Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium Review

Capcom Arcade 2^nd Stadium is a collection of more classic Capcom arcade games from days long gone by. This is the second collection of arcade classics that Capcom has created and strangely enough, also includes a lot of titles that were featured in the very recent, Capcom Fighting Collection (that was released in June 2022).

If you played the original Capcom Arcade Stadium, you’d know the deal here. You get the base game free with 1 title and then you have to purchase the rest, either individually or as part of a larger bundle. This alone might put off some gamers but this is the route Capcom took for both collections.

Capcom Arcade 2^nd Stadium features more of the same. The same user interface is back albeit way more purple with new arcade cabinet stylings and menu systems. Heck, even the title screen song is the same. The only major difference here is of course that there’s new arcade classics to enjoy. Brace yourselves, this list of games is going to be long.

An Arcade Collection

The full Capcom Arcade 2^nd Stadium collection contains the following titles:

• 1943 Kai
• Block Block
• The King of Dragons
• Knights of the Round
• Magic Sword
• Vampire Savior: The Lord of Vampire
• Black Tiger
• Capcom Sports Club
• Chariot: Adventure through the Sky
• Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors
• Eco Fighters
• Gun Smoke
• Hissatsu Buraiken
• Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary Edition
• Hyper Dyne Side Arms
• Last Duel
• Mega Man: The Power Battle
• Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters
• Night Warriors: Darkstalkers’ Revenge
• Pnickies
• Rally 2011: LED STORM
• Saturday Night Slam Masters
• Savage Bees
• Side Arms: Hyper Dyne
• SonSon
• Street Fighter
• Street Fighter Alpha: Warriors’ Dreams
• Street Fighter Alpha 2
• Street Fighter Alpha 3
• Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix
• Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo
• The Speed Rumbler
• Three Wonders
• Tiger Road

Now that that’s out the way, let’s dive into some of the more notable ones here. Starting with the Street Fighter games, it’s great to see them included in this collection. If you didn’t purchase the Capcom Fighting Collection, you can pick them up here individually for a fraction of the cost of the Capcom Fighting Collection. You will however miss out on some of the more niche titles included in that particular collection but this is a great way to save yourself from spending a lot of your hard earned money just to play Hyper Street Fighter II: Anniversary Edition for example. There’s no bonus content museum included here though so you can’t see any additional content unfortunately.

SonSon

The free version of the Capcom Arcade 2^nd Stadium includes SonSon. This is a title where you play as a character that jumps around a side-scrolling environment and can fire off projectiles towards enemies that race towards you. You can collect fruit and other items and rack up high scores. It’s fairly simplistic and definitely shows its age. This is a game from 1984 after all but is still surprisingly enjoyable.

One of the stars of the show in this collection is Knights of the Round. This is a side-scrolling beat ‘em up where you play as one of three knights and fight against waves of enemies before facing off against a boss foe. It’s quite challenging and thankfully, this collection of games includes a feature which the previous collection only had as a paid DLC. This feature being “Invincibility”.  Players can choose to toggle invincibility on or off in this collection and it makes a massive difference to the games you play because of their difficulty. Oh and you can also save and load whenever you want to.

Arcade games from the 1980s and 1990s were clearly brutal and definitely led to many coins being inhaled by arcade cabinets. At least in the Capcom Arcade 2^nd Stadium you can just continue as many times as you want from the comfort of your own home. Capcom has also included a rewind feature which makes playing the tougher titles in this collection a lot more fun. The best place to use this feature is in titles such as Hyper Dyne Side Arms and 1943 Kai where the bullet hell aspects of those games will lead to your death quite often.

The rewind feature is also great in the beat ‘em up games too since you can simply rewind yourself back to full health if you mess up when fighting groups of enemies. Tiger Road becomes a heck of a lot easier thanks to this feature since that game is quite tough.

One of the most fun games in this collection is Rally 2011: LED Storm. In this title you’ll race along a road while dodging obstacles and enemies. This game also has a fantastic soundtrack with a tonne of catchy beats and tunes. It’s amazing being able to play this game since it really is quite fun.

Plain and Simple

Capcom Sports Club is another title that’s really great to play. This one features basketball, tennis and soccer in one package and while fairly straightforward, it’s very enjoyable to play. Especially tennis, which is a time sink. Once you get going with that game you’ll want to continue playing it until you win the tournament.

Black Tiger is a side-scrolling, tough as nails platformer where you play as a barbarian on a quest to save the world against dragons. Magic Sword is similar but features 2 player co-op while King of Dragons lets you play with 2 others for 3 players total.

Some of the other titles in this collection are fairly simplistic such as Block Block which involves you breaking coloured blocks by bouncing a ball towards them. Saturday Night Slam is a straightforward wrestling game while Savage Bees, GunSmoke, The Speed Rumbler, Last Duel and Hissatsu Buraiken all feature similar top-down views where you face off against enemies that stand in your way either on foot or in a vehicle or spacecraft.

Eco Fighters is a standout title in which you have to defeat waves of enemies while the game side-scrolls. You’ll play as a spacecraft with a rotating weapon that’s tasked with saving a world from a corporation that’s turning it into a “Dread Sphere”. The game features an ecological, environmental saving theme throughout, and this seems extremely poignant given the state of our real-world environment right now.

Final Verdict

Capcom Arcade 2^nd Stadium is a great collection of arcade titles. The only drawback is that the entire collection is quite pricey and that there’s no real bonus materials or museum features included here. Being able to buy the specific titles you want helps alleviate the price issues but fans of retro video games will definitely want to grab the full collection.

Capcom have also listed a lot of mini-albums as DLC for the game. This gives you access to their music and given how some of these retro titles have such great soundtracks, this is something that we appreciate quite a lot. It’s just a shame that Capcom didn’t opt to include some written history about their arcade titles here or include a museum like they did in the Capcom Fighting Collection. The Capcom Arcade 2^nd Stadium runs great on PC though and it’s still a great buy if you’re a fan of retro video games and therefore we can still recommend picking it up.

This game was review on PC via Steam

Enjoy the review? want to read more of our reviews? then click right here to be whisked away to the realm of our opinions.