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This iconic fighting game continues to hold many hidden mysteries and the capacity to surprise, more than 30 years after its original launch in coin-op establishments. A new collection including the series' initial period, comprising four arcade games, several home system versions, and spinoffs, transcends simply a faithfully reproduced set of legendary games including less celebrated releases — it additionally serves as a comprehensive historical account about the development of the iconic franchise.

As a dedicated Mortal Kombat fan who has closely monitored its origins and transformation, there was numerous fresh aspects for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Defines the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like previous classic compilations from developer Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, section playable historical record. 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 certain releases. The collection even includes the franchise's attempts at spin-off titles, like action-oriented titles Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' least successful installments.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a “best of” collection, but an exploration into the series' formative period, when the development team Midway and franchise originators the creative duo behind the series were determining how to develop a battle series, produced using film material of live performers, through experimentation. Observing the archival material — that features vintage recordings, contemporary discussions, and reproductions of classic advertisements, illustrated stories, and even interoffice faxes — it's incredible to witness how the franchise evolved from humble beginnings to a international craze. It's frankly astounding to watch a handful of young game developers, working with minimal planning or oversight, channel their pop-culture interests into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Historical Section

The documentary portion of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of the combat franchise and its creators' careers at the no-longer-operating Midway. It then goes on to show how these identical developers reckoned with how to consistently surpass their achievements, experiencing considerable stress to duplicate their achievements. It represents an intriguing historical record composed of VHS tapes and traditional photos and manual drawings, which reveal the self-made character of the series' creation process and how word of mouth helped disseminate its secrets and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its arcade heyday. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's an eminently watchable set of brief historical films that covers video games, graphic novels, movies and including the humorous real-world tour. It also includes some unreleased actions and character sprites among its archived development assets.

Playable Component

Interspersed along the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are invitations to experience the original releases. At various points, viewers can hop into a combat game session 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, specifically Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here stand the test of time, especially in direct competitive sessions. But playing against the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a testament to how primitive and unjust the coding existed in early Mortal Kombat games. Computer-directed fighters clearly employ dishonest tactics or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. Lacking a human opponent — internet multiplayer exists in most titles in the collection, but too light on features — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Visual Options

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the collection, a combination of arcade, console, and handheld games, are precisely simulated, though I've observed a few small quirks — mostly input lag and intermittent errors, 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 visual presentation options. As an illustration, users can elect to display fighter-specific techniques on-screen and select to activate endless periods to execute finishing moves. Also included are choices for revealing concealed combatants, removing the requirement to complete obscure techniques to access them.

Graphically, the titles can be played with a variety of visual enhancements and presentation styles. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection includes remarkably accurate effects that reproduce the cathode-ray tube displays of gaming halls or domestic TVs, or the limited color monitor of a Game Boy. A particularly nice touch is the choice to enable arcade-like bezels framing the gameplay, with the specific combat game you're playing precisely and gently mirroring against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's quite aesthetically pleasing.

Bonus Elements

Players will discover multiple appreciated elements beyond the educational material and simulated classic games, including a music player that allows users to rediscover the tunes of various combat titles excluding the sounds of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. Also present are fighter biographies that contain backgrounds and the various bits of lore displayed via the idle displays of gaming hall releases and conclusions.

Historical Preservation

One of the biggest highlights for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the ability to access a segment of previously unavailable content in the format of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This version of the game, a moderately improved edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an early attempt by Midway at direct online competitive gaming in arcades. The online-enabled release of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but provided the ability to battle network competitors and contained several small glitch repairs and refinements. But the Wavenet update didn't find widespread adoption, in part