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The Mortal Kombat series still possesses numerous undisclosed elements and the ability to amaze, over three decades after its initial debut in coin-op establishments. This latest compilation spanning the brand's formative years, which includes four arcade games, various home ports, and related titles, is more than just a well-emulated series of classics and not-so-classics — it's also a comprehensive historical account about the development of the iconic franchise.

Even as a lifelong devotee of the franchise who has paid close attention its creation and evolution, there was much to discover for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Constitutes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like previous classic compilations from the development team Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, portion interactive museum. The collection includes digitally recreated editions of the original arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, along with home system and portable adaptations of several of these titles. The collection even includes the brand's experiments at spinoffs, like action games Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' least successful installments.

The Legacy Kollection consequently doesn't represent a greatest hits compilation, but an exploration into the franchise's initial era, when developer Midway and franchise originators Ed Boon and John Tobias were determining how to develop a battle series, produced using film material of real actors, as they went along. Observing the archival material — containing archival footage, recent conversations, and digital copies of vintage posters, graphic novels, and including internal communications — it's remarkable to see how the franchise evolved from humble beginnings to a global sensation. It's genuinely amazing to watch a handful of early video game creators, operating with virtually no plan or guidance, focus their cultural enthusiasms into creating a legendary video game series.

Historical Section

The documentary portion of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection documents the ascent of the fighting series and its creators' careers at the currently closed Midway. It subsequently demonstrates how these identical developers contended with how to regularly outdo their previous work, experiencing considerable stress to duplicate their triumphs. It serves as a compelling period piece composed of video recordings and analog photographs and manual drawings, which showcase the DIY nature of Mortal Kombat's development and how oral tradition helped spread its rumors and secrets of MK in its peak period in gaming halls. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's an eminently watchable set of brief historical films that spans games, comics, films and including the humorous real-world tour. It also includes some unused moves and game character images among its previously unreleased material.

Interactive Experience

Placed within the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are invitations to experience the games themselves. At various points, audience members can jump into a game of Mortal Kombat or a home system version to rediscover its combat system and artistic style, 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 hold up, notably with direct competitive sessions. But playing against the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a testament to how primitive and unbalanced the programming was in the series' initial installments. Computer-directed fighters blatantly cheat to win or are alternatively incredibly stupid. Lacking a human opponent — online play is available in numerous anthology releases, but somewhat limited in options — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Technical Presentation

The twenty-three accessible Mortal Kombat titles in the anthology, a combination of arcade, console, and handheld games, are faithfully recreated, though I detected a couple minor issues — mostly input lag and sporadic glitches, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are mostly shown in their original form, the development team has included some smart quality-of-life features and display customization choices. As an illustration, you can choose to reveal combatant-unique actions on-screen and select to activate unlimited duration to perform a Fatality. There are also options for unlocking secret characters, removing the requirement to complete complicated methods to obtain them.

Visually, the games can be experienced with numerous graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection includes remarkably accurate options that simulate the cathode-ray tube displays of arcades or home televisions, or the limited color monitor of a portable gaming device. A notably appreciated element is the setting to activate coin-op-inspired frames framing the gameplay, with your selected Mortal Kombat title accurately and softly reflecting against the faux black plastic borders. It's quite aesthetically pleasing.

Extra Content

Players will discover multiple appreciated elements beyond the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, featuring an audio component that allows users to rediscover the soundtracks of different fighting releases absent the noise of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. There are also fighter biographies that feature histories and numerous narrative components shown through the demo sequences of coin-op titles and final sequences.

Lost Media Recovery

A particularly notable inclusion for dedicated series enthusiasts is the opportunity to play 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 pioneering effort from the developer at one-on-one internet-based play in coin-op establishments. This network version of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but provided the ability to compete against internet adversaries and featured various slight bug fixes and balance. However, this network version failed to achieve popularity, in part