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This iconic fighting game continues to hold many hidden mysteries and the ability to amaze, more than 30 years after its initial debut in arcades. A new collection including the brand's formative years, featuring four original arcade titles, several home system versions, and derivative games, is more than just a well-emulated set of legendary games and not-so-classics — it's also a detailed chronicle about the development of the iconic franchise.

Being a long-time Mortal Kombat fan who has carefully followed its development and progression, there was much to discover for me to discover and admire about the series.

What Defines the Historical Compilation

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to other vintage game anthologies from developer Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, part playable archive. The anthology contains simulated releases of the original arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, plus console and handheld ports of several of these titles. This compilation also features the series' ventures at spinoffs, like action-oriented titles Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' worst entries.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a “best of” collection, but an examination of the franchise's initial era, when the development team Midway and series co-creators Ed Boon and John Tobias were determining how to develop a battle series, created from video recordings of actual people, on the fly. Viewing the historical footage — containing vintage recordings, contemporary discussions, and scans of old flyers, comics, and even interoffice faxes — it's astonishing to observe how the series transformed from modest origins to a worldwide phenomenon. It's genuinely amazing to watch a handful of pioneering developers, developing without clear direction or guidance, focus their cultural enthusiasms into creating a legendary video game series.

Educational Component

The documentary portion of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of Mortal Kombat and its creators' careers at the now-defunct Midway. It further illustrates how these identical developers reckoned with how to regularly outdo their previous work, experiencing considerable stress to duplicate their achievements. It serves as a compelling period piece constructed using VHS tapes and traditional photos and pencil sketches, which showcase the DIY nature of the series' creation process and how word of mouth helped spread its rumors and undisclosed elements of the series in its peak period in gaming halls. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's thoroughly enjoyable set of brief historical films that includes titles, illustrated stories, cinematic adaptations and including the humorous real-world tour. It also includes some unreleased actions and game character images among its archived development assets.

Interactive Gaming

Distributed throughout the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are invitations to experience the games themselves. During specific moments, users can directly access a game of Mortal Kombat or one of its home console ports to reexperience its mechanics and artistic style, emulated nearly perfectly on modern hardware.

I dedicated most of my time playing the arcade classics, especially Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here hold up, particularly during local multiplayer matches. However, facing the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a testament to how primitive and unfair the programming was in the series' initial installments. Computer-directed fighters blatantly cheat to win or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. Lacking someone to play against — online play is available in numerous anthology releases, but somewhat limited in options — the experience will be incomplete.

Visual Options

The two dozen available combat games in the compilation, a mix of arcade, console, and handheld games, are accurately emulated, though I've observed a couple minor issues — mostly input lag and intermittent errors, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are largely presented as-is, the development team has added several intelligent convenience enhancements and visual presentation options. For instance, you can choose to display fighter-specific techniques during gameplay and choose to enable unlimited duration to execute finishing moves. Additionally available are settings for revealing concealed combatants, removing the requirement to complete complicated methods to unlock them.

Visually, the games can be experienced with numerous filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic options that simulate the traditional television screens of coin-op establishments or household displays, or the monochrome green display of a portable gaming device. A particularly nice touch is the setting to activate coin-op-inspired frames encircling the display, with your selected Mortal Kombat title accurately and softly reflecting against the artificial ebony plastic frames. It's very artistically charming.

Bonus Elements

There are plenty of appreciated elements beyond the educational material and simulated classic games, containing a soundtrack mode that enables players to reexperience the tunes of various fighting releases without the din of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. Additionally included are combatant descriptions that feature histories and numerous narrative components shown through arcade games' attract mode screens and endings.

Archival Discovery

One of the biggest highlights for dedicated series enthusiasts is the chance to experience a piece of "lost media" in the format of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This particular edition, a somewhat revised iteration of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an initial venture by the company at head-to-head network battles in arcades. The Wavenet Edition of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but featured the capability to challenge online opponents and contained several small glitch repairs and refinements. Yet this online edition failed to achieve popularity, in part