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The Mortal Kombat series continues to hold its share of secrets and the capacity to surprise, well past its 30th anniversary after its initial debut in coin-op establishments. The recent anthology spanning the series' initial period, featuring a quartet of arcade releases, several home system versions, and related titles, transcends just a well-emulated series of classics along with lesser-known entries — it additionally serves as a rich documentary about the development of the iconic franchise.

As a dedicated enthusiast of the series who has carefully followed its development and progression, there was numerous fresh aspects for me to understand and value about the series.

What Constitutes the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection similar to previous classic compilations from the development team Digital Eclipse, part historical documentation, part playable archive. This compilation features simulated releases of the original arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, including television and mobile versions of some of those games. The anthology additionally contains the franchise's attempts at spinoffs, like action games Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection consequently doesn't represent a greatest hits compilation, but an exploration into the franchise's initial era, when developer Midway and series co-creators Ed Boon and John Tobias were determining how to create a combat title, digitized from footage of actual people, as they went along. Viewing the historical footage — containing vintage recordings, contemporary discussions, and digital copies of vintage posters, comics, and even interoffice faxes — it's astonishing to observe how Mortal Kombat went from humble beginnings to a international craze. It's frankly astounding to watch a handful of early video game creators, working with minimal planning or supervision, focus their cultural enthusiasms into establishing an enduring gaming brand.

Documentary Portion

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of Mortal Kombat and its creators' careers at the now-defunct Midway. It subsequently demonstrates how the very same individuals addressed how to routinely one-up themselves, experiencing considerable demand to replicate their success. It represents an intriguing historical record constructed using analog films and analog photographs and hand-drawn illustrations, which reveal the self-made character of Mortal Kombat's development and how oral tradition helped disseminate its secrets and hidden aspects of Mortal Kombat in its golden era in coin-op establishments. Presented in manageable segments, it's thoroughly enjoyable collection of mini-documentaries that spans games, comics, films and including the humorous real-world tour. It also includes some unreleased actions and character sprites among its previously unreleased material.

Interactive Gaming

Distributed throughout the five-segment historical film's chronology are invitations to experience the original releases. At certain intervals, audience members can jump into a game of Mortal Kombat or a home system version to rediscover its combat system and visual presentation, emulated nearly perfectly on modern hardware.

I allocated the majority of my time experiencing the original arcade titles, especially Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Numerous titles here remain enjoyable, notably with local multiplayer matches. But playing against the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a demonstration of how basic and unfair the development approached in early Mortal Kombat games. CPU-controlled opponents clearly employ dishonest tactics or are alternatively incredibly stupid. Without having someone to play against — internet multiplayer exists in the majority of included games, but too light on features — you'll be missing out.

Technical Presentation

The twenty-three accessible Mortal Kombat titles in the collection, a combination of coin-op, home system, and portable titles, are precisely simulated, though I have noticed a couple minor issues — mostly input lag and the occasional bug, particularly in Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are mostly shown in their original form, developer Digital Eclipse has included some smart user experience improvements and visual presentation options. For instance, users can elect to show each character's special moves on the display and select to activate endless periods to perform a Fatality. Additionally available are settings for accessing hidden fighters, removing the requirement to complete obscure techniques to unlock them.

Artistically, the releases can be enjoyed with multiple filters and visual treatments. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic effects that reproduce the traditional television screens of gaming halls or household displays, or the greenscale screen of a portable gaming device. A particularly nice touch is the setting to activate gaming hall-style borders surrounding the screen, with your selected Mortal Kombat title precisely and gently mirroring against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's quite aesthetically pleasing.

Additional Features

There are plenty of nice touches beyond the documentary and emulated arcade classics, containing a soundtrack mode that allows users to rediscover the music from multiple Mortal Kombat games absent the noise of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. Also present are combatant descriptions that include bios and numerous narrative components shown through arcade games' attract mode screens and final sequences.

Lost Media Recovery

One of the biggest highlights for dedicated series enthusiasts is the chance to experience a segment of previously unavailable content in the form of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This specific release, a somewhat revised iteration of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an pioneering effort from the developer at head-to-head network battles in coin-op establishments. This network version of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but featured the capability to battle network competitors and contained several small bug fixes and balance. Yet this online edition never gained traction, in part