encircling the display, with your selected Mortal Kombat title accurately and softly reflecting against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's quite aesthetically pleasing.

Additional Features

Players will discover multiple nice touches beyond the educational material and simulated classic games, featuring an audio component that lets you revisit the tunes of various Mortal Kombat games excluding the sounds of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. There are also combatant descriptions that feature histories and the various bits of lore presented by the demo sequences of coin-op titles and conclusions.

Archival Discovery

Among the most significant features for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the opportunity to play a segment of previously unavailable content in the format of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This version of the game, a moderately improved edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an pioneering effort from the developer at direct online competitive gaming in gaming halls. The Wavenet Edition of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but provided the ability to compete against internet adversaries and featured various slight error corrections and adjustments. But the Wavenet update didn't find widespread adoption, in part