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Mortal Kombat retains numerous undisclosed elements and the capacity to surprise, more than 30 years after its initial debut in gaming halls. This latest compilation spanning the brand's formative years, which includes a quartet of arcade releases, several home system versions, and related titles, transcends only a accurately simulated set of legendary games and not-so-classics — it's also a detailed chronicle about the creation of the legendary series.

As a dedicated Mortal Kombat fan who has paid close attention its creation and evolution, there was much to discover for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Defines the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like other vintage game anthologies from the creators at Digital Eclipse, part documentary, section playable historical record. This compilation features emulated versions of the pioneering arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, including television and mobile versions of several of these titles. The anthology additionally contains the brand's experiments at derivative games, like action games Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — some of the brand's most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection consequently doesn't represent a “best of” collection, but an exploration into the franchise's initial era, when developer Midway and brand founders the creative duo behind the series were figuring out how to make a fighting game, produced using film material of actual people, as they went along. Watching the documentary — containing archival footage, new interviews, and reproductions of classic advertisements, comics, and even company memos — it's incredible to witness how the franchise evolved from modest origins to a worldwide phenomenon. It's genuinely amazing to watch a handful of early video game creators, operating with virtually no plan or guidance, channel their pop-culture interests into creating a legendary video game series.

Documentary Portion

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of Mortal Kombat and its creators' careers at the currently closed Midway. It subsequently demonstrates how those same creators contended with how to routinely one-up themselves, encountering significant stress to duplicate their success. It represents an intriguing historical record composed of VHS tapes and film-based pictures and hand-drawn illustrations, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of Mortal Kombat's development and how oral tradition helped circulate its mysteries and undisclosed elements of the series in its arcade heyday. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's thoroughly enjoyable collection of mini-documentaries that spans games, comics, films and including the humorous real-world tour. The collection additionally features some unreleased actions and character sprites among its archived development assets.

Interactive Gaming

Interspersed along the five-part documentary's timeline are invitations to experience the original releases. At various points, users can directly access a Mortal Kombat title or one of its home console ports to reexperience its mechanics and visual presentation, simulated with remarkable precision on contemporary systems.

I dedicated most of my time experiencing the original arcade titles, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Many of the games here stand the test of time, notably with direct competitive sessions. However, facing the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a demonstration of how basic and unjust the coding existed in the franchise's pioneering releases. CPU-controlled opponents blatantly cheat to win or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. If you don't have a human opponent — online play is available in the majority of included games, but too light on features — the experience will be incomplete.

Display Features

The two dozen available combat games in the collection, a combination of arcade, console, and handheld games, are faithfully recreated, though I have noticed a handful slight anomalies — mainly control latency and intermittent errors, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are largely presented as-is, the development team has included some smart convenience enhancements and visual presentation options. As an illustration, users can elect to show each character's special moves on the display and opt to have infinite time to perform a Fatality. There are also options for unlocking secret characters, removing the requirement to complete obscure techniques to obtain them.

Visually, the games can be enjoyed with multiple visual enhancements and presentation styles. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic filters that mimic the CRT monitors of gaming halls or household displays, or the greenscale screen of a Nintendo handheld. A notably appreciated element is the choice to enable coin-op-inspired frames framing the gameplay, with the specific combat game you're playing precisely and gently mirroring against the simulated dark plastic edges. 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. Also present are combatant descriptions that contain backgrounds and the various bits of lore presented by arcade games' attract mode screens and endings.

Archival Discovery

A particularly notable inclusion for committed franchise followers is the opportunity to play a piece of "lost media" in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This specific release, a slightly updated version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an pioneering effort from the developer at head-to-head network battles in arcades. The online-enabled release of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but included the option to battle network competitors and included some minor glitch repairs and refinements. Yet this online edition failed to achieve popularity, in part