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The Mortal Kombat series continues to hold numerous undisclosed elements and the capacity to surprise, more than 30 years after its first appearance in arcades. A new collection including the series' initial period, featuring a quartet of arcade releases, various home ports, and spinoffs, goes beyond simply a faithfully reproduced collection of iconic titles and not-so-classics — it's also a rich documentary about the making of the legendary series.

Being a long-time Mortal Kombat fan who has closely monitored its creation and evolution, there was much to discover for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Defines the Historical Compilation

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to other retro collections from developer Digital Eclipse, part documentary, section playable historical record. This compilation features simulated releases of the original 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 series' ventures at spinoffs, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — two of the franchise's least successful installments.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a greatest hits compilation, but an examination of the franchise's initial era, when the creators at Midway and brand founders the creative duo behind the series were determining how to develop a battle series, produced using film material of real actors, on the fly. Observing the archival material — containing archival footage, new interviews, and scans of old flyers, graphic novels, and including internal communications — it's incredible to witness how the series transformed from humble beginnings to a global sensation. It's frankly astounding to watch a handful of early video game creators, working with minimal planning or supervision, channel their pop-culture interests into creating a legendary video game series.

Documentary Portion

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection documents the ascent of Mortal Kombat and its creators' careers at the no-longer-operating Midway. It further illustrates how these identical developers contended with how to consistently surpass their achievements, encountering significant demand to replicate their triumphs. It serves as a compelling period piece constructed using analog films and film-based pictures and hand-drawn illustrations, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of Mortal Kombat's development and how personal recommendations helped disseminate its secrets and secrets of MK in its arcade heyday. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's an eminently watchable collection of mini-documentaries that spans games, comics, films and even the silly live-action tour. It also includes some unused moves and digital fighter representations among its previously unreleased material.

Interactive Gaming

Interspersed along the five-segment historical film's chronology are opportunities to engage with the games themselves. At various points, audience members can jump into a Mortal Kombat title or one of its home console ports to revisit its gameplay and artistic style, recreated with impressive accuracy on contemporary systems.

I dedicated most of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, especially Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Many of the games here remain enjoyable, particularly during direct competitive sessions. However, facing the aforementioned game's AI-controlled opponents is a reminder of how crude and unbalanced the coding existed in the franchise's pioneering releases. CPU-controlled opponents clearly employ dishonest tactics or are conversely remarkably unintelligent. Without having another person to compete with — online play is available in most titles in the collection, but somewhat limited in options — the experience will be incomplete.

Visual Options

The two dozen available combat games in the compilation, a blend of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are precisely simulated, though I've observed a handful slight anomalies — primarily delayed responses and sporadic glitches, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. Even though the releases are largely presented as-is, the development team has incorporated various clever quality-of-life features and graphical adjustment settings. As an illustration, players have the option to reveal combatant-unique actions on-screen and opt to have infinite time to complete lethal techniques. There are also options 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 offers very realistic filters that mimic the cathode-ray tube displays of coin-op establishments or household displays, or the limited color monitor of a portable gaming device. A particularly nice touch is the setting to activate gaming hall-style borders surrounding the screen, with the specific combat game you're playing faithfully and subtly duplicating against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's very artistically charming.

Additional Features

There are plenty of welcome features besides the educational material and simulated classic games, containing a soundtrack mode that lets you revisit the music from multiple Mortal Kombat games without the din of combatants violently defeating each other. Additionally included are fighter biographies that contain backgrounds and the various bits of lore shown through the idle displays of gaming hall releases and conclusions.

Archival Discovery

One of the biggest highlights for committed franchise followers is the ability to access a example of historically missing material in the form of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This specific release, a somewhat revised iteration of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an initial venture by the company at one-on-one internet-based play in arcades. The online-enabled release of the game is virtually identical to UMK3, but featured the capability to compete against internet adversaries and featured various slight bug fixes and balance. However, this network version didn't find widespread adoption, in part