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Mortal Kombat continues to hold its share of secrets and the ability to amaze, well past its 30th anniversary after its original launch in arcades. The recent anthology including the brand's formative years, which includes four original arcade titles, various home ports, and derivative games, transcends simply a faithfully reproduced set of legendary games and not-so-classics — it functions as a detailed chronicle about the creation of the renowned brand.

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 Makes the Historical Compilation

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like previous classic compilations from the creators at Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, portion interactive museum. The collection includes emulated versions of the pioneering arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, including television and mobile versions of several of these titles. This compilation also features 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 worst entries.

The Legacy Kollection thus isn't a highlight reel anthology, but an examination of the series' formative period, when developer Midway and series co-creators Ed Boon and John Tobias were determining how to develop a battle series, digitized from footage of real actors, through experimentation. Viewing the historical footage — containing vintage recordings, contemporary discussions, and reproductions of classic advertisements, comics, and including internal communications — it's incredible to witness how the series transformed from simple starts to a global sensation. It's truly remarkable to see a group of pioneering developers, developing without clear direction or supervision, channel their pop-culture interests into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Historical Section

The documentary portion of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection documents the ascent of the fighting series and the founders' vocational paths at the currently closed Midway. It subsequently demonstrates how those same creators addressed how to routinely one-up themselves, encountering significant demand to replicate their success. It represents an intriguing historical record constructed using video recordings and film-based pictures and manual drawings, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of Mortal Kombat's development and how personal recommendations helped circulate its mysteries and secrets of MK in its peak period in gaming halls. Presented in manageable segments, it's an eminently watchable collection of mini-documentaries that spans games, comics, films and including the humorous real-world tour. The compilation also contains some unreleased actions and character sprites among its archived development assets.

Playable Component

Placed within the quintet of documentary episodes' progression are invitations to experience the actual titles. At various points, audience members can jump into a game of Mortal Kombat or a console adaptation to revisit its gameplay and graphics, 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. Several releases here hold up, notably with one-on-one local play. However, facing the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a testament to how primitive and unjust the coding existed in the series' initial installments. Computer-directed fighters blatantly cheat to win or are alternatively incredibly stupid. Lacking a human opponent — network gaming is included in numerous anthology releases, but somewhat limited in options — you'll be missing out.

Visual Options

The 23 playable Mortal Kombat games in the collection, a blend of coin-op, home system, and portable titles, are faithfully recreated, though I have noticed a few small quirks — primarily delayed responses and sporadic glitches, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are largely presented as-is, the creators has incorporated various clever quality-of-life features and graphical adjustment settings. For example, you can choose to show each character's special moves on-screen and opt to have endless periods to perform a Fatality. Also included are choices for unlocking secret characters, eliminating the need to execute complicated methods to access them.

Artistically, the releases can be played with a variety of graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection offers very realistic filters that mimic the CRT monitors of coin-op establishments or domestic TVs, or the limited color monitor of a Game Boy. An especially welcome feature is the choice to enable arcade-like bezels surrounding the screen, with the MK game of your choice precisely and gently mirroring against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's quite aesthetically pleasing.

Extra Content

Players will discover multiple welcome features besides the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, including a music player that lets you revisit the soundtracks of different Mortal Kombat games without the din of combatants violently defeating each other. Also present are fighter biographies that feature histories and multiple story elements displayed via the demo sequences of coin-op titles and conclusions.

Historical Preservation

Among the most significant features for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the chance to experience a piece of "lost media" in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This particular edition, a slightly updated version of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an pioneering effort from the developer at one-on-one internet-based play in coin-op establishments. The online-enabled release of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but included the option to battle network competitors and featured various slight bug fixes and balance. Yet this online edition failed to achieve popularity, in part