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Mortal Kombat still possesses its share of secrets and the capacity to surprise, more than 30 years after its original launch in gaming halls. A new collection including the series' initial period, which includes four arcade games, various home ports, and related titles, transcends just a well-emulated collection of iconic titles and not-so-classics — it's also a comprehensive historical account about the creation of the iconic franchise.

Even as a lifelong devotee of the franchise who has closely monitored its creation and evolution, there was much to discover for me to understand and value about the series.

What Defines the Historical Compilation

Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection is, like other vintage game anthologies from the creators at Digital Eclipse, portion educational film, section playable historical record. The anthology contains emulated versions 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. The collection even includes the franchise's attempts at derivative games, like combat-focused releases Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and Mortal Kombat: Special Forces — some of the brand's least successful installments.

The Legacy Kollection consequently doesn't represent a highlight reel anthology, but a study of Mortal Kombat's early days, when the development team Midway and franchise originators the visionary developers were figuring out how to make a fighting game, digitized from footage of live performers, through experimentation. Viewing the historical footage — which includes archival footage, new interviews, and reproductions of classic advertisements, graphic novels, and even interoffice faxes — it's remarkable to see how Mortal Kombat went from simple starts to a worldwide phenomenon. It's truly remarkable to observe several pioneering developers, developing without clear direction or supervision, focus their cultural enthusiasms into creating a legendary video game series.

Historical Section

The historical documentation of Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection documents the ascent of the fighting series and the developers' professional journeys at the now-defunct Midway. It subsequently demonstrates how these identical developers addressed how to regularly outdo their previous work, facing no small amount of pressure to repeat their achievements. It represents an intriguing historical record constructed using video recordings and film-based pictures and hand-drawn illustrations, which reveal the self-made character of Mortal Kombat's development and how oral tradition helped spread its rumors and undisclosed elements of the series in its arcade heyday. Presented in manageable segments, it's thoroughly enjoyable series of documentary shorts that spans games, comics, films and even the silly live-action tour. It also includes some unreleased actions and character sprites among its cutting-room-floor content.

Interactive Experience

Distributed throughout the five-segment historical film's chronology are invitations to experience the games themselves. At certain intervals, audience members can jump into a Mortal Kombat title or one of its home console ports 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. Numerous titles here stand the test of time, notably with one-on-one local play. However, facing the computer-controlled adversaries in these titles is a demonstration of how basic and unjust the development approached in early Mortal Kombat games. Computer-directed fighters obviously use unfair advantages or are otherwise dumb as rocks. Without having a human opponent — network gaming is included in most titles in the collection, but somewhat limited in options — the experience will be incomplete.

Technical Presentation

The two dozen available combat games in the collection, a combination of gaming hall, television, and mobile releases, are precisely simulated, though I detected a handful slight anomalies — primarily delayed responses and sporadic glitches, especially with Mortal Kombat 4. Although the titles are mostly shown in their original form, the creators has added several intelligent convenience enhancements and graphical adjustment settings. For example, you can choose to display fighter-specific techniques on-screen and select to activate endless periods to execute finishing moves. Also included are choices for unlocking secret characters, without having to perform complicated methods to unlock them.

Artistically, the releases can be experienced with numerous graphical effects and display options. Mortal Kombat: Legacy Kollection provides highly authentic options that simulate the CRT monitors of coin-op establishments or domestic TVs, or the greenscale screen of a Nintendo handheld. A particularly nice touch is the setting to activate arcade-like bezels framing the gameplay, with the specific combat game you're playing faithfully and subtly duplicating against the faux black plastic borders. It's very artistically charming.

Additional Features

The collection includes numerous nice touches beyond the educational material and simulated classic games, including a music player that allows users to rediscover the tunes of various fighting releases without the din of fighters brutally eliminating opponents. There are also fighter biographies that feature histories and the various bits of lore shown through the demo sequences of coin-op titles and endings.

Archival Discovery

Among the most significant features for hardcore Mortal Kombat fans is the opportunity to play a example of historically missing material in the guise of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Wavenet Edition. This particular edition, a moderately improved edition of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, was an initial venture by the company at head-to-head network battles in gaming halls. This network version of the game is practically indistinguishable to UMK3, but featured the capability to battle network competitors and featured various slight bug fixes and balance. But the Wavenet update didn't find widespread adoption, in part