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The Mortal Kombat series continues to hold many hidden mysteries and the power to astonish, over three decades after its first appearance in arcades. This latest compilation spanning the brand's formative years, which includes a quartet of arcade releases, various home ports, and spinoffs, transcends simply a faithfully reproduced set of legendary games and not-so-classics — it additionally serves as a detailed chronicle about the making of the legendary series.

Being a long-time devotee of the franchise who has closely monitored its development and progression, there was plenty new for me to discover and admire about the series.

What Defines the Historical Compilation

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like other vintage game anthologies from the development team Digital Eclipse, part documentary, part playable archive. The collection includes 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 several of these titles. The anthology additionally contains the franchise's attempts at derivative games, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection thus isn't a greatest hits compilation, but a study of Mortal Kombat's early days, when the creators at Midway and brand founders Ed Boon and John Tobias were figuring out how to develop a battle series, digitized from footage of live performers, through experimentation. Observing the archival material — which includes vintage recordings, recent conversations, and scans of old flyers, illustrated stories, and even interoffice faxes — it's remarkable to see how the series transformed from simple starts to a international craze. It's frankly astounding to watch a handful of young game developers, operating with virtually no plan or guidance, direct their entertainment passions into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Documentary Portion

The documentary portion of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection charts the rise of Mortal Kombat and the developers' professional journeys at the no-longer-operating Midway. It further illustrates how those same creators contended with how to consistently surpass their achievements, experiencing considerable demand to replicate their achievements. It's a fascinating time capsule composed of VHS tapes and analog photographs and pencil sketches, which showcase the DIY nature of the series' creation process and how personal recommendations helped disseminate its secrets and undisclosed elements of the series in its arcade heyday. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's an eminently watchable set of brief historical films that includes titles, illustrated stories, cinematic adaptations and including the humorous real-world tour. The compilation also contains some unused moves and game character images among its cutting-room-floor content.

Interactive Experience

Placed within the five-segment historical film's chronology are opportunities to engage with the games themselves. At certain intervals, users can directly access a Mortal Kombat title or a console adaptation to revisit its gameplay and graphics, emulated nearly perfectly on contemporary systems.

I allocated the majority of my time playing the arcade classics, specifically Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Many of the games here stand the test of time, especially in local multiplayer matches. Yet competing with the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a testament to how primitive and unbalanced the development approached in the series' initial installments. AI-managed characters clearly employ dishonest tactics or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. Lacking another person to compete with — network gaming is included in numerous anthology releases, but somewhat limited in options — the experience will be incomplete.

Visual Options

The two dozen available combat games in the compilation, a combination of arcade, console, and handheld games, are accurately emulated, though I detected a few small quirks — primarily delayed responses and the occasional bug, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. Even though the releases are primarily displayed authentically, the development team has incorporated various clever quality-of-life features and graphical adjustment settings. As an illustration, users can elect to display fighter-specific techniques 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 access them.

Artistically, the releases can be experienced with numerous graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic effects that reproduce the traditional television screens of coin-op establishments or household displays, or the monochrome green display of a Nintendo handheld. A particularly nice touch is the option to have arcade-like bezels encircling the display, with your selected Mortal Kombat title precisely and gently mirroring against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's quite aesthetically pleasing.

Extra Content

There are plenty of nice touches beyond the documentary and emulated arcade classics, including a music player that allows users to rediscover the music from multiple Mortal Kombat games excluding the sounds of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. Additionally included are combatant descriptions that feature histories and multiple story elements displayed via the idle displays of gaming hall releases and final sequences.

Archival Discovery

One of the biggest highlights for committed franchise followers is the opportunity to play a example of historically missing material in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This version of the game, a slightly updated version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an initial venture by the company at head-to-head network battles in gaming halls. The Wavenet Edition of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but featured the capability to challenge online opponents and contained several small glitch repairs and refinements. However, this network version never gained traction, in part