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The Mortal Kombat series continues to hold its share of secrets and the power to astonish, well past its 30th anniversary after its initial debut in gaming halls. The recent anthology including the series' initial period, comprising four original arcade titles, multiple console adaptations, and related titles, is more than simply a faithfully reproduced series of classics including less celebrated releases — it additionally serves as a comprehensive historical account about the making of the legendary series.

Even as a lifelong enthusiast of the series who has closely monitored its origins and transformation, there was numerous fresh aspects for me to understand and value about the series.

What Constitutes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like other retro collections from developer Digital Eclipse, part documentary, section playable historical record. This compilation features emulated versions of the first arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, including television and mobile versions of some of those games. The collection even includes the series' ventures at spinoffs, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — some of the brand's most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection thus isn't a “best of” collection, but an examination of the franchise's initial era, when the development team Midway and series co-creators the creative duo behind the series were discovering methods to make a fighting game, digitized from footage of actual people, as they went along. Watching the documentary — which includes archival footage, recent conversations, and scans of old flyers, illustrated stories, and including internal communications — it's incredible to witness how Mortal Kombat went from simple starts to a international craze. It's genuinely amazing to observe several young game developers, working with minimal planning or supervision, focus their cultural enthusiasms into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Documentary Portion

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection documents the ascent of Mortal Kombat and the founders' vocational paths at the currently closed Midway. It subsequently demonstrates how those same creators reckoned with how to consistently surpass their achievements, encountering significant pressure to repeat their success. It represents an intriguing historical record constructed using VHS tapes and film-based pictures and hand-drawn illustrations, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of the franchise's production method and how word of mouth helped circulate its mysteries and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its peak period in gaming halls. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's highly engaging collection of mini-documentaries that spans games, comics, films and even the silly live-action tour. It also includes some unused moves and character sprites among its previously unreleased material.

Playable Component

Interspersed along the five-part documentary's timeline are prompts to play the games themselves. At certain intervals, viewers can hop into a game of Mortal Kombat or a home system version to reexperience its mechanics and artistic style, recreated with impressive accuracy on contemporary systems.

I spent the bulk of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, especially Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here remain enjoyable, particularly during one-on-one local play. But playing against 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 alternatively incredibly stupid. Lacking a human opponent — network gaming is included in numerous anthology releases, but too light on features — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Technical Presentation

The two dozen available combat games in the anthology, a combination of coin-op, home system, and portable titles, are accurately emulated, though I have noticed a handful slight anomalies — primarily delayed responses and the occasional bug, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are largely presented as-is, the creators has included some smart convenience enhancements and graphical adjustment settings. For example, you can choose to reveal combatant-unique actions on-screen and opt to have endless periods to perform a Fatality. Additionally available are settings for revealing concealed combatants, removing the requirement to complete complicated methods to obtain them.

Visually, the games can be enjoyed with multiple visual enhancements and presentation styles. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic options that simulate the CRT monitors of arcades or home televisions, or the monochrome green display of a portable gaming device. An especially welcome feature is the choice to enable arcade-like bezels encircling the display, with your selected Mortal Kombat title precisely and gently mirroring against the artificial ebony plastic frames. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Bonus Elements

Players will discover multiple nice touches beyond the documentary and emulated arcade classics, featuring an audio component that enables players to reexperience the tunes of various Mortal Kombat games without the din of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. There are also fighter biographies that feature histories and numerous narrative components displayed via the idle displays of gaming hall releases and conclusions.

Archival Discovery

One of the biggest highlights for committed franchise followers is the ability to access a segment of previously unavailable content in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This particular edition, a somewhat revised iteration of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an early attempt by Midway at direct online competitive gaming in gaming halls. This network version of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but featured the capability to battle network competitors and contained several small glitch repairs and refinements. Yet this online edition never gained traction, in part