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This iconic fighting game retains numerous undisclosed elements and the power to astonish, well past its 30th anniversary after its first appearance in arcades. The recent anthology including the brand's formative years, which includes a quartet of arcade releases, various home ports, and derivative games, is more than just a well-emulated collection of iconic titles including less celebrated releases — it's also a detailed chronicle about the making of the renowned brand.

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

What Makes the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like previous classic compilations from the creators at Digital Eclipse, part documentary, part playable archive. The collection includes simulated releases of the first arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, including television and mobile versions of certain releases. The anthology additionally contains the series' ventures at spinoffs, like action-oriented titles Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — two of the franchise's most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a highlight reel anthology, but an exploration into Mortal Kombat's early days, when developer Midway and series co-creators the visionary developers were discovering methods to develop a battle series, created from video recordings of live performers, through experimentation. Viewing the historical footage — which includes archival footage, new interviews, and digital copies of vintage posters, illustrated stories, and even company memos — it's remarkable to see how the series transformed from humble beginnings to a international craze. It's genuinely amazing to observe several pioneering developers, operating with virtually no plan or guidance, focus their cultural enthusiasms into establishing an enduring gaming brand.

Educational Component

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection documents the ascent of the combat franchise and the founders' vocational paths at the currently closed Midway. It further illustrates how those same creators reckoned with how to consistently surpass their achievements, facing no small amount of demand to replicate their triumphs. It serves as a compelling period piece constructed using video recordings and traditional photos and manual drawings, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of the series' creation process and how word of mouth helped spread its rumors and secrets of MK in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Presented in manageable segments, it's an eminently watchable collection of mini-documentaries that includes titles, illustrated stories, cinematic adaptations and even the comical physical events. It also includes some unreleased actions and game character images among its archived development assets.

Playable Component

Interspersed along the five-part documentary's timeline are prompts to play the original releases. During specific moments, users can directly access a Mortal Kombat title or one of its home console ports to revisit its gameplay and visual presentation, recreated with impressive accuracy on contemporary systems.

I spent the bulk of my time experiencing the original arcade titles, specifically Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here remain enjoyable, notably with one-on-one local play. However, facing the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a demonstration of how basic and unbalanced the development approached in the franchise's pioneering releases. Computer-directed fighters clearly employ dishonest tactics or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. If you don't have someone to play against — internet multiplayer exists in the majority of included games, but too light on features — the experience will be incomplete.

Display Features

The two dozen available combat games in the anthology, a mix of coin-op, home system, and portable titles, are faithfully recreated, though I detected a few small quirks — primarily delayed responses and intermittent errors, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are largely presented as-is, the creators has incorporated various clever user experience improvements and display customization choices. For instance, you can choose to show each character's special moves on the display and opt to have infinite time to complete lethal techniques. Additionally available are settings for accessing hidden fighters, removing the requirement to complete complicated methods to obtain them.

Artistically, the releases can be played with a variety of filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic effects that reproduce the cathode-ray tube displays of coin-op establishments or domestic TVs, or the monochrome green display of a Game Boy. An especially welcome feature is the setting to activate gaming hall-style borders encircling the display, with the MK game of your choice faithfully and subtly duplicating against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's very artistically charming.

Bonus Elements

There are plenty of welcome features besides the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, featuring an audio component that enables players to reexperience the music from multiple Mortal Kombat games excluding the sounds of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. There are also character profiles that include bios and multiple story elements presented by the demo sequences of coin-op titles and final sequences.

Lost Media Recovery

A particularly notable inclusion for dedicated series enthusiasts is the ability to access a piece of "lost media" 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 initial venture by the company at one-on-one internet-based play in coin-op establishments. The online-enabled release of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but featured the capability to challenge online opponents and included some minor bug fixes and balance. Yet this online edition never gained traction, in part