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The Mortal Kombat series continues to hold many hidden mysteries and the ability to amaze, well past its 30th anniversary after its original launch in arcades. A new collection including the series' initial period, comprising four original arcade titles, several home system versions, and derivative games, transcends only a accurately simulated set of legendary games along with lesser-known entries — it's also a comprehensive historical account about the creation of the iconic franchise.

As a dedicated devotee of the franchise who has carefully followed its development and progression, there was numerous fresh aspects for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Defines the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to other vintage game anthologies from the creators at Digital Eclipse, part documentary, section playable historical record. The anthology contains 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 series' ventures at spin-off titles, 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 is therefore not a “best of” collection, but an examination of the franchise's initial era, when the development team Midway and brand founders the visionary developers were determining how to develop a battle series, produced using film material of live performers, through experimentation. Watching the documentary — that features archival footage, new interviews, and reproductions of classic advertisements, comics, and even interoffice faxes — it's astonishing to observe how the series transformed from modest origins to a global sensation. It's genuinely amazing to see a group of young game developers, working with minimal planning or guidance, channel their pop-culture interests into creating a legendary video game series.

Educational Component

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection documents the ascent of the fighting series and the developers' professional journeys at the currently closed Midway. It then goes on to show how the very same individuals contended with how to regularly outdo their previous work, encountering significant demand to replicate their achievements. It represents an intriguing historical record made from VHS tapes and film-based pictures and hand-drawn illustrations, which showcase the DIY nature of Mortal Kombat's development and how word of mouth helped spread its rumors and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its arcade heyday. Presented in manageable segments, it's thoroughly enjoyable series of documentary shorts that includes titles, illustrated stories, cinematic adaptations and even the silly live-action tour. It also includes some unused moves and digital fighter representations among its previously unreleased material.

Interactive Experience

Distributed throughout the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are prompts to play the actual titles. During specific moments, audience members can jump into a Mortal Kombat title or one of its home console ports to revisit its gameplay and visual presentation, simulated with remarkable precision on modern hardware.

I dedicated most of my time playing the arcade classics, specifically Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here stand the test of time, particularly during direct competitive sessions. Yet competing with the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents 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 conversely remarkably unintelligent. If you don't have someone to play against — internet multiplayer exists in most titles in the collection, but somewhat limited in options — the experience will be incomplete.

Technical Presentation

The twenty-three accessible Mortal Kombat titles in the anthology, a blend of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are faithfully recreated, though I have noticed a handful slight anomalies — mostly input lag and intermittent errors, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are largely presented as-is, the creators has included some smart user experience improvements and visual presentation options. For instance, you can choose to show each character's special moves on the display and choose to enable unlimited duration to execute finishing moves. Additionally available are settings for revealing concealed combatants, removing the requirement to complete some esoteric trick to obtain them.

Artistically, the releases can be experienced with numerous filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic effects that reproduce the cathode-ray tube displays of gaming halls or home televisions, or the monochrome green display of a portable gaming device. A particularly nice touch is the setting to activate coin-op-inspired frames framing the gameplay, with the MK game of your choice accurately and softly reflecting against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's quite aesthetically pleasing.

Additional Features

There are plenty of welcome features besides the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, featuring an audio component that allows users to rediscover the soundtracks of different Mortal Kombat games excluding the sounds of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. There are also combatant descriptions that contain backgrounds and numerous narrative components shown through the idle displays of gaming hall releases and endings.

Lost Media Recovery

A particularly notable inclusion for committed franchise followers is the ability to access a piece of "lost media" in the format of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This version of the game, a slightly updated version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an pioneering effort from the developer at direct online competitive gaming in gaming halls. The Wavenet Edition of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but included the option to compete against internet adversaries and contained several small glitch repairs and refinements. But the Wavenet update never gained traction, in part