(I apologize if this review is formatted stupid, I've never really tried to do a 'professional' looking review before but I felt like I should give this game my word too because I have things I'd like to say here)

Listen, I think this game is 50/50 on whether you're gonna enjoy it.
If you're at all interested in this; I'm going to implore you to ask yourself one question:

"What am I personally hoping to get out of this kollection? What exactly is the appeal to me here?"

Because there are two lanes to pick;

Allow me to break it down.

If you're just here to play offline by yourself, just wanting to experience these games and replay them with lots of quality of life changes, extra features and a plethora of behind the scenes stuff, you'll get a kick out of it. The games run very well, and with the amount of titles included, I think it warrants the price tag. Mostly.
I think this warrants more of a 40$ price tag, 50 is stretching it a bit. Not a dealbreaker or the biggest issue ever-
But definitely wait for a sale if you can. I don't regret my purchase, I'm perfectly happy with what I've gotten out of it.
However still; I think the complaints about the price are *MOSTLY* fair. Like, maybe a little bit excessive but I mean
gamers seem to do that all the time so whatever. Plus I hate WB-Games and I think they don't deserve to own this IP.

See, when it comes to someone like me? I'm extremely ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ autistic. The behind the scenes stuff is honestly the biggest selling point to me, that was what I was happiest about. I care way more than most people do about this franchise.
Learning the history, every little bit of trivia, every drop of LORE and every bite of koncept art, kontent and kharacter details. Literally anything I can absorb and learn about Mortal Kombat is going to appeal to me.
But that's just me, an autistic goober who already is going to be sold on the idea of getting to learn never before seen ♥♥♥♥ about MK, but I cannot say most people are going to be this excited about interviews and BTS footage of a 30 year old arcade game series. Like, let's be so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ real: do YOU give a single crap about the story of MK? Like, did you even think once about the storyline of the arcade era MK games? Or did you do what 90% of players did and completely ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ignored that ♥♥♥♥ because it's an arcade game and the story doesn't really matter here. I think people would be like "oh cool interviews and factoids about the development. Neat." Maybe watch them like, once? And then never think about it again and just mash buttons like everyone else.

But, the appeal of getting to play every classic 2D Mortal Kombat game is still going to appeal to your kasual player. And if you're looking to just have a nice comfortable way to play all these old games? Then yeah, this kollection delivers on that.
Honestly I'm surprised at just how many different versions of each game they bothered to include.

Like, they even ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ included the 32X version of MKII.

The 32X.

Y'know, the add-on that is known exclusively for how terrible it was?

Did you even know MKII had a 32X port? Of course you didn't, it's the 32X. But I'm genuinely happy they included it anyway. The fact that they don't just include the arcade versions but a majority of the home console and handheld ports too? I love that. I even love that they included the garbage ones.
Yeah Mortal Kombat on GameBoy is horrible, but I'm happy they included it. It's still just as awful as I remember. :)
They included MK Advance, y'know? The port of UMK3 so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ bad it's to this day a
kontender for the worst mortal kombat game in the entire franchise?

Also sidenote; Digital Eclipse also made the GameBoy Color port of MK4. Which they did not include in this kollection.
And considering the...ahem, 'quality' of that port? It is very funny that they just didn't include it. They know. I mean have you seen that version? Dude, dude it's so wild that they released that game and people bought it. With money. They spent money for that.

BUTTTTT I have some gripes:
Where the heck was MK Gold? Like, you included the 32X version of MKII but you couldn't include the version of MK4 that had new characters and all those wonderful new goofy endings and broken mechanics? Look I get the dreamcast wasn't the biggest success but come on man, you included special forces. There is no reason why MKGold was left out. That's such baloney man.

I DEMAND YOU ADD MORTAL KOMBAT GOLD, THE DREAMCAST DESERVES IT'S REPRESENTATION TOO. YOU CAN'T JUST INCLUDE THE 32X BUT LEAVE OUT THE DREAMCAST LIKE THAT?? THE DISRESPECT OF IT ALL. UNBELIEVABLE.

And yeah several ports were excluded from this, like the N64 versions of MK4 & Trilogy. I really think those should have been part of this. There's several quirks of those releases that make them stand out and worthy of being added.
Also I think Ultimate Mortal Kombat on the Nintendo DS should have been included as well. Yeah emulating a DS is a ♥♥♥♥♥ but that game still warranted inclusion. It's a very interesting port and I think it deserved a spot here.
Also cannot believe they left out the iconic JakksPacific plug-n-play version of Mortal Kombat.
Why did you not include that one?? It's clearly the best one.


Now, if you're more of a kompetitive player, someone who's main appeal is the online multiplayer aspect of this game:
Someone who's looking to perform the 200-hit anal-prolapse fazbear ♥♥♥♥-blast 9000 kombo on everyone: well...

That's where the big fat elephant in the room must be addressed. The online is...rough. Persistent input lag, connection issues every 5 seconds. And the actual way the multiplayer is set up is...y'know, it's pretty underwhelming. I'm not a professional fighting game player, I have NO ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ idea what a frame-data is or how to do anything beyond forward down x and mashing the buttons like a ♥♥♥♥♥-out gorilla. But I know enough to know that just the extreme amounts of input delays and glitched out mechanics are basically all it takes to make this, to put it nicely; "not very good". It doesn't play very well at all.
Can it be patched out? Maybe. But as of the writing of this review. It's still very much broken.

I'm marking this as not recommended, despite the fact I actually got exactly what I wanted out of this.
But a large portion of people who bought this wanted it for the online multiplayer. And when the Xbox 360 ports of UMK3 from well over a decade ago are still the definitive ports? And this 2025 release plays THIS bad? Well, that's not excusable.

I hope it can get fixed. I really do. I think that both kasual and komp players deserve a good product.

If they do fix it, I'll definitely give this game a revised review, but as it stands right now, it really needs some more time in the oven. Because this just ain't finished man.