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The Mortal Kombat series retains numerous undisclosed elements and the power to astonish, more than 30 years after its first appearance in gaming halls. A new collection spanning the franchise's earliest days, comprising a quartet of arcade releases, several home system versions, and derivative games, is more than simply a faithfully reproduced set of legendary games and not-so-classics — it functions as a comprehensive historical account about the creation of the renowned brand.

As a dedicated enthusiast of the series who has carefully followed its creation and evolution, there was plenty new for me to understand and value about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to other retro collections from developer Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, section playable historical record. The collection includes digitally recreated editions of the pioneering arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, including television and mobile versions of certain releases. The collection even includes the franchise's attempts at spin-off titles, like action-oriented titles Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a “best of” collection, but a study of the series' formative period, when developer Midway and series co-creators Ed Boon and John Tobias were determining how to create a combat title, produced using film material of actual people, on the fly. Observing the archival material — containing historical videos, contemporary discussions, and scans of old flyers, illustrated stories, and including internal communications — it's remarkable to see how the series transformed from modest origins to a global sensation. It's frankly astounding to see a group of young game developers, operating with virtually no plan or supervision, focus their cultural enthusiasms into establishing an enduring gaming brand.

Educational Component

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of the fighting series and the developers' professional journeys at the currently closed Midway. It further illustrates how the very same individuals addressed how to regularly outdo their previous work, experiencing considerable demand to replicate their triumphs. It represents an intriguing historical record made from VHS tapes and traditional photos and manual drawings, which reveal the self-made character of the series' creation process and how word of mouth helped spread its rumors and secrets of MK in its arcade heyday. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's highly engaging series of documentary shorts that spans games, comics, films and even the silly live-action tour. It also includes some never-implemented techniques and character sprites among its archived development assets.

Playable Component

Placed within 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 one of its home console ports to rediscover its combat system and artistic style, emulated nearly perfectly on current technology.

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 hold up, particularly during direct competitive sessions. But playing against the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a demonstration of how basic and unfair the coding existed in the series' initial installments. Computer-directed fighters obviously use unfair advantages or are otherwise dumb as rocks. Without having another person to compete with — internet multiplayer exists in numerous anthology releases, but rather basic in functionality — you'll be missing out.

Display Features

The two dozen available combat games in the compilation, a mix of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are accurately emulated, though I detected a handful slight anomalies — mostly input lag and intermittent errors, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are largely presented as-is, developer Digital Eclipse has included some smart user experience improvements and graphical adjustment settings. For instance, you can choose to show each character's special moves on the display and choose to enable infinite time to complete lethal techniques. Additionally available are settings for accessing hidden fighters, eliminating the need to execute complicated methods to access them.

Graphically, the titles can be experienced with numerous graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic effects that reproduce the traditional television screens of coin-op establishments or domestic TVs, or the greenscale screen of a Nintendo handheld. A notably appreciated element is the setting to activate arcade-like bezels encircling the display, with the MK game of your choice accurately and softly reflecting against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Extra Content

The collection includes numerous nice touches beyond the educational material and simulated classic games, featuring an audio component that allows users to rediscover the music from multiple combat titles excluding the sounds of combatants violently defeating each other. There are also character profiles that contain backgrounds and numerous narrative components shown through the demo sequences of coin-op titles and final sequences.

Historical Preservation

Among the most significant features for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the chance to experience a piece of "lost media" 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 coin-op establishments. The online-enabled release of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but included the option to challenge online opponents and included some minor glitch repairs and refinements. However, this network version didn't find widespread adoption, in part