Capcom Fighting Collection - A Bonanza of Biffo
Hold your breath folks because it’s yet another retro game collection coming out from none other than Capcom. If that voice inside your head read that with a heavy tone of cynicism and sarcasm, then your analysis and assumptions were spot on. But put that negativity aside because that is a classic bait and switch as Capcom fighting game collection (CFGC) isn’t your classic, minimal viable product cash grab. Oh no. Prepare to be pleasantly surprised.
To Capcom fans who were all left severely underwhelmed by the Street Fight 30th Anniversary Collection (and I was one of them) let me add a little light of hope to that dark pit of despair you may be feeling. In the last two or so years, there has been a changing of the guards at Capcom. Out with the old (and by out we mean they were likely unceremoniously shoved out the door) and in with the new, almost straight off the bat the new team came in, took the reigns of Street Fighter 6 development (which was reportedly have many issues and not doing well with initial impressions) as well as all other Street Fighter (SF) IP. An extension to the life of the fifth SF came in the form of new systems and characters and news on the much-anticipated sequel had grown silent as many figured they went back to the drawing board. Then during a teaser announcement that SF6 was indeed coming, the team also announced this retro bundle title.
The CFGC trailer was short and sweet, but there was much to be excited by. Sure, you had your typical SF 2 entry in the form of Hyper SF2, but nine other titles that had rarely seen the light of day in years! Darkstalkers got all five of its versions bundled together and a forgotten classic from the Pocket Fighter series also got some love in the form of Super Gem Fighter and Super Puzzle Fighter Turbo! The icing on the cake were two more classics that were thought to be lost to the past, Cyberbots and Red Earth.
This alone is a nice enough bundle to warrant a purchase for the retro hunters out there as they’ve largely been neglected over the years by the powers that be at Capcom. But since we all know game technology has evolved over the years, gamers expect a little more than a simple like-for-like compilation. This is what I like to call window dressing. Added features that can bring a lot more life (and love) into what is already a nostalgic dreamland. Rest assured, CFGC has indeed included features here that really do add to the overall experience.
Firstly you’ll notice you change up the format to be widescreen or original 4:3 aspect ratio as well as selecting your preferred visual format, they’re all there and it can all be changed on the fly. Moving past this you can also change the global versions of the game, if you prefer the Japanese version over the USA release, you now have the ability to play it the way you want to play it! More importantly, though are multiplayer and save state options. You can now save the game in the middle of a battle, go do your things (like writing a review for this game as a prime example), come back and load up exactly where you left off.
Multiplayer is an incredible improvement over recent attempts from Capcom to implement this whole online gaming with netcode thing that the former teams have notoriously struggled with for years. Starting up lobbies and connecting via IDs so you can cross-play with other platforms is already good enough, but having the implementation of rollback netcode (FINALLY!!!!) is something the community has been screaming about for quite some time now and makes for a vastly improved online gaming experience.
The games themselves play exceptionally well. They’re responsive, sound great and feel just right. Often, retro bundles can suffer a little from input lag due to the nature of ROM emulation, but that wasn’t experienced here. For this particular collection, their gameplay truly holds up. This is largely helped by the fact that you’ve most likely never played these games in quite some time and for the most part their dynamics really feel good and fun. Perhaps the only negative reminder from fighting games of yesterday is the cheating, input reading AI that will serve to only frustrate you at times. I think asking for a completely reworked AI system would be a little too much though.
There are a lot of things to like about this collection and it’s at the level of quality that fans, honestly, deserve. Being a release that has clearly been handled with care, it’s an easy one to recommend to the casual/curious gamers out there as well as the fans. You can breathe a sigh of relief that you’ll have a good experience with this one. Capcom fighting game collection manages to breathe new life into some classics that could have easily been forgotten by time, check it out.
Capcom Fighting Collection was reviewed on the PS5 (PS4 Game) with code kindly supplied by Capcom
