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Mortal Kombat retains its share of secrets and the ability to amaze, more than 30 years after its initial debut in gaming halls. The recent anthology covering the series' initial period, featuring four arcade games, multiple console adaptations, and spinoffs, transcends only a accurately simulated set of legendary games including less celebrated releases — it's also a rich documentary about the development of the renowned brand.

Even as a lifelong devotee of the franchise who has paid close attention its origins and transformation, there was plenty new for me to discover and admire about the series.

What Constitutes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to other vintage game anthologies from the creators at Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, section playable historical record. This compilation features simulated releases of the pioneering arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, plus console and handheld ports of several of these titles. The anthology additionally contains the series' ventures at spin-off titles, like action-oriented titles 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 series' formative period, when developer Midway and franchise originators the creative duo behind the series were determining how to develop a battle series, produced using film material of real actors, on the fly. Observing the archival material — containing archival footage, new interviews, and scans of old flyers, illustrated stories, and even company memos — it's remarkable to see how the series transformed from modest origins to a global sensation. It's truly remarkable to see a group of young game developers, working with minimal planning or oversight, focus their cultural enthusiasms into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Educational Component

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of the combat franchise and its creators' careers at the currently closed Midway. It subsequently demonstrates how these identical developers contended with how to routinely one-up themselves, experiencing considerable demand to replicate their triumphs. It's a fascinating time capsule composed of video recordings and analog photographs and pencil sketches, which showcase the DIY nature of the series' creation process and how oral tradition helped circulate its mysteries and secrets of MK in its arcade heyday. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's thoroughly enjoyable series of documentary shorts that covers video games, graphic novels, movies and including the humorous real-world tour. It also includes some unused moves and character sprites among its previously unreleased material.

Interactive Experience

Interspersed along the five-segment historical film's chronology are prompts to play the games themselves. At certain intervals, audience members can jump into a Mortal Kombat title or a home system version to rediscover its combat system and graphics, simulated with remarkable precision on contemporary systems.

I spent the bulk of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, especially Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here hold up, especially in direct competitive sessions. But playing against the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a demonstration of how basic and unfair the development approached in the franchise's pioneering releases. Computer-directed fighters blatantly cheat to win or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. If you don't have a human opponent — internet multiplayer exists in most titles in the collection, but somewhat limited in options — you'll be missing out.

Technical Presentation

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the anthology, a mix of arcade, console, and handheld games, are precisely simulated, though I have noticed a handful slight anomalies — mostly input lag and intermittent errors, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are primarily displayed authentically, the creators has incorporated various clever quality-of-life features and visual presentation options. For instance, you can choose to display fighter-specific techniques on the display and opt to have unlimited duration to perform a Fatality. There are also options for unlocking secret characters, without having to perform complicated methods to obtain them.

Artistically, the releases can be experienced with numerous visual enhancements and presentation styles. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection includes remarkably accurate effects that reproduce the CRT monitors of gaming halls or home televisions, or the greenscale screen of a portable gaming device. An especially welcome feature is the choice to enable gaming hall-style borders surrounding the screen, with your selected Mortal Kombat title precisely and gently mirroring against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's quite aesthetically pleasing.

Extra Content

Players will discover multiple appreciated elements beyond the educational material and simulated classic games, including a music player that enables players to reexperience the music from multiple Mortal Kombat games absent the noise of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. Also present are combatant descriptions that contain backgrounds and multiple story elements presented by the demo sequences of coin-op titles and final sequences.

Archival Discovery

Among the most significant features for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the ability to access a segment of previously unavailable content in the form of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This version of the game, a slightly updated version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an pioneering effort from the developer at one-on-one internet-based play in coin-op establishments. The online-enabled release of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but included the option to challenge online opponents and featured various slight glitch repairs and refinements. But the Wavenet update failed to achieve popularity, in part