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Mortal Kombat retains many hidden mysteries and the capacity to surprise, well past its 30th anniversary after its first appearance in gaming halls. A new collection covering the franchise's earliest days, which includes four arcade games, multiple console adaptations, and related titles, transcends simply a faithfully reproduced series of classics including less celebrated releases — it functions as a detailed chronicle about the development of the legendary series.

Being a long-time Mortal Kombat fan who has closely monitored its origins and transformation, there was plenty new for me to understand and value about the series.

What Constitutes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like previous classic compilations from the development team Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, part playable archive. The collection includes digitally recreated editions of the pioneering arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, plus console and handheld ports of certain releases. The collection even includes the franchise's attempts at spinoffs, like action games Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' worst entries.

The Legacy Kollection thus isn't a greatest hits compilation, but a study of the series' formative period, when developer Midway and brand founders Ed Boon and John Tobias were discovering methods to create a combat title, digitized from footage of actual people, as they went along. Observing the archival material — containing historical videos, new interviews, and scans of old flyers, graphic novels, and including internal communications — it's astonishing to observe how the series transformed from humble beginnings to a global sensation. It's genuinely amazing to see a group of pioneering developers, developing without clear direction or guidance, channel their pop-culture interests 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 developers' professional journeys at the now-defunct Midway. It further illustrates how those same creators contended with how to consistently surpass their achievements, encountering significant stress to duplicate their success. It represents an intriguing historical record constructed using analog films and analog photographs and manual drawings, which showcase the DIY nature of the series' creation process and how word of mouth helped disseminate its secrets and undisclosed elements of the series in its arcade heyday. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's highly engaging series of documentary shorts that spans games, comics, films and even the comical physical events. The collection additionally features some unreleased actions and game character images among its cutting-room-floor content.

Interactive Gaming

Placed within the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are invitations to experience the original releases. At certain intervals, audience members can jump into a combat game session or a home system version to rediscover its combat system and visual presentation, simulated with remarkable precision on modern hardware.

I allocated the majority of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, especially Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here stand the test of time, notably with direct competitive sessions. But playing against the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a reminder of how crude and unfair the development approached in early Mortal Kombat games. CPU-controlled opponents obviously use unfair advantages or are otherwise dumb as rocks. Without having another person to compete with — internet multiplayer exists in the majority of included games, but too light on features — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Display Features

The two dozen available combat games in the collection, a combination of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are faithfully recreated, though I have noticed a couple minor issues — primarily delayed responses and intermittent errors, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are primarily displayed authentically, the development team has included some smart convenience enhancements and graphical adjustment settings. For instance, players have the option to show each character's special moves during gameplay and opt to have infinite time to perform a Fatality. There are also options for revealing concealed combatants, eliminating the need to execute some esoteric trick to access them.

Artistically, the releases can be enjoyed with multiple filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection includes remarkably accurate filters that mimic the traditional television screens of arcades or domestic TVs, or the limited color monitor of a Nintendo handheld. An especially welcome feature is the option to have arcade-like bezels framing the gameplay, with the specific combat game you're playing precisely and gently mirroring against the artificial ebony plastic frames. It's very artistically charming.

Bonus Elements

There are plenty of nice touches beyond the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, including a music player that lets you revisit the music from multiple fighting releases excluding the sounds of combatants violently defeating each other. There are also combatant descriptions that feature histories and the various bits of lore displayed via the idle displays of gaming hall releases and conclusions.

Historical Preservation

Among the most significant features for committed franchise followers is the opportunity to play a segment of previously unavailable content in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This specific release, a moderately improved edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an early attempt by Midway at head-to-head network battles in arcades. The online-enabled release of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but provided the ability to battle network competitors and contained several small glitch repairs and refinements. Yet this online edition never gained traction, in part