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This iconic fighting game continues to hold its share of secrets and the ability to amaze, well past its 30th anniversary after its first appearance in gaming halls. This latest compilation including the franchise's earliest days, featuring four original arcade titles, multiple console adaptations, and spinoffs, is more than simply a faithfully reproduced series of classics and not-so-classics — it additionally serves as a detailed chronicle about the creation of the legendary series.

As a dedicated Mortal Kombat fan who has closely monitored its creation and evolution, there was plenty new for me to understand and value about the series.

What Makes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to other retro collections from developer Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, portion interactive museum. This compilation features emulated versions of the pioneering arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, along with home system and portable adaptations of some of those games. The anthology additionally contains the franchise's attempts at spin-off titles, like action games Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — some of the brand's least successful installments.

The Legacy Kollection thus isn't a highlight reel anthology, but an exploration into the series' formative period, when the creators at Midway and series co-creators Ed Boon and John Tobias were figuring out how to make a fighting game, created from video recordings of actual people, on the fly. Watching the documentary — which includes vintage recordings, recent conversations, and digital copies of vintage posters, graphic novels, and even company memos — it's remarkable to see how the series transformed from simple starts to a international craze. It's truly remarkable to watch a handful of early video game creators, developing without clear direction or supervision, focus their cultural enthusiasms into establishing an enduring gaming brand.

Educational Component

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of the combat franchise and the founders' vocational paths at the currently closed Midway. It then goes on to show how those same creators contended with how to routinely one-up themselves, encountering significant pressure to repeat their success. It represents an intriguing historical record constructed using VHS tapes and analog photographs and pencil sketches, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of the series' creation process and how oral tradition helped spread its rumors and undisclosed elements of the series in its arcade heyday. Presented in manageable segments, it's highly engaging series of documentary shorts that spans games, comics, films and including the humorous real-world tour. The collection additionally features some unreleased actions and character sprites among its previously unreleased material.

Playable Component

Distributed throughout the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are prompts to play the games themselves. At various points, audience members can jump into a Mortal Kombat title or a console adaptation to reexperience its mechanics and visual presentation, recreated with impressive accuracy on current technology.

I dedicated most of my time experiencing the original arcade titles, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Many of the games here hold up, notably with local multiplayer matches. Yet competing with the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a reminder of how crude and unfair the programming was in the series' initial installments. Computer-directed fighters clearly employ dishonest tactics or are alternatively incredibly stupid. If you don't have a human opponent — online play is available in the majority of included games, but too light on features — you'll miss the full enjoyment.

Visual Options

The two dozen available combat games in the collection, a blend of arcade, console, and handheld games, are faithfully recreated, though I've observed a handful slight anomalies — mostly input lag and the occasional bug, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are primarily displayed authentically, developer Digital Eclipse has included some smart convenience enhancements and graphical adjustment settings. As an illustration, players have the option to reveal combatant-unique actions on the display and opt to have infinite time to perform a Fatality. There are also options for revealing concealed combatants, removing the requirement to complete some esoteric trick to obtain them.

Visually, the games can be played with a variety of filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic effects that reproduce the cathode-ray tube displays of gaming halls or household displays, or the limited color monitor of a Nintendo handheld. An especially welcome feature is the option to have gaming hall-style borders framing the gameplay, with your selected Mortal Kombat title accurately and softly reflecting against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Extra Content

There are plenty of nice touches beyond the educational material and simulated classic games, containing a soundtrack mode that enables players to reexperience the soundtracks of different combat titles absent the noise of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. Additionally included are character profiles that feature histories and multiple story elements presented by the demo sequences of coin-op titles and conclusions.

Archival Discovery

Among the most significant features for committed franchise followers is the opportunity to play a piece of "lost media" in the form of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This specific release, a moderately improved edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an pioneering effort from the developer at direct online competitive gaming in coin-op establishments. The Wavenet Edition of the game is virtually identical to UMK3, but featured the capability to challenge online opponents and included some minor error corrections and adjustments. However, this network version didn't find widespread adoption, in part