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Mortal Kombat retains many hidden mysteries and the capacity to surprise, well past its 30th anniversary after its original launch in arcades. The recent anthology covering the brand's formative years, comprising four original arcade titles, various home ports, and related titles, is more than just a well-emulated set of legendary games along with lesser-known entries — it's also a comprehensive historical account about the making of the renowned brand.

Even as a lifelong Mortal Kombat fan who has carefully followed its development and progression, there was numerous fresh aspects for me to understand and value about the series.

What Makes the Historical Compilation

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to other retro collections from developer Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, section playable historical record. The collection includes emulated versions 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 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 is therefore not a greatest hits compilation, but an examination of the series' formative period, when developer Midway and franchise originators the visionary developers were determining how to make a fighting game, created from video recordings of live performers, as they went along. Observing the archival material — which includes archival footage, new interviews, and digital copies of vintage posters, graphic novels, and even company memos — it's remarkable to see how Mortal Kombat went from modest origins to a worldwide phenomenon. It's genuinely amazing to see a group of young game developers, working with minimal planning or oversight, focus their cultural enthusiasms into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Educational Component

The documentary portion of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of the fighting series and its creators' careers at the no-longer-operating Midway. It subsequently demonstrates how the very same individuals reckoned with how to regularly outdo their previous work, experiencing considerable stress to duplicate their achievements. It represents an intriguing historical record made from video recordings and analog photographs and manual drawings, which reveal the self-made character of Mortal Kombat's development and how word of mouth helped circulate its mysteries and secrets of MK in its peak period in gaming halls. Presented in manageable segments, it's an eminently watchable collection of mini-documentaries that spans games, comics, films and even the silly live-action tour. It also includes some never-implemented techniques and game character images among its previously unreleased material.

Interactive Gaming

Placed within the five-part documentary's timeline are invitations to experience the original releases. During specific moments, viewers can hop into a game of Mortal Kombat or a home system version to revisit its gameplay and artistic style, simulated with remarkable precision on modern hardware.

I dedicated most of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Many of the games here hold up, especially in one-on-one local play. However, facing the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a reminder of how crude and unfair the coding existed in the series' initial installments. Computer-directed fighters blatantly cheat to win or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. Without having someone to play against — online play is available in numerous anthology releases, but rather basic in functionality — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Display Features

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the anthology, a combination of arcade, console, and handheld games, are precisely simulated, though I have noticed a handful slight anomalies — mostly input lag and intermittent errors, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are largely presented as-is, developer Digital Eclipse has incorporated various clever user experience improvements and visual presentation options. For example, players have the option to show each character's special moves during gameplay and choose to enable endless periods to execute finishing moves. Also included are choices for revealing concealed combatants, removing the requirement to complete complicated methods to obtain them.

Artistically, the releases can be played with a variety of filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic filters that mimic the traditional television screens of arcades or home televisions, or the greenscale screen of a Game Boy. A particularly nice touch is the option to have arcade-like bezels encircling the display, with the MK game of your choice precisely and gently mirroring against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's very artistically charming.

Additional Features

There are plenty of nice touches beyond the documentary and emulated arcade classics, featuring an audio component that enables players to reexperience the tunes of various combat titles without the din of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. Also present are fighter biographies that include bios and multiple story elements shown through the demo sequences of coin-op titles and endings.

Archival Discovery

Among the most significant features 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 version of the game, a somewhat revised iteration of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an early attempt by Midway at head-to-head network battles in gaming halls. The Wavenet Edition of the game is virtually identical to UMK3, but provided the ability to battle network competitors and featured various slight glitch repairs and refinements. But the Wavenet update didn't find widespread adoption, in part