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Mortal Kombat retains many hidden mysteries and the capacity to surprise, over three decades after its original launch in gaming halls. A new collection including the brand's formative years, comprising a quartet of arcade releases, various home ports, and related titles, is more than just a well-emulated series of classics including less celebrated releases — it functions as a detailed chronicle about the development of the renowned brand.

As a dedicated enthusiast of the series who has paid close attention its creation and evolution, there was plenty new for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Constitutes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like other retro collections from the creators at Digital Eclipse, part documentary, section playable historical record. This compilation features digitally recreated editions of the original 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 series' ventures at derivative games, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' least successful installments.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a highlight reel anthology, but a study of the series' formative period, when developer Midway and franchise originators Ed Boon and John Tobias were determining how to create a combat title, created from video recordings of actual people, as they went along. Viewing the historical footage — containing archival footage, recent conversations, and reproductions of classic advertisements, graphic novels, and even interoffice faxes — it's astonishing to observe how Mortal Kombat went from modest origins to a worldwide phenomenon. It's genuinely amazing to see a group of early video game creators, working with minimal planning or oversight, channel their pop-culture interests into creating a legendary video game series.

Historical Section

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of Mortal Kombat and its creators' careers at the currently closed Midway. It subsequently demonstrates how these identical developers addressed how to consistently surpass their achievements, experiencing considerable pressure to repeat their triumphs. It represents an intriguing historical record constructed using VHS tapes and film-based pictures and pencil sketches, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of Mortal Kombat's development and how personal recommendations helped circulate its mysteries and undisclosed elements of the series in its arcade heyday. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's highly engaging set of brief historical films that spans games, comics, films and even the silly live-action tour. The collection additionally features some unused moves and digital fighter representations among its cutting-room-floor content.

Playable Component

Distributed throughout the five-part documentary's timeline are opportunities to engage with the games themselves. During specific moments, viewers can hop into a Mortal Kombat title or a console adaptation to revisit its gameplay and visual presentation, emulated nearly perfectly on modern hardware.

I dedicated most of my time experiencing the original arcade titles, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here remain enjoyable, especially in local multiplayer matches. Yet competing with the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a reminder of how crude and unbalanced the coding existed in the franchise's pioneering releases. CPU-controlled opponents blatantly cheat to win or are alternatively incredibly stupid. Without having someone to play against — network gaming is included in numerous anthology releases, but too light on features — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Visual Options

The two dozen available combat games in the collection, a mix of coin-op, home system, and portable titles, are accurately emulated, though I have noticed a few small quirks — primarily delayed responses and sporadic glitches, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. Even though the releases are mostly shown in their original form, the development team has incorporated various clever user experience improvements and graphical adjustment settings. For example, you can choose to display fighter-specific techniques on-screen and select to activate unlimited duration to execute finishing moves. Additionally available are settings for unlocking secret characters, eliminating the need to execute obscure techniques to unlock them.

Artistically, the releases can be enjoyed with multiple filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection includes remarkably accurate options that simulate the CRT monitors of arcades or home televisions, or the limited color monitor of a Nintendo handheld. A particularly nice touch is the choice to enable gaming hall-style borders framing the gameplay, with the MK game of your choice precisely and gently mirroring against the artificial ebony plastic frames. It's quite aesthetically pleasing.

Bonus Elements

There are plenty of nice touches beyond the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, containing a soundtrack mode that enables players to reexperience the soundtracks of different combat titles without the din of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. Also present are combatant descriptions that feature histories and numerous narrative components displayed via the demo sequences of coin-op titles and endings.

Lost Media Recovery

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 particular edition, a moderately improved edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an initial venture by the company at one-on-one internet-based play in gaming halls. This network version of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but included the option to challenge online opponents and included some minor error corrections and adjustments. But the Wavenet update didn't find widespread adoption, in part