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The Mortal Kombat series continues to hold numerous undisclosed elements and the capacity to surprise, well past its 30th anniversary after its initial debut in coin-op establishments. A new collection spanning the series' initial period, which includes four original arcade titles, various home ports, and spinoffs, goes beyond only a accurately simulated set of legendary games along with lesser-known entries — it's also a detailed chronicle about the development of the iconic franchise.

Being a long-time devotee of the franchise who has carefully followed its creation and evolution, there was much to discover for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like other retro collections from developer Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, portion interactive museum. The collection includes simulated releases of the original arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, including television and mobile versions of some of those games. The anthology additionally contains the series' ventures at spinoffs, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — two of the franchise's most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a “best of” collection, but an examination of Mortal Kombat's early days, when developer Midway and series co-creators the creative duo behind the series were determining how to create a combat title, digitized from footage of live performers, through experimentation. Viewing the historical footage — containing historical videos, recent conversations, and digital copies of vintage posters, comics, and including internal communications — it's incredible to witness how the series transformed from humble beginnings to a international craze. It's genuinely amazing to watch a handful of early video game creators, working with minimal planning or oversight, focus their cultural enthusiasms into creating a legendary video game series.

Historical Section

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of the fighting series and the developers' professional journeys at the now-defunct Midway. It then goes on to show how those same creators contended with how to routinely one-up themselves, encountering significant stress to duplicate their success. It serves as a compelling period piece constructed using video recordings and traditional photos and hand-drawn illustrations, which reveal the self-made character of the franchise's production method and how personal recommendations helped disseminate its secrets and undisclosed elements of the series in its peak period in gaming halls. Presented in manageable segments, it's highly engaging set of brief historical films that spans games, comics, films and including the humorous real-world tour. The compilation also contains some unused moves and digital fighter representations among its archived development assets.

Interactive Gaming

Interspersed along the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are opportunities to engage with the actual titles. At certain intervals, users can directly access a game of Mortal Kombat or a console adaptation to revisit its gameplay and visual presentation, simulated with remarkable precision on contemporary systems.

I allocated the majority of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, specifically Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here hold up, notably with local multiplayer matches. Yet competing with the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a reminder of how crude and unfair the programming was in early Mortal Kombat games. CPU-controlled opponents clearly employ dishonest tactics or are otherwise dumb as rocks. Without having someone to play against — online play is available in most titles in the collection, but too light on features — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Display Features

The two dozen available combat games in the anthology, a blend of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are faithfully recreated, though I detected a handful slight anomalies — mostly input lag and sporadic glitches, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are largely presented as-is, the creators has added several intelligent quality-of-life features and visual presentation options. As an illustration, you can choose to display fighter-specific techniques on-screen and opt to have unlimited duration to complete lethal techniques. Also included are choices for revealing concealed combatants, without having to perform obscure techniques to obtain them.

Visually, the games can be played with a variety of graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic filters that mimic the CRT monitors of coin-op establishments or household displays, or the limited color monitor of a Game Boy. An especially welcome feature is the option to have arcade-like bezels framing the gameplay, with the specific combat game you're playing faithfully and subtly duplicating against the artificial ebony plastic frames. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Bonus Elements

Players will discover multiple welcome features besides the educational material and simulated classic games, featuring an audio component that enables players to reexperience the tunes of various Mortal Kombat games absent the noise of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. Also present are character profiles that include bios and multiple story elements displayed via the idle displays of gaming hall releases and final sequences.

Archival Discovery

One of the biggest highlights for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the opportunity to play a segment of previously unavailable content in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This version of the game, a slightly updated version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an early attempt by Midway at one-on-one internet-based play in arcades. This network version of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but included the option to challenge online opponents and contained several small glitch repairs and refinements. Yet this online edition didn't find widespread adoption, in part