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Mortal Kombat still possesses numerous undisclosed elements and the capacity to surprise, more than 30 years after its initial debut in arcades. A new collection spanning the brand's formative years, featuring four original arcade titles, various home ports, and spinoffs, goes beyond just a well-emulated series of classics and not-so-classics — it's also a detailed chronicle about the creation of the legendary series.

As a dedicated devotee of the franchise who has paid close attention 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 comparable to other vintage game anthologies from the creators at Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, section playable historical record. This compilation features digitally recreated editions of the original arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, including television and mobile versions of several of these titles. The collection even includes the brand's experiments at spin-off titles, like action games Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a highlight reel anthology, but an exploration into Mortal Kombat's early days, when the development team Midway and franchise originators Ed Boon and John Tobias were figuring out how to create a combat title, digitized from footage of live performers, through experimentation. Watching the documentary — containing archival footage, new interviews, and scans of old flyers, comics, and even interoffice faxes — it's incredible to witness how Mortal Kombat went from humble beginnings to a worldwide phenomenon. It's frankly astounding to watch a handful of early video game creators, operating with virtually no plan or oversight, direct their entertainment passions into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Documentary Portion

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of the combat franchise and the founders' vocational paths at the currently closed Midway. It further illustrates how the very same individuals contended with how to consistently surpass their achievements, facing no small amount of demand to replicate their triumphs. It's a fascinating time capsule composed of video recordings and traditional photos and manual drawings, which reveal the self-made character of the franchise's production method and how word of mouth 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 highly engaging set of brief historical films that includes titles, illustrated stories, cinematic adaptations and even the silly live-action tour. The compilation also contains some unused moves and game character images among its previously unreleased material.

Interactive Experience

Interspersed along the five-part documentary's timeline are invitations to experience the original releases. At certain intervals, audience members can jump into a combat game session or a home system version to reexperience its mechanics and visual presentation, recreated with impressive accuracy on current technology.

I allocated the majority of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, specifically Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here hold up, notably with one-on-one local play. But playing against the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a reminder of how crude and unfair the coding existed in early Mortal Kombat games. Computer-directed fighters clearly employ dishonest tactics or are alternatively incredibly stupid. Without having someone to play against — online play is available in numerous anthology releases, but rather basic in functionality — the experience will be incomplete.

Display Features

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the anthology, a blend of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are faithfully recreated, though I've observed a handful slight anomalies — mostly input lag and sporadic glitches, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are largely presented as-is, developer Digital Eclipse has added several intelligent convenience enhancements and graphical adjustment settings. For instance, players have the option to show each character's special moves during gameplay and opt to have infinite time to complete lethal techniques. Also included are choices for revealing concealed combatants, removing the requirement to complete obscure techniques to access them.

Graphically, the titles can be experienced with numerous filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic effects that reproduce the CRT monitors of gaming halls or domestic TVs, or the greenscale screen of a Game Boy. An especially welcome feature 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 faux black plastic borders. It's quite aesthetically pleasing.

Bonus Elements

Players will discover multiple appreciated elements beyond the documentary and emulated arcade classics, containing a soundtrack mode that allows users to rediscover the tunes of various Mortal Kombat games absent the noise of combatants violently defeating each other. Also present are character profiles that include bios and multiple story elements presented by arcade games' attract mode screens and conclusions.

Lost Media Recovery

Among the most significant features for committed franchise followers is the opportunity to play a piece of "lost media" in the format 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 one-on-one internet-based play in gaming halls. This network version of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but provided the ability to battle network competitors and contained several small glitch repairs and refinements. Yet this online edition didn't find widespread adoption, in part