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Mortal Kombat retains numerous undisclosed elements and the power to astonish, more than 30 years after its first appearance in coin-op establishments. A new collection including the brand's formative years, comprising four arcade games, various home ports, and derivative games, transcends simply a faithfully reproduced collection of iconic titles along with lesser-known entries — it's also a detailed chronicle about the making of the legendary series.

As a dedicated devotee of the franchise who has carefully followed its development and progression, there was much to discover for me to discover and admire about the series.

What Constitutes the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to previous classic compilations from the creators at Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, section playable historical record. The anthology contains emulated versions of the pioneering arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, including television and mobile versions of several of these titles. The anthology additionally contains the brand's experiments at spinoffs, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — two of the franchise's least successful installments.

The Legacy Kollection thus isn't a highlight reel anthology, but an exploration into the series' formative period, when developer Midway and franchise originators the visionary developers were figuring out how to develop a battle series, created from video recordings of actual people, through experimentation. Observing the archival material — containing archival footage, new interviews, and digital copies of vintage posters, illustrated stories, and even company memos — it's astonishing to observe how the franchise evolved from modest origins to a international craze. It's frankly astounding to observe several pioneering developers, developing without clear direction or supervision, direct their entertainment passions into establishing an enduring gaming brand.

Historical Section

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of Mortal Kombat and its creators' careers at the no-longer-operating Midway. It further illustrates how those same creators contended with how to consistently surpass their achievements, encountering significant stress to duplicate their achievements. It serves as a compelling period piece composed of VHS tapes and analog photographs and pencil sketches, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of the franchise's production method and how personal recommendations helped spread its rumors and undisclosed elements of the series in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's highly engaging set of brief historical films that includes titles, illustrated stories, cinematic adaptations and including the humorous real-world tour. The compilation also contains some unused moves and game character images among its cutting-room-floor content.

Playable Component

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 game of Mortal Kombat or a console adaptation to rediscover its combat system and graphics, emulated nearly perfectly on modern hardware.

I dedicated most of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Many of the games here remain enjoyable, particularly during direct competitive sessions. However, facing the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a reminder of how crude and unfair the development approached in the series' initial installments. Computer-directed fighters obviously use unfair advantages or are otherwise dumb as rocks. If you don't have someone to play against — network gaming is included in the majority of included games, but somewhat limited in options — you'll be missing out.

Display Features

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the anthology, a blend of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are precisely simulated, though I detected a few small quirks — mainly control latency and sporadic glitches, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are largely presented as-is, the development team has incorporated various clever user experience improvements and display customization choices. For instance, you can choose to display fighter-specific techniques on the display and select to activate unlimited duration to complete lethal techniques. Also included are choices for accessing hidden fighters, eliminating the need to execute obscure techniques to access them.

Visually, the games can be played with a variety of filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic filters that mimic the cathode-ray tube displays of coin-op establishments or household displays, or the monochrome green display of a Nintendo handheld. A particularly nice touch is the choice to enable coin-op-inspired frames surrounding the screen, with your selected Mortal Kombat title faithfully and subtly duplicating against the faux black plastic borders. It's very artistically charming.

Bonus Elements

The collection includes numerous nice touches beyond the educational material and simulated classic games, containing a soundtrack mode that lets you revisit the music from multiple fighting releases excluding the sounds of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. Also present are combatant descriptions that feature histories and multiple story elements displayed via the idle displays of gaming hall releases and final sequences.

Archival Discovery

One of the biggest highlights for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the chance to experience a segment of previously unavailable content in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This particular edition, 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 Wavenet Edition of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but provided the ability to challenge online opponents and contained several small bug fixes and balance. Yet this online edition never gained traction, in part