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The Mortal Kombat series continues to hold its share of secrets and the power to astonish, well past its 30th anniversary after its initial debut in gaming halls. This latest compilation covering the franchise's earliest days, which includes four original arcade titles, several home system versions, and related titles, goes beyond just a well-emulated series of classics and not-so-classics — it's also a rich documentary about the making of the iconic franchise.

Even as a lifelong enthusiast of the series who has paid close attention its origins and transformation, there was plenty new for me to learn and appreciate about the series.

What Defines the Legacy Collection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection comparable to other vintage game anthologies from the development team Digital Eclipse, part documentary, portion interactive museum. 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 some of those games. 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 — among the series' worst entries.

The Legacy Kollection consequently doesn't represent a greatest hits compilation, but a study of Mortal Kombat's early days, when the creators at Midway and series co-creators the visionary developers were determining how to create a combat title, produced using film material of actual people, through experimentation. Observing the archival material — that features vintage recordings, recent conversations, and reproductions of classic advertisements, comics, and including internal communications — it's astonishing to observe how the franchise evolved from humble beginnings to a worldwide phenomenon. It's frankly astounding to watch a handful of young game developers, operating with virtually no plan or supervision, channel their pop-culture interests into birthing an iconic game franchise.

Documentary Portion

The educational segment of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection traces the growth of the combat franchise and its creators' careers at the currently closed Midway. It further illustrates how the very same individuals addressed how to consistently surpass their achievements, encountering significant pressure to repeat their triumphs. It serves as a compelling period piece made from analog films and traditional photos and hand-drawn illustrations, which demonstrate the hands-on approach of the franchise's production method and how personal recommendations helped spread its rumors and secrets of MK in its arcade heyday. Delivered in easily digestible portions, it's thoroughly enjoyable set of brief historical films that covers video games, graphic novels, movies and even the comical physical events. The compilation also contains some unused moves and digital fighter representations among its cutting-room-floor content.

Interactive Experience

Distributed throughout the five-part documentary's timeline are opportunities to engage with the games themselves. At certain intervals, viewers can hop into a Mortal Kombat title or a home system version to reexperience its mechanics and visual presentation, emulated nearly perfectly on contemporary systems.

I allocated the majority of my time experiencing the original arcade titles, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Several releases here remain enjoyable, especially in direct competitive sessions. But playing against the artificial intelligence fighters in these releases is a testament to how primitive and unfair the programming was in the franchise's pioneering releases. AI-managed characters blatantly cheat to win or are otherwise dumb as rocks. If you don't have another person to compete with — internet multiplayer exists in numerous anthology releases, but somewhat limited in options — the experience will be incomplete.

Display Features

The two dozen available combat games in the anthology, a combination of coin-op, home system, and portable titles, are precisely simulated, though I detected a few small quirks — mainly control latency and sporadic glitches, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. Even though the releases are largely presented as-is, the development team has incorporated various clever convenience enhancements and display customization choices. For instance, players have the option to show each character's special moves during gameplay and select to activate unlimited duration to complete lethal techniques. There are also options for revealing concealed combatants, eliminating the need to execute obscure techniques to unlock them.

Artistically, the releases can be played with a variety of graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection includes remarkably accurate effects that reproduce the CRT monitors of arcades or domestic TVs, or the monochrome green display of a Game Boy. A notably appreciated element is the choice to enable gaming hall-style borders surrounding the screen, with the specific combat game you're playing precisely and gently mirroring against the simulated dark plastic edges. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Bonus Elements

The collection includes numerous appreciated elements beyond the historical footage and recreated vintage titles, containing a soundtrack mode that lets you revisit the soundtracks of different combat titles excluding the sounds of combatants violently defeating each other. There are also character profiles that contain backgrounds and the various bits of lore displayed via the demo sequences of coin-op titles and final sequences.

Archival Discovery

Among the most significant features for committed franchise followers is the opportunity to play a piece of "lost media" in the guise 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 arcades. The Wavenet Edition of the game is almost exactly the same to UMK3, but provided the ability to compete against internet adversaries and contained several small error corrections and adjustments. But the Wavenet update never gained traction, in part