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Mortal Kombat continues to hold its share of secrets and the ability to amaze, more than 30 years after its original launch in gaming halls. The recent anthology including the series' initial period, which includes four arcade games, various home ports, and related titles, transcends simply a faithfully reproduced set of legendary games along with lesser-known entries — it's also a comprehensive historical account about the development of the legendary series.

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

What Makes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like other vintage game anthologies from developer Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, portion interactive museum. The collection includes emulated versions of the original arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, including television and mobile versions of certain releases. This compilation also features the franchise's attempts at spinoffs, like action games Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — two of the franchise's worst entries.

The Legacy Kollection consequently doesn't represent a highlight reel anthology, but a study of the franchise's initial era, when the development team Midway and franchise originators Ed Boon and John Tobias were figuring out how to create a combat title, produced using film material of actual people, on the fly. Observing the archival material — containing historical videos, new interviews, and scans of old flyers, comics, and even interoffice faxes — it's incredible to witness how the franchise evolved from modest origins to a global sensation. It's truly remarkable to watch a handful of pioneering developers, operating with virtually no plan or oversight, direct their entertainment passions into creating a legendary video game series.

Educational Component

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection documents the ascent of the fighting series and the founders' vocational paths at the currently closed Midway. It then goes on to show how those same creators reckoned with how to routinely one-up themselves, experiencing considerable pressure to repeat their triumphs. It serves as a compelling period piece constructed using VHS tapes and traditional photos and hand-drawn illustrations, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of Mortal Kombat's development and how personal recommendations helped spread its rumors and undisclosed elements of the series in its peak period in gaming halls. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's thoroughly enjoyable collection of mini-documentaries that covers video games, graphic novels, movies and including the humorous real-world tour. It also includes some never-implemented techniques and game character images among its archived development assets.

Playable Component

Interspersed along the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are invitations to experience the original releases. At certain intervals, audience members can jump into a combat game session or a console adaptation to reexperience its mechanics and artistic style, recreated with impressive accuracy on modern hardware.

I dedicated most of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, especially Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Many of the games here remain enjoyable, particularly during one-on-one local play. But playing against the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a testament to how primitive and unbalanced the coding existed in early Mortal Kombat games. CPU-controlled opponents clearly employ dishonest tactics or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. If you don't have another person to compete with — internet multiplayer exists in the majority of included games, but too light on features — the experience will be incomplete.

Display Features

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the anthology, a mix of coin-op, home system, and portable titles, are accurately emulated, though I've observed a handful slight anomalies — mostly input lag and intermittent errors, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are primarily displayed authentically, the creators has added several intelligent convenience enhancements and visual presentation options. For instance, players have the option to reveal combatant-unique actions on the display and opt to have endless periods to complete lethal techniques. Also included are choices for accessing hidden fighters, eliminating the need to execute some esoteric trick to unlock them.

Graphically, the titles can be played with a variety of filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic effects that reproduce the traditional television screens of arcades or domestic TVs, or the greenscale screen of a Game Boy. A particularly nice touch is the setting to activate coin-op-inspired frames encircling the display, with the MK game of your choice accurately and softly reflecting against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's very artistically charming.

Additional Features

Players will discover multiple welcome features besides the documentary and emulated arcade classics, featuring an audio component that allows users to rediscover the tunes of various fighting releases absent the noise of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. There are also combatant descriptions that feature histories and multiple story elements presented by the demo sequences of coin-op titles and conclusions.

Archival Discovery

One of the biggest highlights for dedicated series enthusiasts is the chance to experience a example of historically missing material in the form of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This specific release, a moderately improved edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an initial venture by the company at one-on-one internet-based play in arcades. The online-enabled release of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but included the option to battle network competitors and included some minor bug fixes and balance. Yet this online edition never gained traction, in part