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This iconic fighting game retains numerous undisclosed elements and the ability to amaze, well past its 30th anniversary after its first appearance in arcades. The recent anthology covering the brand's formative years, comprising a quartet of arcade releases, various home ports, and spinoffs, goes beyond just a well-emulated series of classics and not-so-classics — it's also a rich documentary about the making of the legendary series.

Being a long-time devotee of the franchise who has closely monitored its development and progression, there was plenty new for me to understand and value about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to previous classic compilations from the creators at Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, part playable archive. This compilation features simulated releases of the pioneering arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, including television and mobile versions of some of those games. The anthology additionally contains the franchise's attempts at spin-off titles, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' worst entries.

The Legacy Kollection thus isn't a highlight reel anthology, but a study of the franchise's initial era, when the development team Midway and brand founders the visionary developers were figuring out how to create a combat title, created from video recordings of actual people, as they went along. Observing the archival material — that features vintage recordings, recent conversations, and digital copies of vintage posters, illustrated stories, and even company memos — it's remarkable to see how the franchise evolved from simple starts to a global sensation. It's truly remarkable to watch a handful of pioneering developers, developing without clear direction or oversight, channel their pop-culture interests into creating a legendary video game series.

Educational Component

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of the combat franchise and the developers' professional journeys at the no-longer-operating Midway. It subsequently demonstrates how those same creators contended with how to routinely one-up themselves, experiencing considerable demand to replicate their success. It serves as a compelling period piece constructed using analog films and traditional photos and hand-drawn illustrations, which reveal the self-made character of Mortal Kombat's development and how word of mouth helped spread its rumors and secrets of MK in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's highly engaging collection of mini-documentaries that covers video games, graphic novels, movies and even the comical physical events. It also includes some never-implemented techniques and game character images among its previously unreleased material.

Playable Component

Interspersed along the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are invitations to experience the games themselves. At various points, viewers can hop into a combat game session or a home system version to reexperience its mechanics and artistic style, recreated with impressive accuracy on contemporary systems.

I allocated the majority of my time playing the arcade classics, specifically Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here hold up, especially in one-on-one local play. Yet competing with the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a reminder of how crude and unbalanced the development approached in the series' initial installments. AI-managed characters blatantly cheat to win or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. Lacking another person to compete with — online play is available in the majority of included games, but somewhat limited in options — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Technical Presentation

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the compilation, a mix of arcade, console, and handheld games, are faithfully recreated, though I've observed a couple minor issues — mainly control latency and sporadic glitches, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. Even though the releases are largely presented as-is, the creators has incorporated various clever user experience improvements and visual presentation options. As an illustration, users can elect to reveal combatant-unique actions on-screen and opt to have infinite time to perform a Fatality. Additionally available are settings for revealing concealed combatants, eliminating the need to execute some esoteric trick to unlock them.

Visually, the games can be played with a variety of filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic filters that mimic the traditional television screens of gaming halls or household displays, or the monochrome green display of a Nintendo handheld. A particularly nice touch is the option to have arcade-like bezels framing the gameplay, with your selected Mortal Kombat title precisely and gently mirroring against the artificial ebony plastic frames. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Additional Features

Players will discover multiple welcome features besides the documentary and emulated arcade classics, containing a soundtrack mode that lets you revisit the tunes of various fighting releases excluding the sounds of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. Additionally included are fighter biographies that include bios and multiple story elements displayed via the idle displays of gaming hall releases and conclusions.

Archival Discovery

Among the most significant features for dedicated series enthusiasts is the chance to experience a segment of previously unavailable content in the format of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This version of the game, a somewhat revised iteration 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 featured the capability to battle network competitors and contained several small bug fixes and balance. Yet this online edition never gained traction, in part