Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is not only a great round-up of the franchise's earliest hits, it’s also a tremendous history lesson on the building of a fighting game franchise that remains influential today. I do wish the compilation covered more of the noticeable gaps in time toward the end, and that there were further efforts to tweak the tuning of some infamously imbalanced enemy AI.

Digital Eclipse's latest is a love letter to kombat with a K, warts and all.

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is yet another tremendous compilation from Digital Eclipse, as it continues to uppercut any challengers to its reign as the king of retro re-releases. The only sticking point in a flawlessly presented collection of games is the games themselves, some of which (especially the non-arcade releases) don't quite manage to break the Test Your Might blocks these days.

An agonisingly in-depth archive of Mortal Kombat's importance to the industry, this is the kind of kompilation the franchise has always deserved. While its absent online features do put a small dampener on the bundle at launch, the sheer scale of this kollection and the quality of its supplementary materials make it a must buy – even for kurious passers-by who may find themselves discovering the franchise for the first time.

With a total of 23 playable games alongside a comprehensive interactive documentary providing detail behind the series' development, Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is yet another triumph for Digital Eclipse from the historical compilation perspective.

With classic games and a heartfelt documentary, Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection continues to show that there's nobody better at this type of compilation than Digital Eclipse. Whether you're an old-school fighter or want to teach your kids what MK looked like in the old days, this is the best way to do it.

While I’ve been a casual fan of the MK series over the years (MK2 on Super NES was my jam), Mortal Kombat Legacy Kollection leaves me disappointed. While I did enjoy revisiting the few I played back in the day or finally get my hands on entries I never played such as the arcade games, the brutal A.I., even on Extra Easy, can make this incredibly frustrating. Newcomers trying to get their footing in will find nothing but frustration especially when some games actually read player input and react instantly. Unless you’re a die-hard MK fans who needs everything in their collection, I recommend you avoid yourself some frustrations or wait for a sale.

As far as collections go, the Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is rather mid. From bog-standard, poorly tuned emulation in place of actual ports and all the problems that go with that, to a lack of style in the UI and menus, and low-quality presentation overall. If you have no other way of playing these titles, then it likely isn’t the absolute worst way you could play them, but the Mortal Kombat series’ reputation and, dare I say, legacy deserve better than this.

Whether you're a fan or an old hand at Mortal Kombat, the Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is unmissable. There is a vigorously faithful and feature rich adherence to preserving the core aspects of the original arcade versions of the Mortal Kombat games, as well as bringing along intriguing PS1 spin-offs and early 00s Gameboy Advance titles. If you're looking for more modern entries you will be disappointed, but if you appreciate the legacy and the history of the Mortal Kombat franchise, this is an impressive and essential collection that ought to be a precedent for other retro videogame collections developed in the future.

Your assessment of Mortal Kombat Legacy Kollection is going to depend on what kind of player you are. If you're the ultra-competitive type who wants more than local fights, you'll be disappointed. The splintering of online play and lack of lobbies means that trying to find a game is needlessly painful, and with lobbies still in a beta state as of the time of this writing, it'll take longer than expected to get a PC-only community going for this compilation. If you're a more casual player or prefer local play, then the recent fixes to controller latency make this a very enjoyable experience all around. The solo campaign still feels grueling due to an unflinching difficulty level. The historical content and game library make this a great pick-up for those who love game history. If you just want to play the games offline, you'll greatly enjoy this experience.