Back when Mortal Kombat was starting to get popular I remember playing it with friends in the arcade and later, on home consoles. The Mortal Kombat Legacy Kollection does an incredible job of paying homage to this popular fighting franchise and showcases what helped to make Mortal Kombat the iconic series that we all know today. In addition to a plethora of Mortal Kombat titles, this “kollection” showcases the overall history of the franchise with Kombatant histories, a documentary, being able to instantly unlock all secret characters, and much more.

The Mortal Kombat Legacy Kollection features 23 games from Mortal Kombat’s history. There is the original Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II, Mortal Kombat 3, and a bunch of other games going up to Mortal Kombat Tournament Edition on the Game Boy Advance in 2003. For the original Mortal Kombat there are different versions such as the Arcade version, but also different home versions like Super Nintendo, Genesis, Game Boy, and Game Gear. Mortal Kombat II features the Arcade version, Super Nintendo, Genesis, Game Boy, and the 32X version. Both Mortal Kombat 3 and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 feature multiple versions as well. Mortal Kombat 4 only features the arcade version, and then all of the games after that feature a single version as well. This is due mainly to licensing issues, as well as technical issues, so not every single Mortal Kombat game ever created is here. A good portion of the “old school” is here though which should delight fans.

Immediately after booting up the original Mortal Kombat I was immediately shown how rusty my skills were after being quickly decimated. It has been a very long time since I played the original Mortal Kombat titles. Fortunately there are a lot of options that I was able to utilize while I relearned how to play the game. Each Mortal Kombat game has its own settings and they aren’t always the same. For example, in the original Mortal Kombat you choose your difficulty, turn low blows on, utilize one button fatalities if you want, and more. Mortal Kombat II, for example, doesn’t have the low blow option. I also really liked how I could choose to have different fighting moves on the screen so I could remember how to do the ice attack with Sub-Zero or fly across the screen as Raiden. Eventually I didn’t need those displayed on the screen as I got used to these games again but it is a great option to have for those who might not remember how to perform certain movesets. Each game also has different modes to hone your skills in. I definitely spent some time in “Fatality Training” to get accustomed to pulling those off again, as well as overall training in general. I really enjoyed how they set everything up, regardless of the player’s experience level with the franchise. There are going to be some like myself that played a lot of Mortal Kombat back in the day but perhaps it has been quite a while and so it is going to take a bit to get familiar with everything again. There is also a nice rewind feature here where you can rewind the action up to 30 seconds so you can try and correct a mistake you made or perhaps try to utilize a different strategy entirely. This is completely optional but it is something I appreciated as I was trying to get used to the different rhythm of each game. For people who are brand new to the franchise, these different options and training modes will help them get up to speed as well.

Of course fans can take the fighting online as well to see how your skills stack up against someone else. Online options include being able to adjust your input lag, adjusting the connection quality limit for matching with other players and deciding whether or not you want to fight against other people from around the world or only in your region. At launch the online gameplay is a bit limited however, and I did have instances of having substantial lag during my matches. This makes it harder to fight your opponent and can quickly become frustrating. There is a quickplay mode available if you want to try and jump into the action quickly but it is a bit bare bones at the moment. I have confidence that this will be improved over time but it would have been nice if this particular aspect of the game was launched in a bit better condition. One thing to note is the incredibly rare WaveNet version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 is playable here for the first time since 1997.

The teams over at Digital Eclipse and Atari advertised the Mortal Kombat Legacy Kollection as the definitive collection for Mortal Kombat fans and they delivered. In addition to all of the Mortal Kombat games, there is a lot of other content for fans to sink their teeth into. One of my favorite items is the interactive documentary that is included in this “kollection”. This is a multi-part video series that goes over the history of the franchise, from its inception to how the franchise has created an enduring legacy. There is a great timeline for fans to explore featuring videos as well as historical pieces of information, like talking about the dawn of fighting games and giving credit to Street Fighter II for changing arcade games forever after its release in 1991. The first chapter starts in 1981 and goes through 1992. The remaining chapters go all the way through the present day in 2025. The myriad of videos here covering Mortal Kombat history is impressive and doesn’t just cover the Mortal Kombat video games. For example, the Mortal Kombat movies get mentioned. The video game Injustice also gets a nod due to it being developed by the Mortal Kombat team. Fans of the Mortal Kombat franchise (as well as the work that team has done in general) really owe it to themselves to check out this interactive documentary. A lot of work was put into it and now fans have the entire history of this beloved franchise in one place.

For those who want a bit of backstory on the fighters of Mortal Kombat, there is also a backstory section that explores the history of all of the kombatants. So, for example, if you want to learn about Smoke in Mortal Kombat 3, you can go to his character and explore his history. There is a great timeline that begins with his history and how he was created. Then it goes through some of his history in different Mortal Kombat games such as Mortal Kombat II and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. The detail here is impressive and fans should enjoy how the history of their favorite character is on display here.

One thing some of the old Mortal Kombat games have been known for is the secrets that each game hid. A lot of those secrets have been turned into a toggle here so you can choose whether or not you want to experience it or not. For example, it could be a complicated thing to find and fight Reptile in the original Mortal Kombat. In Mortal Kombat Legacy Kollection however, you can just turn on the option to fight Reptile without having to go through all of the trouble. There are even some developer menus that you can utilize to your advantage. I thought it was really nice to see some of this stuff without having to go through a lot of trouble like we used to have to do back in the day.

Mortal Kombat Legacy Kollection also features some nice quality of life enhancements, such as increasing the visual fidelity of Mortal Kombat 4 a bit and taking away the load times from Shang Tsung’s morphs in Mortal Kombat Trilogy. That said, this “kollection” is not necessarily a remaster or a remake, graphically speaking. The original Mortal Kombat has not been updated to look like a game from 2025 for example. For me personally I’m happy that they kept most things intact, including how every game looked. There are updates of course (some of which I have mentioned) but this is a collection that pays homage to the history of Mortal Kombat, not a “kollection” of games that look like they were initially released this year.

Overall, Mortal Kombat Legacy Kollection is a great retelling of the Mortal Kombat history from its early days. It starts in 1992 with the original Mortal Kombat and goes through 2003 with Mortal Kombat Tournament Edition on the Game Boy Advance. That includes some of the Mortal Kombat spin-offs, such as Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero on the original PlayStation and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces, also on the original PlayStation. While the online suite needs work, I really enjoyed the overall package. The development team did a great job here and as a Mortal Kombat fan from the beginning, I really appreciate the level of detail and respect that was paid to the franchise here. If you are a fan of the franchise from back in the day, be sure to pick up this “kollection”. If you are a new fan from some of the more modern Mortal Kombat titles, you should pick this up as well. Old school Mortal Kombat is a bit different from the more modern titles but is still a tremendous amount of fun and I think new players will find it interesting to learn about all the lore and see where it all started for this popular fighting franchise.

Score: 8/10

Originally posted on Gaming Target

Please Note: Digital Eclipse provided us with a code for Mortal Kombat Legacy Kollection for review.