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The Mortal Kombat series continues to hold its share of secrets and the ability to amaze, more than 30 years after its original launch in coin-op establishments. A new collection spanning the brand's formative years, comprising four original arcade titles, several home system versions, and related titles, transcends just a well-emulated series of classics including less celebrated releases — it functions as a rich documentary about the development of the renowned brand.

As a dedicated devotee of the franchise who has closely monitored its origins and transformation, there was plenty new for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Defines the Historical Compilation

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to previous classic compilations from developer Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, part playable archive. This compilation features digitally recreated editions of the first 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 spinoffs, like action-oriented titles Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — two of the franchise's most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection consequently doesn't represent a greatest hits compilation, but a study of Mortal Kombat's early days, when developer Midway and brand founders Ed Boon and John Tobias were discovering methods to make a fighting game, created from video recordings of real actors, on the fly. Viewing the historical footage — that features archival footage, contemporary discussions, and reproductions of classic advertisements, graphic novels, and even company memos — it's remarkable to see how the series transformed from simple starts to a worldwide phenomenon. It's genuinely amazing to see a group of pioneering developers, operating with virtually no plan or supervision, channel their pop-culture interests into establishing an enduring gaming brand.

Educational Component

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of Mortal Kombat and its creators' careers at the currently closed Midway. It then goes on to show how the very same individuals reckoned with how to regularly outdo their previous work, encountering significant stress to duplicate their success. It represents an intriguing historical record composed of analog films and analog photographs and manual drawings, which showcase the DIY nature of the series' creation process and how personal recommendations helped disseminate its secrets and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its peak period in gaming halls. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's highly engaging set of brief historical films that covers video games, graphic novels, movies and even the comical physical events. The collection additionally features some unreleased actions and digital fighter representations among its previously unreleased material.

Interactive Experience

Placed within the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are invitations to experience the original releases. During specific moments, audience members can jump into a game of Mortal Kombat or one of its home console ports to rediscover its combat system and artistic style, recreated with impressive accuracy on current technology.

I dedicated most of my time playing the arcade classics, especially Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Many of the games here remain enjoyable, especially in local multiplayer matches. Yet competing with the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a testament to how primitive and unbalanced the programming was in the franchise's pioneering releases. Computer-directed fighters blatantly cheat to win or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. If you don't have another person to compete with — internet multiplayer exists in most titles in the collection, but too light on features — you'll be missing out.

Technical Presentation

The two dozen available combat games in the compilation, a combination of arcade, console, and handheld games, are accurately emulated, though I've observed a couple minor issues — mainly control latency and the occasional bug, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. Even though the releases are mostly shown in their original form, the creators has added several intelligent user experience improvements and display customization choices. As an illustration, you can choose to reveal combatant-unique actions on the display and select to activate unlimited duration to perform a Fatality. There are also options for accessing hidden fighters, removing the requirement to complete some esoteric trick to obtain them.

Artistically, the releases can be played with a variety of graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection includes remarkably accurate effects that reproduce the traditional television screens of gaming halls or domestic TVs, or the greenscale screen of a portable gaming device. A particularly nice touch is the setting to activate coin-op-inspired frames surrounding the screen, with the MK game of your choice precisely and gently mirroring against the faux black plastic borders. It's quite aesthetically pleasing.

Extra Content

Players will discover multiple welcome features besides the documentary and emulated arcade classics, including a music player that enables players to reexperience the tunes of various fighting releases without the din of combatants violently defeating each other. Also present are fighter biographies that feature histories and the various bits of lore displayed via arcade games' attract mode screens and endings.

Archival Discovery

One of the biggest highlights 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 specific release, a slightly updated version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an early attempt by Midway at one-on-one internet-based play in arcades. The Wavenet Edition of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but included the option to battle network competitors and featured various slight glitch repairs and refinements. But the Wavenet update didn't find widespread adoption, in part