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Mortal Kombat still possesses many hidden mysteries and the power to astonish, well past its 30th anniversary after its initial debut in arcades. The recent anthology spanning the franchise's earliest days, featuring four arcade games, multiple console adaptations, and related titles, is more than simply a faithfully reproduced series of classics including less celebrated releases — it's also a rich documentary about the making of the legendary series.

Even as a lifelong enthusiast of the series who has carefully followed its creation and evolution, there was plenty new for me to discover and admire about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like other vintage game anthologies from the development team Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, section playable historical record. This compilation features 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 some of those games. 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 most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a “best of” collection, but an examination of the series' formative period, when the creators at Midway and franchise originators the visionary developers were figuring out how to make a fighting game, produced using film material of actual people, on the fly. Viewing the historical footage — which includes vintage recordings, contemporary discussions, and reproductions of classic advertisements, comics, and even interoffice faxes — it's astonishing to observe how the franchise evolved from modest origins to a worldwide phenomenon. It's genuinely amazing to see a group of early video game creators, working with minimal planning or supervision, direct their entertainment passions into creating a legendary video game series.

Educational Component

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of Mortal Kombat and its creators' careers at the no-longer-operating Midway. It subsequently demonstrates how these identical developers addressed how to consistently surpass their achievements, experiencing considerable pressure to repeat their achievements. It represents an intriguing historical record constructed using VHS tapes and film-based pictures and hand-drawn illustrations, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of Mortal Kombat's development and how personal recommendations helped disseminate its secrets and undisclosed elements of the series in its peak period in gaming halls. Told in bite-sized chunks, 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 never-implemented techniques and game character images among its previously unreleased material.

Interactive Experience

Placed within the five-segment historical film's chronology are prompts to play the actual titles. At various points, audience members can jump into a game of Mortal Kombat or a home system version to revisit its gameplay and visual presentation, emulated nearly perfectly on modern hardware.

I dedicated most of my time playing the arcade classics, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here hold up, especially in direct competitive sessions. However, facing the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a testament to how primitive and unbalanced the programming was in the series' initial installments. CPU-controlled opponents obviously use unfair advantages or are alternatively incredibly stupid. Without having someone to play against — online play is available in most titles in the collection, but somewhat limited in options — the experience will be incomplete.

Display Features

The two dozen available combat games in the anthology, a mix of arcade, console, and handheld games, are accurately emulated, though I have noticed a handful slight anomalies — mainly control latency and intermittent errors, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are largely presented as-is, developer Digital Eclipse has added several intelligent convenience enhancements and graphical adjustment settings. As an illustration, players have the option to show each character's special moves during gameplay and opt to have endless periods to perform a Fatality. There are also options for revealing concealed combatants, eliminating the need to execute some esoteric trick to obtain them.

Graphically, the titles can be played with a variety of filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection includes remarkably accurate options that simulate the CRT monitors of coin-op establishments or domestic TVs, or the greenscale screen of a Nintendo handheld. A notably appreciated element is the setting to activate arcade-like bezels framing the gameplay, with your selected Mortal Kombat title precisely and gently mirroring against the faux black plastic borders. It's very artistically charming.

Extra Content

The collection includes numerous appreciated elements beyond the educational material and simulated classic games, including a music player that lets you revisit the tunes of various combat titles absent the noise of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. Also present are combatant descriptions that contain backgrounds and numerous narrative components presented by the idle displays of gaming hall releases and conclusions.

Archival Discovery

Among the most significant features for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the ability to access a piece of "lost media" in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This specific release, a moderately improved edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an early attempt by Midway at head-to-head network battles in gaming halls. The online-enabled release of the game is virtually identical to UMK3, but featured the capability to battle network competitors and featured various slight glitch repairs and refinements. But the Wavenet update failed to achieve popularity, in part