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The Mortal Kombat series still possesses many hidden mysteries and the capacity to surprise, more than 30 years after its first appearance in gaming halls. This latest compilation including the brand's formative years, which includes four original arcade titles, multiple console adaptations, and derivative games, transcends just a well-emulated collection of iconic titles along with lesser-known entries — it additionally serves as a comprehensive historical account about the development of the iconic franchise.

Even as a lifelong enthusiast of the series who has closely monitored its development and progression, there was plenty new for me to understand and value about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to other retro collections from the development team Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, part playable archive. This compilation features emulated versions of the original arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, along with home system and portable adaptations of some of those games. The collection even includes the series' ventures at spinoffs, like action games Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — some of the brand's least successful installments.

The Legacy Kollection thus isn't a “best of” collection, but an exploration into the series' formative period, when the creators at Midway and brand founders Ed Boon and John Tobias were determining how to develop a battle series, produced using film material of actual people, as they went along. Observing the archival material — that features vintage recordings, new interviews, and reproductions of classic advertisements, graphic novels, and including internal communications — it's astonishing to observe how the franchise evolved from modest origins to a global sensation. It's truly remarkable to observe several young game developers, developing without clear direction or oversight, direct their entertainment passions into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Historical Section

The documentary portion of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection documents the ascent of the fighting series and its creators' careers at the no-longer-operating Midway. It further illustrates how those same creators addressed how to routinely one-up themselves, experiencing considerable pressure to repeat their achievements. It represents an intriguing historical record composed of analog films and traditional photos and hand-drawn illustrations, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of the series' creation process and how word of mouth helped disseminate its secrets and undisclosed elements of the series in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's highly engaging set of brief historical films that spans games, comics, films and even the comical physical events. The compilation also contains some never-implemented techniques and game character images among its previously unreleased material.

Playable Component

Placed within the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are prompts to play the games themselves. At certain intervals, users can directly access a Mortal Kombat title or a console adaptation to revisit its gameplay and artistic style, recreated with impressive accuracy on modern hardware.

I spent the bulk 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. Yet competing with the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a demonstration of how basic and unjust the coding existed in early Mortal Kombat games. Computer-directed fighters clearly employ dishonest tactics or are alternatively incredibly stupid. If you don't have someone to play against — online play is available in the majority of included games, but somewhat limited in options — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Technical Presentation

The two dozen available combat games in the collection, a mix of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are accurately emulated, though I've observed a handful slight anomalies — mainly control latency and the occasional bug, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are primarily displayed authentically, the development team has incorporated various clever user experience improvements and graphical adjustment settings. For example, players have the option to reveal combatant-unique actions during gameplay and opt to have endless periods to perform a Fatality. Additionally available are settings for accessing hidden fighters, eliminating the need to execute complicated methods to obtain them.

Artistically, the releases can be experienced with numerous graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic effects that reproduce the traditional television screens of coin-op establishments or household displays, or the greenscale screen of a Nintendo handheld. An especially welcome feature is the option to have coin-op-inspired frames encircling the display, with the MK game of your choice precisely and gently mirroring against the faux black plastic borders. It's very artistically charming.

Bonus Elements

The collection includes numerous welcome features besides the documentary and emulated arcade classics, including a music player that enables players to reexperience the music from multiple combat titles excluding the sounds of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. There are also fighter biographies that contain backgrounds and numerous narrative components displayed via arcade games' attract mode screens and conclusions.

Archival Discovery

Among the most significant features for dedicated series enthusiasts is the opportunity to play a segment of previously unavailable content in the form of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This version of the game, a somewhat revised iteration of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an pioneering effort from the developer at direct online competitive gaming in gaming halls. The Wavenet Edition of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but included the option to challenge online opponents and featured various slight error corrections and adjustments. However, this network version failed to achieve popularity, in part