Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection Review – The Ultimate Kompilation?

It’s 1996, and I’m in the seventh grade. My friends tell me about this amazing new fighting game on a cartridge called Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. The first time I saw it in action, I was immediately hooked. Soon, all my school friends would come over, and we’d have one hell of a time playing all day, trying out different button inputs to perform fatalities. Before we knew it, the school vacations were over.

My appreciation for Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 eventually made me fall in love with the legendary fighting franchise itself. In the nearly thirty years since then, I’ve played almost every mainline entry. And while I still lament what they did with Mortal Kombat 1 and the current state of the series, nothing quite raises the excitement like someone screaming “Mortal Kombat!”

In that sense, seeing Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection release in 2025 with the games I grew up loving was a nostalgic rush. But after spending some time with it, while there’s plenty to appreciate, I can’t help but feel a little disappointed with how certain things have been handled.

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“The first three Mortal Kombat titles each have their own independent versions, spanning consoles, handhelds, and arcades.”

Now, the good stuff first. This is the Kollection of older Mortal Kombat games. You’ll find the legendary first three entries, followed by what’s probably my least favorite in the series, Mortal Kombat 4. Then there’s Mortal Kombat Trilogy, the GBA version of Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, and even Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero straight from the PlayStation 1 era. Heck, there are also special versions of these games, including my all-time favorite Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, the excellent Mortal Kombat Trilogy, and Mortal Kombat: Tournament Edition.

And that’s still not all, the first three Mortal Kombat titles each have their own independent versions, spanning consoles, handhelds, and arcades. They really went all out with this collection. There’s also a Krypt mode packed with commentary on the series, timelines of key events, cool artwork, and behind-the-scenes videos that every long-time fan should check out. From a content perspective, this collection absolutely delivers, bringing heaps of nostalgia to the table along with plenty of bonus material that nearly every Mortal Kombat fan will appreciate.

The presentation, especially the user interface, is another major highlight of this collection. Everything leading up to launching these games has been presented in a clean, stylish, and scrollable format that’s instantly likable. You can filter games by arcade, console, or handheld versions, allowing you to jump right into the exact version you want. It’s one of the coolest menu designs I’ve seen in a game this year, focusing heavily on speed and accessibility, something fans are sure to appreciate.

There are also several quality-of-life improvements, the most noticeable being the ability to reverse time during gameplay. It fits nicely with the time-related themes that some of the more recent entries explore in their stories, while also adding a great layer of accessibility for newcomers to practice and refine their skills. Speaking of practice, you can now train specifically for fatalities, a really cool touch for fans like me who played these games decades ago.

You can also enable or disable on-screen move lists and adjust difficulty settings, a welcome feature given how unbalanced some of the older titles can feel (a product of their time, so not necessarily a flaw). On top of that, there are visual options that let you tweak screen filters (weird, you can only change it for individual games) and adjust the display width, giving players even more control over how they want their nostalgic experience to look and feel.

On the performance front, I played the collection on my PlayStation 5 Pro, and as expected from such old titles, I didn’t face any performance issues whatsoever. But the volume on some of these games is too low, not to mention there are some missing sound effects here and there. The original trilogy still plays the best, truly legendary in my opinion, and remains absolutely worth your time. The combat still feels tight and responsive, and you can literally see how it evolved and improved from the first game up to Mortal Kombat 3.

“If the handheld version of Deadly Alliance was included, why not the console version as well?”

Mortal Kombat 4 remains a mixed bag for me. The shift from 2D to 3D clearly impacted its overall quality back then, and that still shows today. As for the rest, titles like the awful Mortal Kombat: Special Forces and the severely outdated GBA versions of Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, Mortal Kombat: Tournament Edition, and Mortal Kombat Advance look so pixelated that they’re borderline unplayable. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, these are, after all, direct ports of their original releases, but I doubt many players will spend much time with them.

I’m also a bit confused by some of the choices made here. If the handheld version of Deadly Alliance was included, why not the console version as well? It feels like a strange and noticeable omission. I also think having multiple versions of the same game could end up confusing new players. Don’t get me wrong. This is absolutely fantastic for game preservation  but a simple recommendation filter like highlighting which version is best to play, could have gone a long way in making these options stand out better. Of course, this is subjective, but from a new player’s perspective, it could have helped avoid unnecessary confusion.

I also want to point out one very noticeable issue with this collection: the input lag, both for offline and online play. You’re forced to adapt your playstyle around it, which can be frustrating for some players. I no longer have my old consoles to test and confirm whether this was an issue in the original versions, but regardless, it’s 2025, and this should have been addressed. I’m not sure how fixable this is or whether it’s by design, but it feels off-putting and, by modern fighting game standards, unacceptable.

There’s also a Quick Play mode for online matches, but I found it to be pretty barebones, because, well, it is. Matchmaking works on a per-game basis, so good luck finding matches consistently when there are so many titles to choose from. Since it’s tied to specific games, wait times can get quite long for certain players. There are currently no lobbies or group play options either, though those features are said to be coming later. If implemented properly, there’s potential for a decent community to form around this mode, but for now, we’ll just have to wait and see how that pans out.

“To wrap up, I’m divided on Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection.“

I also feel that some degree of visual enhancement could have been implemented. To be clear, this isn’t a remaster or a remake, nor was it ever marketed as one, these are straight ports. Still, a modest level of visual improvement to character models or environments would have gone a long way. Purists may not agree, but I genuinely believe there was room for visual touch-ups, especially in the first four games of the series. It feels like a missed opportunity, though, who knows, maybe they’re saving that for separate remasters or remakes down the line.

To wrap up, I’m divided on Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection. As a long-time fan, it’s genuinely great to experience these classics again on modern hardware and displays, complete with some thoughtful quality-of-life additions and nostalgic extras. But for players who’ve spent the last decade exploring fighting games, I’m not sure this collection offers much value.

The input lag issues and limited matchmaking options certainly don’t help either. In the end, Legacy Kollection feels more like a collector’s item, something to proudly preserve in your vault rather than a title you’ll revisit often. For Mortal Kombat fans, it’s a worthy trip down memory lane. For everyone else, there are far better fighting game options available today.

This game was reviewed on PlayStation 5.