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The Mortal Kombat series retains many hidden mysteries and the power to astonish, over three decades after its original launch in coin-op establishments. A new collection including the franchise's earliest days, which includes four arcade games, multiple console adaptations, and derivative games, goes beyond just a well-emulated series of classics including less celebrated releases — it functions as a rich documentary about the making of the renowned brand.

Even as a lifelong Mortal Kombat fan who has carefully followed its creation and evolution, there was plenty new for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Constitutes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to other vintage game anthologies from the creators at Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, section playable historical record. The collection includes emulated versions of the pioneering arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, including television and mobile versions of certain releases. This compilation also features the franchise's attempts at spin-off titles, like action-oriented titles Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — some of the brand's worst entries.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a greatest hits compilation, but an examination of the franchise's initial era, when the creators at Midway and brand founders the visionary developers were figuring out how to make a fighting game, created from video recordings of live performers, on the fly. Viewing the historical footage — containing archival footage, contemporary discussions, and digital copies of vintage posters, illustrated stories, and including internal communications — 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 early video game creators, operating with virtually no plan or supervision, focus their cultural enthusiasms into establishing an enduring gaming brand.

Documentary Portion

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of Mortal Kombat and the developers' professional journeys at the currently closed Midway. It further illustrates how those same creators addressed how to regularly outdo their previous work, experiencing considerable stress to duplicate their success. It serves as a compelling period piece made from video recordings and traditional photos and hand-drawn illustrations, which showcase the DIY nature of the franchise's production method and how word of mouth helped disseminate its secrets and undisclosed elements of the series in its arcade heyday. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's an eminently watchable series of documentary shorts that spans games, comics, films and including the humorous real-world tour. It also includes some never-implemented techniques and game character images among its archived development assets.

Interactive Gaming

Interspersed along the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are prompts to play the original releases. During specific moments, viewers can hop into a Mortal Kombat title or a home system version to reexperience its mechanics and visual presentation, emulated nearly perfectly on contemporary systems.

I dedicated most of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, especially Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here remain enjoyable, notably with direct competitive sessions. However, facing the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a demonstration of how basic and unbalanced the coding existed in the franchise's pioneering releases. Computer-directed fighters obviously use unfair advantages or are alternatively incredibly stupid. Lacking a human opponent — internet multiplayer exists in the majority of included games, but too light on features — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Display Features

The two dozen available combat games in the anthology, a combination of arcade, console, and handheld games, are accurately emulated, though I have noticed a few small quirks — mainly control latency and the occasional bug, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are largely presented as-is, the development team has added several intelligent convenience enhancements and graphical adjustment settings. For example, you can choose to reveal combatant-unique actions on-screen and choose to enable unlimited duration to execute finishing moves. Additionally available are settings for unlocking secret characters, without having to perform some esoteric trick to obtain them.

Graphically, the titles can be played with a variety of visual enhancements and presentation styles. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection includes remarkably accurate options that simulate the traditional television screens of gaming halls or home televisions, or the limited color monitor of a Game Boy. A notably appreciated element is the setting to activate arcade-like bezels surrounding the screen, with the MK game of your choice precisely and gently mirroring against the artificial ebony plastic frames. It's very artistically charming.

Extra Content

There are plenty of nice touches beyond the documentary and emulated arcade classics, including a music player that allows users to rediscover the music from multiple combat titles without the din of combatants violently defeating each other. Also present are fighter biographies that contain backgrounds and numerous narrative components shown through the demo sequences of coin-op titles and endings.

Historical Preservation

Among the most significant features for committed franchise followers is the ability to access a segment of previously unavailable content in the form of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This particular edition, a moderately improved edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an early attempt by Midway at direct online competitive gaming in arcades. The Wavenet Edition of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but included the option to challenge online opponents and contained several small glitch repairs and refinements. But the Wavenet update failed to achieve popularity, in part