Hot on the heels of the superb new Fatal Fury game, along come Capcom to give me yet another time sinkhole to disappear down, with the long-awaited Capcom Fighting Collection 2, a package which features some of my most beloved arcade games of all time, some of which have never been playable online in any previous legal incarnation.
It would be remiss of me to begin with anything other than saying just how incredible the Power Stone titles were, and indeed still are. Originally released into arcades in 1999 and 2000, respectively, these arena based 3D combat bangers were released in quick time for the SEGA Dreamcast, the natural home for the NAOMI based coin ops of the time, a recurring theme amongst this collection.
Set in a steampunk-y 19th century fantasy world, the hook of these two is of course the use of the titular Stones. In the first game, you face down against opponents in a one on one brawl, using environmental objects as projectiles, collecting randomly spawning weapons, and tussling with your foe to hoover up the three Power Stones which make you incrementally more powerful, until you snaffle all three and can temporarily transform into a badass super version of yourself, with two devastating special attacks at your disposal.
What makes Power Stone so special is just how pure it is, how beautifully balanced, and how much joy it gives thanks to the incredibly satisfying back and forth struggle you have with your counterpart as you scamper across the wonderfully executed stages attempting to be the first to gain control of the magical stones. The characters are all interesting and varied, and the AI when playing against the CPU is firm but fair. Easily one of the best arcade games of all time, having the ability to play others online with rollback netcode, and with the boss characters easily unlocked makes the Capcom Fighting Collection 2 port the ultimate version to own.
The sequel is also a hell of a piece of work, with a much-expanded roster, a bunch of new weapons, more intricate and set-piece laden stages, and more than one screen-filling boss encounter. Behold, the legendary Pharoah Walker, which sounds like a leftfield jazz musician but is in fact a gigantic robot inspired by Egyptian mythology. There are also more Power Stones to collect on each stage, and new elements such as food items to replenish health.
Whilst Power Stone 2 does deliver in making the game bigger and has more moving parts, it is sometimes a little too OTT for its own good and bites off a little more than it can chew. That said, it is still a rollicking good time in multiplayer, and has to be seen to be believed – some of the dynamic stages are mind blowing in their execution. The port is spot-on, however I am baffled as to why Capcom didn’t include the Dreamcast version of the game, which has the Adventure mode and in-game shop that really expands the life of the Power Stone 2 experience.
Quite simply it is staggering that Capcom left Power Stone on the shelf for so long. And it is great to have it back, without having to use the fiddly analogue nub on the PSP, or break open a Dreamcast.
Another title that shone for the Dreamcast is the sequel to Rival Schools, titled Project Justice in the West, and now commanding prices entering the Earth’s stratosphere amongst the retro collecting community. Easily the best classically styled 3D fighter Capcom have ever served up, it features three-on-three team combat and has a smooth and intuitive fighting system that features the thrilling Party Up combined attack when you smash three attack buttons at once. The presentation is ace, with anime-styled cutscenes driving along the inter-school storyline. There are also two modes of play – one which allows you to select your own team of three characters as you wish, and the Story mode which switches control between different factions as the city-wide brawl amongst the education system plays out.
Appearing here for the first time on consoles outside of Japan, the arcade version of Street Fighter Zero 3 Upper is the ultimate Alpha/Zero experience, incorporating a roster of characters so comprehensive that it is difficult to settle on a favourite, and the same mind-bendingly good ISM-based action we know and love. One of the finest 2D fighters of all time, in a version arcade purists will lap up.
Capcom and SNK crossovers are all the rage these days, so it is fitting that hot on the heels of Terry and Mai appearing in SF6 and a handful of Street Fighter mainstays heading to South Town soon, that we finally get our hands on the Capcom vs SNK games for the first time in aeons.
Millennium Fight 2000 was the first crossover between the two companies to hit the arcades, and features the opportunity to select characters from across the storied companies, and employ a tactical fighting system, or “Groove” based upon either the Extra Mode from King of Fighters 94-98, or one that is an amalgam of those in the Zero/Alpha-verse. Interestingly the characters are also seeded based upon their overall strengths, with combatants ranked from 1-4 in terms of their standing in the pantheon of fighters. Your selected team should be made up of no more than four points in total.
For reference, Dan Hibiki is a 1, Ryu is a 2, M.Bison/Vega is a 3 and Akuma is a 4. Do you go all-out with one of the lethal four point badasses, or play it steady with a larger, less powerful lineup?
This version is essentially a port of Capcom vs SNK Pro, which was previously only on offer to us PAL gamers in a loading-time crippled PlayStation port. Here in arcade glory, it is a hugely fun title that sings in competitive mode and actually benefits from a reduced four-button attack scheme. Much like Power Stone placed up against it’s follow-up, Millennium Fight 2000 feels like a more refined experience with a slightly smaller roster and a bit less bombast than it’s bigger, badder sequel.
That isn’t to say Capcom vs SNK 2 isn’t utterly brilliant, because it still is. The ratio system is altered and you can select a team of up to three and adjust the ratio before each bout. There are now six different grooves, with ideas and concepts cribbed from not only KOF and Alpha/Zero but also 3rd Strike, Samurai Spirits and Garou: Mark of the Wolves. The roster is enormous, and the control scheme is now the full monty Capcom six-button affair. Where CvS2 drew criticism from in the past is from the way Capcom essentially disrespected it’s own IPs by redrawing and giving a new lick of paint to the SNK characters, but lazily re-using sprites for their own – including the now ubiquitous Morrigan Aensland sprite which has been re-used more than I care to imagine.
Still a thrill ride with an almost overwhelming amount of options, Capcom vs SNK 2 fully deserves your time, and even with the dodgy Capcom sprites it looks phenomenal in action.
From the sublime to the ridiculous, there are two unavoidable clunkers on this package. Plasma Sword is a slow, boring weapon based 3D fighter that hasn’t aged at all well. The sci-fi setting is quite an original concept – it was apparently based on Star Wars – however the leaden pace and level of inferiority when put up against peers like Tekken and Soul Calibur really comes through here.
Capcom Fighting Jam is notoriously regarded as the weak link in the crossover series, and feels like a half-finished, messy grab bag of ideas that were all thrown at the wall and expected to stick. The fighters come from diverse universes – Street Fighter, Red Earth, Darkstalkers – and there is even one newbie in Ingrid, however it actually feels like some of them have been pulled from their respective games, and plonked into a system without the requisite number of attack frames. There are re-used sprites aplenty, and just a lack of pizazz to the backdrops and overall feel.
Despite a couple of duds, there is so much good stuff on offer here and a couple of legit all-timers, all put together with the level of class you would expect from Capcom. Loads of in-game achievements and unlockables, practise modes, language options, filters, control mapping tinkering and all of the quality of life bits and pieces you could shake a stick at, this is a love letter to fighting games of the era. Stable rollback netcode also means that these titles can be experienced in ranked battles online, which is going to mean a lot of fun as hell times especially on the Power Stone games, which have deserved this treatment for years.
If I was going to nitpick then I would have asked for the original Rival Schools to have been thrown in, and would it have killed them to include the Adventure mode from Power Stone 2? But then I am a greedy so and so, and I can always fire up the old Dreamcast once I have finished playing this box of delights. Excellent.
