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Mortal Kombat continues to hold its share of secrets and the power to astonish, over three decades after its first appearance in gaming halls. This latest compilation covering the franchise's earliest days, which includes a quartet of arcade releases, several home system versions, and spinoffs, goes beyond just a well-emulated collection of iconic titles including less celebrated releases — it additionally serves as a detailed chronicle about the creation of the renowned brand.

Even as a lifelong enthusiast of the series who has paid close attention its development and progression, there was plenty new for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Defines the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to other retro collections from the creators at Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, part playable archive. The anthology contains simulated releases of the original arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, plus console and handheld ports of several of these titles. The collection even includes the brand's experiments at spin-off titles, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — two of the franchise's worst entries.

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 Ed Boon and John Tobias were determining how to create a combat title, created from video recordings of real actors, on the fly. Observing the archival material — that features historical videos, contemporary discussions, and reproductions of classic advertisements, graphic novels, and even interoffice faxes — it's remarkable to see how Mortal Kombat went from humble beginnings to a worldwide phenomenon. It's truly remarkable to watch a handful of early video game creators, operating with virtually no plan or supervision, direct their entertainment passions into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Educational Component

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of the fighting series and the founders' vocational paths at the now-defunct Midway. It then goes on to show how these identical developers contended with how to routinely one-up themselves, facing no small amount of pressure to repeat their triumphs. It represents an intriguing historical record made from VHS tapes and analog photographs and pencil sketches, which showcase the DIY nature of the franchise's production method 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 collection of mini-documentaries that spans games, comics, films and including the humorous real-world tour. 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 prompts to play the games themselves. At certain intervals, users can directly access a game of Mortal Kombat or a console adaptation to reexperience its mechanics and artistic style, simulated with remarkable precision on modern hardware.

I spent the bulk of my time playing the arcade classics, specifically Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Many of the games here remain enjoyable, especially in direct competitive sessions. Yet competing with the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a testament to how primitive and unbalanced the programming was in early Mortal Kombat games. AI-managed characters obviously use unfair advantages or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. Without having another person to compete with — network gaming is included in numerous anthology releases, but somewhat limited in options — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Technical Presentation

The two dozen available combat games in the collection, a blend of arcade, console, and handheld games, are faithfully recreated, though I detected a few small quirks — mainly control latency and intermittent errors, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are largely presented as-is, the development team has included some smart convenience enhancements and graphical adjustment settings. As an illustration, users can elect to display fighter-specific techniques on-screen and opt to have infinite time to perform a Fatality. Also included are choices for revealing concealed combatants, eliminating the need to execute complicated methods to unlock them.

Graphically, the titles can be experienced with numerous filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic options that simulate the traditional television screens of gaming halls or household displays, or the monochrome green display of a Nintendo handheld. A notably appreciated element is the setting to activate gaming hall-style borders framing the gameplay, with the specific combat game you're playing precisely and gently mirroring against the faux black plastic borders. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Bonus Elements

The collection includes numerous nice touches beyond the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, including a music player that lets you revisit the music from multiple combat titles absent the noise of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. Additionally included are combatant descriptions that feature histories and numerous narrative components presented by the idle displays of gaming hall releases and conclusions.

Lost Media Recovery

One of the biggest highlights for committed franchise followers is the opportunity to play a segment of previously unavailable content 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 gaming halls. The online-enabled release of the game is virtually identical to UMK3, but featured the capability to challenge online opponents and contained several small error corrections and adjustments. But the Wavenet update failed to achieve popularity, in part