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Mortal Kombat continues to hold many hidden mysteries and the capacity to surprise, over three decades after its initial debut in coin-op establishments. The recent anthology covering the brand's formative years, featuring four arcade games, several home system versions, and related titles, is more than just a well-emulated series of classics and not-so-classics — it additionally serves as a rich documentary about the making of the legendary series.

Even as a lifelong enthusiast of the series who has closely monitored its development and progression, there was much to discover for me to discover and admire about the series.

What Constitutes the Legacy Kollection

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like other vintage game anthologies from developer Digital Eclipse, part documentary, section playable historical record. The collection includes simulated releases of the pioneering arcade Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, Mortal Kombat 3, and Mortal Kombat 4, along with home system and portable adaptations of some of those games. The collection even includes the brand's experiments at spin-off titles, like action games Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — among the series' most criticized releases.

The Legacy Kollection is therefore not a “best of” collection, but an examination of Mortal Kombat's early days, when the development team Midway and brand founders the creative duo behind the series were discovering methods to create a combat title, produced using film material of actual people, on the fly. Observing the archival material — that features archival footage, new interviews, and scans of old flyers, comics, and even company memos — it's astonishing to observe how Mortal Kombat went from simple starts to a worldwide phenomenon. It's frankly astounding to observe several pioneering developers, developing without clear direction or guidance, channel their pop-culture interests into establishing an enduring gaming brand.

Historical Section

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection documents the ascent of Mortal Kombat and the developers' professional journeys at the no-longer-operating Midway. It further illustrates how those same creators reckoned with how to regularly outdo their previous work, facing no small amount of pressure to repeat their success. It's a fascinating time capsule composed of VHS tapes and traditional photos and pencil sketches, which showcase the DIY nature of the series' creation process and how oral tradition helped circulate its mysteries and secrets of MK in its peak period in gaming halls. Told in bite-sized chunks, it's an eminently watchable collection of mini-documentaries that spans games, comics, films and even the comical physical events. The collection additionally features some unreleased actions and game character images among its cutting-room-floor content.

Playable Component

Interspersed along the five-segment historical film's chronology are invitations to experience the original releases. At certain intervals, viewers can hop into a combat game session or a home system version to reexperience its mechanics and artistic style, recreated with impressive accuracy on modern hardware.

I spent the bulk of my time engaging with the vintage coin-op games, particularly Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat 2, and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. Many of the games here hold up, particularly during one-on-one local play. However, facing the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a demonstration of how basic and unfair the coding existed in early Mortal Kombat games. Computer-directed fighters blatantly cheat to win or are alternatively incredibly stupid. If you don't have another person to compete with — internet multiplayer exists in the majority of included games, but rather basic in functionality — the experience will be incomplete.

Display Features

The twenty-three accessible Mortal Kombat titles in the anthology, a combination of coin-op, home system, and portable titles, are faithfully recreated, though I have noticed a handful slight anomalies — mostly input lag and the occasional bug, notably within Mortal Kombat 4. And while the games are mostly shown in their original form, the development team has added several intelligent convenience enhancements and graphical adjustment settings. As an illustration, users can elect to show each character's special moves during gameplay and select to activate endless periods to complete lethal techniques. Additionally available are settings for accessing hidden fighters, eliminating the need to execute obscure techniques to access them.

Visually, the games can be enjoyed with multiple graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic effects that reproduce the CRT monitors of coin-op establishments or home televisions, or the greenscale screen of a portable gaming device. A notably appreciated element is the option to have coin-op-inspired frames surrounding the screen, with the specific combat game you're playing accurately and softly reflecting against the faux black plastic borders. It's remarkably visually appealing.

Bonus Elements

The collection includes numerous welcome features besides the documentary and emulated arcade classics, featuring an audio component that lets you revisit the soundtracks of different Mortal Kombat games without the din of two kombatants viciously slaughtering each other. Additionally included are character profiles that contain backgrounds and the various bits of lore shown through the idle displays of gaming hall releases and final sequences.

Archival Discovery

A particularly notable inclusion for committed franchise followers is the chance to experience a example of historically missing material in the form of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This specific release, a moderately improved edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an pioneering effort from the developer at head-to-head network battles in gaming halls. The online-enabled release of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but included the option to battle network competitors and featured various slight bug fixes and balance. Yet this online edition never gained traction, in part