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Mortal Kombat continues to hold numerous undisclosed elements and the capacity to surprise, well past its 30th anniversary after its original launch in gaming halls. The recent anthology covering the franchise's earliest days, which includes a quartet of arcade releases, several home system versions, and derivative games, transcends just a well-emulated collection of iconic titles and not-so-classics — it functions as a comprehensive historical account about the development of the iconic franchise.

As a dedicated enthusiast of the series who has carefully followed its development and progression, there was much to discover for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like other vintage game anthologies from the development team Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, part playable archive. This compilation features digitally recreated editions of the first arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, plus console and handheld ports of several of these titles. The anthology additionally contains the series' ventures at derivative games, like action-oriented titles Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection thus isn't a “best of” collection, but an exploration into the series' formative period, when the creators at Midway and brand founders the visionary developers were determining how to develop a battle series, created from video recordings of live performers, on the fly. Observing the archival material — which includes vintage recordings, recent conversations, and digital copies of vintage posters, graphic novels, and even interoffice faxes — it's remarkable to see how the franchise evolved from modest origins to a international craze. It's genuinely amazing to see a group of early video game creators, developing without clear direction or supervision, direct their entertainment passions into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Educational Component

The documentary portion of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of Mortal Kombat and the founders' vocational paths at the no-longer-operating Midway. It then goes on to show how these identical developers reckoned with how to routinely one-up themselves, experiencing considerable stress to duplicate their achievements. It's a fascinating time capsule composed of analog films and analog photographs and manual drawings, which reveal the self-made character of the franchise's production method and how word of mouth helped circulate its mysteries and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its arcade heyday. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's highly engaging set of brief historical films that spans games, comics, films and even the silly live-action tour. It also includes some never-implemented techniques and digital fighter representations among its previously unreleased material.

Interactive Gaming

Distributed throughout the five-segment historical film's chronology are prompts to play the actual titles. At certain intervals, viewers can hop into a Mortal Kombat title or a home system version to revisit its gameplay and artistic style, simulated with remarkable precision on modern hardware.

I spent the bulk of my time playing the arcade classics, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here remain enjoyable, especially in direct competitive sessions. However, facing the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a testament to how primitive and unjust the programming was in the franchise's pioneering releases. Computer-directed fighters clearly employ dishonest tactics or are otherwise dumb as rocks. Lacking someone to play against — network gaming is included in the majority of included games, but too light on features — the experience will be incomplete.

Display Features

The twenty-three accessible Mortal Kombat titles in the anthology, a combination of coin-op, home system, and portable titles, are faithfully recreated, though I detected a couple minor issues — mostly input lag and the occasional bug, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are primarily displayed authentically, developer Digital Eclipse has added several intelligent convenience enhancements and display customization choices. As an illustration, players have the option to show each character's special moves during gameplay and opt to have infinite time to complete lethal techniques. There are also options for accessing hidden fighters, removing the requirement to complete obscure techniques to unlock 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 traditional television screens of coin-op establishments or home televisions, or the limited color monitor of a portable gaming device. A notably appreciated element is the choice to enable arcade-like bezels encircling the display, with the MK game of your choice accurately and softly reflecting against the faux black plastic borders. It's quite aesthetically pleasing.

Additional Features

There are plenty of nice touches beyond the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, featuring an audio component that allows users to rediscover the music from multiple fighting releases excluding the sounds of combatants violently defeating each other. Additionally included are character profiles that include bios and numerous narrative components displayed via arcade games' attract mode screens and conclusions.

Historical Preservation

Among the most significant features for dedicated series enthusiasts is the ability to access a piece of "lost media" in the format of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This specific release, a moderately improved edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an initial venture by the company at direct online competitive gaming in gaming halls. The online-enabled release of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but included the option to battle network competitors and featured various slight bug fixes and balance. Yet this online edition failed to achieve popularity, in part