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Mortal Kombat continues to hold many hidden mysteries and the power to astonish, more than 30 years after its original launch in gaming halls. The recent anthology covering the series' initial period, which includes a quartet of arcade releases, several home system versions, and derivative games, is more than simply a faithfully reproduced collection of iconic titles along with lesser-known entries — it's also a detailed chronicle about the making of the legendary series.

Even as a lifelong enthusiast of the series who has paid close attention its origins and transformation, there was plenty new for me to understand and value about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to other retro collections from the development team Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, section playable historical record. The collection includes digitally recreated editions 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 collection even includes the series' ventures at derivative games, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — some of the brand's least successful installments.

The Legacy Kollection thus isn't a greatest hits compilation, but an examination of the series' formative period, when the development team Midway and brand founders the creative duo behind the series were discovering methods to make a fighting game, digitized from footage of real actors, as they went along. Viewing the historical footage — that features vintage recordings, contemporary discussions, and scans of old flyers, illustrated stories, and even company memos — it's remarkable to see how the franchise evolved from simple starts to a worldwide phenomenon. It's frankly astounding to observe several pioneering developers, operating with virtually no plan or oversight, direct their entertainment passions into establishing an enduring gaming brand.

Documentary Portion

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection documents the ascent of the combat franchise and the founders' vocational paths at the no-longer-operating Midway. It then goes on to show how these identical developers contended with how to consistently surpass their achievements, facing no small amount of demand to replicate their success. It's a fascinating time capsule composed of analog films and analog photographs and pencil sketches, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of the franchise's production method and how oral tradition helped spread its rumors and secrets of MK in its arcade heyday. Presented in manageable segments, it's an eminently watchable series of documentary shorts that includes titles, illustrated stories, cinematic adaptations and including the humorous real-world tour. The compilation also contains some unreleased actions and game character images among its cutting-room-floor content.

Interactive Experience

Distributed throughout the five-part documentary's timeline are invitations to experience the games themselves. At certain intervals, audience members can jump into a Mortal Kombat title or a console adaptation to rediscover its combat system and artistic style, emulated nearly perfectly on modern hardware.

I allocated the majority of my time experiencing the original arcade titles, especially Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Many of the games here remain enjoyable, notably with local multiplayer matches. Yet competing with the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a reminder of how crude and unfair the programming was in the franchise's pioneering releases. Computer-directed fighters obviously use unfair advantages or are otherwise dumb as rocks. Lacking a human opponent — online play is available in the majority of included games, but somewhat limited in options — you'll be missing out.

Visual Options

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the anthology, a mix of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are precisely simulated, though I detected a few small quirks — primarily delayed responses and the occasional bug, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. Even though the releases are largely presented as-is, developer Digital Eclipse has added several intelligent convenience enhancements and graphical adjustment settings. As an illustration, you can choose to reveal combatant-unique actions on-screen and choose to enable unlimited duration to complete lethal techniques. Additionally available are settings for unlocking secret characters, without having to perform complicated methods to access them.

Graphically, the titles can be experienced with numerous graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic effects that reproduce the traditional television screens of coin-op establishments or domestic TVs, or the greenscale screen of a Game Boy. A notably appreciated element is the option to have arcade-like bezels framing the gameplay, with the MK game of your choice accurately and softly reflecting against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's quite aesthetically pleasing.

Bonus Elements

The collection includes numerous welcome features besides the educational material and simulated classic games, including a music player that lets you revisit the tunes of various Mortal Kombat games absent the noise of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. There are also character profiles that contain backgrounds and numerous narrative components shown through arcade games' attract mode screens and endings.

Lost Media Recovery

One of the biggest highlights for dedicated series enthusiasts 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 slightly updated version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an pioneering effort from the developer 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 contained several small bug fixes and balance. Yet this online edition didn't find widespread adoption, in part