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The Mortal Kombat series still possesses many hidden mysteries and the power to astonish, well past its 30th anniversary after its original launch in gaming halls. This latest compilation covering the series' initial period, which includes four original arcade titles, various home ports, and derivative games, is more than just a well-emulated set of legendary games and not-so-classics — it's also a detailed chronicle about the development of the legendary series.

Being a long-time devotee of the franchise who has paid close attention its development and progression, there was numerous fresh aspects for me to understand and value about the series.

What Defines the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to other retro collections from the creators at Digital Eclipse, part documentary, part playable archive. The anthology contains digitally recreated editions of the first arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, plus console and handheld ports of some of those games. The anthology additionally contains the franchise's attempts at derivative games, 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 thus isn't a greatest hits compilation, but an examination of the series' formative period, when the development team Midway and brand founders the visionary developers were figuring out how to develop a battle series, produced using film material of live performers, through experimentation. Watching the documentary — containing archival footage, contemporary discussions, and scans of old flyers, graphic novels, and including internal communications — it's incredible to witness how the franchise evolved from humble beginnings to a global sensation. It's frankly astounding to see a group of pioneering developers, working with minimal planning or supervision, 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 combat franchise and its creators' careers at the currently closed Midway. It subsequently demonstrates how the very same individuals contended with how to regularly outdo their previous work, facing no small amount of demand to replicate their success. It's a fascinating time capsule made from video recordings and film-based pictures and hand-drawn illustrations, which showcase the DIY nature of Mortal Kombat's development and how word of mouth helped disseminate its secrets and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its arcade heyday. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's an eminently watchable series of documentary shorts that covers video games, graphic novels, movies and even the silly live-action tour. The collection additionally features some unreleased actions and digital fighter representations among its archived development assets.

Interactive Experience

Placed within the five-part documentary's timeline are invitations to experience the actual titles. At various points, viewers can hop into a Mortal Kombat title or one of its home console ports to revisit its gameplay and artistic style, emulated nearly perfectly on current technology.

I dedicated most of my time playing the arcade classics, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here stand the test of time, particularly during one-on-one local play. However, facing the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a demonstration of how basic and unfair the development approached in the franchise's pioneering releases. CPU-controlled opponents blatantly cheat to win or are alternatively incredibly stupid. If you don't have a human opponent — internet multiplayer exists in most titles in the collection, but rather basic in functionality — you'll be missing out.

Technical Presentation

The two dozen available combat games in the anthology, a blend of coin-op, home system, and portable titles, are faithfully recreated, though I detected a handful slight anomalies — primarily delayed responses and the occasional bug, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. Even though the releases are mostly shown in their original form, the creators has incorporated various clever convenience enhancements and display customization choices. As an illustration, users can elect to display fighter-specific techniques on the display and choose to enable infinite time to perform a Fatality. Also included are choices for accessing hidden fighters, without having to perform obscure techniques to access them.

Visually, the games can be played with a variety of filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection includes remarkably accurate options that simulate the cathode-ray tube displays of gaming halls or home televisions, or the monochrome green display of a Game Boy. An especially welcome feature is the choice to enable coin-op-inspired frames surrounding the screen, with the MK game of your choice precisely and gently mirroring against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's very artistically charming.

Bonus Elements

The collection includes numerous appreciated elements beyond the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, featuring an audio component that enables players to reexperience the tunes of various Mortal Kombat games without the din of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. Also present are character profiles that feature histories and multiple story elements shown through the idle displays of gaming hall releases and conclusions.

Lost Media Recovery

Among the most significant features for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the opportunity to play a example of historically missing material in the format of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This particular edition, a somewhat revised iteration of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an initial venture by the company at direct online competitive gaming in coin-op establishments. The Wavenet Edition of the game is virtually identical to UMK3, but included the option to challenge online opponents and contained several small error corrections and adjustments. However, this network version failed to achieve popularity, in part