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Mortal Kombat continues to hold many hidden mysteries and the capacity to surprise, over three decades after its initial debut in arcades. A new collection including the franchise's earliest days, featuring four original arcade titles, multiple console adaptations, and related titles, goes beyond just a well-emulated collection of iconic titles including less celebrated releases — it's also a comprehensive historical account about the creation of the iconic franchise.

Being a long-time devotee of the franchise who has closely monitored its origins and transformation, there was plenty new for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to other retro collections from the development team Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, portion interactive museum. The collection includes digitally recreated editions 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 derivative games, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — some of the brand's worst entries.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a greatest hits compilation, but an exploration into the series' formative period, when the creators at Midway and brand founders the creative duo behind the series were figuring out how to make a fighting game, digitized from footage of live performers, as they went along. Watching the documentary — that features vintage recordings, contemporary discussions, and scans of old flyers, illustrated stories, and even interoffice faxes — it's remarkable to see how the series transformed from modest origins to a international craze. It's truly remarkable to see a group of early video game creators, operating with virtually no plan or oversight, focus their cultural enthusiasms into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Educational Component

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of the combat franchise and the founders' vocational paths at the now-defunct Midway. It subsequently demonstrates how these identical developers reckoned with how to routinely one-up themselves, experiencing considerable stress to duplicate their triumphs. It serves as a compelling period piece made from analog films and traditional photos and manual drawings, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of Mortal Kombat's development and how word of mouth helped disseminate its secrets and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its arcade heyday. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's an eminently watchable collection of mini-documentaries that covers video games, graphic novels, movies and including the humorous real-world tour. It also includes some unreleased actions and digital fighter representations among its cutting-room-floor content.

Playable Component

Interspersed along the five-part documentary's timeline are opportunities to engage with the actual titles. At various points, audience members can jump into a game of Mortal Kombat or a console adaptation to reexperience its mechanics and artistic style, emulated nearly perfectly on current technology.

I allocated the majority of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, especially Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here stand the test of time, notably with local multiplayer matches. Yet competing with the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a testament to how primitive and unjust the development approached in the franchise's pioneering releases. CPU-controlled opponents clearly employ dishonest tactics or are otherwise dumb as rocks. If you don't have another person to compete with — network gaming is included in the majority of included games, but somewhat limited in options — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Technical Presentation

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the collection, a mix of arcade, console, and handheld games, are precisely simulated, though I have noticed a handful slight anomalies — mostly input lag and the occasional bug, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. Even though the releases are mostly shown in their original form, the development team has added several intelligent user experience improvements and visual presentation options. For example, players have the option to reveal combatant-unique actions on the display and select to activate infinite time to perform a Fatality. Also included are choices for accessing hidden fighters, removing the requirement to complete some esoteric trick to obtain them.

Artistically, the releases can be played with a variety of filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic effects that reproduce the traditional television screens of arcades or household displays, or the monochrome green display of a Nintendo handheld. A notably appreciated element is the option to have coin-op-inspired frames framing the gameplay, with the specific combat game you're playing precisely and gently mirroring against the artificial ebony plastic frames. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Bonus Elements

The collection includes numerous welcome features besides the educational material and simulated classic games, containing a soundtrack mode that lets you revisit the soundtracks of different Mortal Kombat games absent the noise of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. There are also fighter biographies that contain backgrounds and numerous narrative components displayed via the idle displays of gaming hall releases and final sequences.

Archival Discovery

A particularly notable inclusion for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the chance to experience a piece of "lost media" in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This particular edition, a moderately improved edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an early attempt by Midway 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 challenge online opponents and contained several small bug fixes and balance. However, this network version never gained traction, in part