Capcom seemingly out of nowhere decided to re-release some of their arcade gems from yesteryear on modern consoles and PC. The Capcom Fighting Collection brings back a range of titles from the 1980s and early 1990s, remastered and ready to go with crisp visuals in one handy package.
The Capcom Fighting Collection features ten arcade games. These are, Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors, Night Warriors: Darkstalkers’ Revenge, Vampire Savior: The Lord of Vampire, Vampire Hunter 2: Darkstalkers’ Revenge, Vampire Savior 2: The Lord of Vampire, Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary Edition, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix, Cyberbots: Full Metal Madness and Red Earth. All of these titles with the exception of Vampire Hunter 2: Darkstalkers’ Revenge and Vampire Savior 2: The Lord of Vampire feature both the English and Japanese versions. Vampire Hunter 2: Darkstalkers’ Revenge and Vampire Savior 2: The Lord of Vampire is limited to the Japanese versions.
Amazingly, Capcom has also opted to enable online play in this collection too. This is a bit of a gamble on their part though because regional connectivity and the niche market player base might mean that finding online opponents will probably be a tough ask. In fact, it might even be impossible given that the bigger fighting games out there captivate most of the market anyway. This collection is more for the fans of these arcade games to sit back and enjoy some true gaming gems.
Speaking of gems, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo features players engaging in a Puyo Puyo-style game where they will match different coloured gems in a grid. Clearing gems of the same colour will then unleash an attack on their opponent. Yes it’s formulaic and we’ve seen it with other franchises and titles before but the Street Fighter chibi character flavour makes it a tonne of fun.
The real star of the show here however is arguably the Darkstalkers franchise. These titles have had a cult following over the years and hopefully, this collection of the arcade games garners enough attention to warrant Capcom reviving the franchise. One can dream and I certainly do hope that they do. The Darkstalkers fighting games featured a great cast of dark yet flamboyant characters and the actual fighting mechanics were flat-out amazing. Even playing them now in 2022 feels great. Capcom, please, if you’re reading this, make a brand new Darkstalkers title with today’s technology!
Red Earth is also playable for the first time ever on a home console via this collection and legally on PC. This title features a campaign where you fight against some beautifully designed monster characters in a fighting role-playing game of sorts. It’s quite fun despite featuring some rather challenging fights. It also has some more complex mechanics not necessarily seen in more traditional fighting games, such as food items and levelling up characters.
The most familiar title in the lot is Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary Edition and thanks to the online netcode, players can have a blast with this classic title against friends or online opponents if they can find any. Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix features chibi street fighter characters battling each other and it’s rather cute with its own unique flair to its battle system.
Cyberbots: Full Metal Madness is a stellar mecha battler where players will unleash ridiculously flashy attacks upon other mech units and it’s absolutely fantastic. This is a title that you’ll want to sink some time into because it’s just that good.
To round off the package, Capcom has also included a Museum where players can view over 500 illustrations and development materials such as concept art and more. Players can also listen to over 400 music tracks in-game and honestly, I wish that all remastered classics included such a hefty museum of content like this.
Players can also change up the screen filters and select from up to 7 different types as well as change the border illustrations for the game and the aspect ratio. There aren’t any screen curvature settings here but that’s ok given that we’ve got so much already. Players can also use a quick save option but unfortunately, this is limited to only 1 slot for some reason. There isn’t a quick way to return back to the game selection menu either other than manually quitting out via the pause screen and there isn’t a rewind option for single-player modes as seen in some other titles that have been remastered by other companies.
Overall, as far as remastered re-releases go, the Capcom Fighting Collection does a great job. It features a rather extensive set of bonus content in the form of the Museum and the screen filters and quick saves are good additions. The only major downside to the Capcom Fighting Collection lies with the fact that even though it has great netcode, the player base will be abysmally low in no time flat given how niche these arcade games are. This is more of a collection that you’d purchase to play a specific game. Whether it’s the Darkstalkers franchise or Cyberbots: Full Metal Madness, or even Red Earth, the Capcom Fighting Collection is the best legal way to play these titles. If you’re looking for a fighting game collection to play with a friend and not against random online people, this is a great choice. The Capcom Fighting Collection is a must-buy title if you’re a fan of retro arcade fighting games with the bonus behind-the-scenes art material acting as the perfect partner to it. Just be aware that it’s quite a pricey purchase at the time of writing this review.
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom U.S.A., Inc.
Platforms: PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows
Reviewed on PC
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