Capcom Fighting Collection 2 Review (and Capcom vs. SNK bonus round)

With Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves happily promoting a well-known potential rapist and tax evader, Capcom Fighting Collection 2 was my most anticipated game of the year and a huge deal for fighting games on the whole.  Just think that in the old days, having one of the games on a console was worth 50 dollars each and now they’re all in one place for 40 dollars.  Those games on consoles have had varying degrees of inaccessibility over the years, with one in particular being virtually impossible to play until now.

This new collection also means that it’s time for another addendum in this blog’s documented battle between SNK and Capcom.  Until this collection I couldn’t take Plasma Sword, Project Justice, Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper or the first Capcom vs. SNK into consideration, but now just like with the Marvel Collection, that will be amended and Capcom will have the chance to break the tie and be the king of arcades.  I will still be going over the games I’ve already looked at as well to judge any subtle differences between the versions featured in this collection and the ports I played before.

I will also briefly explain just how difficult it was to play these games before this collection because I can’t emphasize that difficulty enough.  With the sole exception of the Punisher game, the games in the Marvel vs. Capcom collections were widely distributed and can still be found in retro arcades or had digital re-releases before Disney tore it all down.  These though?  No way in hell. What few games in this collection I’ve seen in arcades before now I’ve only seen once.

I’ll start off by going over what to expect with the games I already looked over, beginning with the one that won the poll for most anticipated, is featured front and center on the cover and got a mini-comic book based on it packaged with the collection.

Capcom vs. SNK 2

The port of Capcom vs. SNK 2 in this collection is absolutely glorious.  Compared to the Gamecube version I’ve played since 2011, this version is better in every way.  No longer do I need to use a cheap HDMI converter to play it.  Now it’s all in nice, sharp HD with the option to change the internal resolution and make the backgrounds and character art even sharper.  The sound mixing is also a little better; character voices are easier to hear than on the Gamecube, where I swear the music took precedence over everything else.  Thanks to the new speed option, it can also run faster or slower, whereas on the Gamecube the speed was perfectly set at what this collection has as Turbo 1.

It’d be one thing if they simply did one of the greatest fighting games ever made justice with a polished port, but Capcom threw in a big addition: a brand new soundtrack of remixed music and a new announcer!  This means even though I already played the hell out of the original, there’s a whole new world of audio to make playing it on this collection feel fresh.  The new soundtrack has different vibes from the original that still have a dance party-like feel to it, with mixed results.  Some new tracks like London’s are a downgrade, some are ok like the Barentsburg stage and then there’s awesome ones like the New York stage.

Since this collection also includes all of the characters added in the EO console version, there’s no longer a need to get the Gamecube version.  That version does have some fun features in the form of custom grooves, color edit and the titular Easy Operations mode that lets you throw punches and kicks using the pressure-sensitive Gamecube controller in a throwback to the very first Street Fighter.  However, the core game’s content is all in this collection and that’s all I really need.  Remember that the Gamecube version of CVS2 can cost the same as this whole collection and it’s just one of several games on it.  It almost makes me want to weep with joy.

The Power Stone Duology

 After playing the Power Stone Collection, the originals in this collection feel like the basic core content you would get in a free to play/free to start game by comparison.  In the PSP collection there are more items, UI options, the option to play with a wider view, rule options, a gallery and unlockable VMU games from the Dreamcast ports.  In Capcom Fighting Collection 2, the Power Stone games are just straight ports of the arcade originals, with the only bonus features being playable bosses in the first game and another whole new soundtrack for the second that I could barely tell the difference in using.  They have only a scant few game options, none of which are my favorite option of changing the number of power stones required to transform from 3 to 5.  Would that one have been so hard to put in?

The big advantage of playing the games on this collection is that now you can play locally without needing another PSP and you can play online, making the fun multiplayer they were made for much easier.  I’m happy they’re included in this collection for more people without PSPs to enjoy, but if you really like them, are going to enjoy them on your own time and want to get the most out of the Power Stone franchise, definitely get the Power Stone Collection for 10 dollars off of PSN.

Capcom Fighting Evolution

Yeah this game is still laughably pathetic.  The option to change the internal resolution makes the game’s admittedly good character artwork look better, but I think it makes the crappy-looking backgrounds even worse because you can see even more clearly how much in them is copy/pasted and blurry.

The collection throws it a bone by adding a nostalgia remix music track option.  Instead of whole new compositions like CVS2 and Power Stone 2 got, this second soundtrack changes the music to each character’s corresponding theme, with Chun-Li’s being her Third Strike theme because she’s in the Street Fighter 3 category.  It’s a cool option to put the focus of the audio on the characters rather than the stages to emphasize the crossover aspect, and it’s a better alternative to the forgettable music of the actual game, but the game itself is still Capcom Fighting Evolution.

I would’ve had a lot of respect for Capcom if they were self-aware advertising CFE being in the collection.  I would laugh and clap if in the trailers they showed the game and then the words “we know…” flashed on the screen, or if their gameplay trailer was a showcase of all the unbalanced kusoge bullshit people can do in it.  They have to know this game is a laughingstock.  They have to.  Just embrace the meme, Capcom.

Now we get to the real competition and the games I didn’t play for the King of Arcades series.

1998: Plasma Sword:

I actually played this game at a convention once.  I thought it was pretty “meh” and that same convention had cabinets for The King of Fighters 2002: Unlimited Match and the Arc System Works Fist of the North Star Fighting game so as you can imagine it didn’t get as much of my time and attention.

Normally I would get on Capcom’s case for not also including the first game for the sake of a complete story, but from my understanding the first game barely has a story.  It looks like the kind of game that would hurt Capcom’s chances of that year just for including it.

This sequel made a couple of years later improved on the story.  There is some text dialogue before each character’s rival fight and the final bosses, plus the endings, though all those things are short and questionably translated at times.

The 3D combat in Plasma Sword stands out from other 3D fighters of the era by having more of a signature Capcom flair.  Visually the character designs are exaggerated and look right out of Cyberbots and the combat is fast and bombastic, making it much less like fencing and more like aggressive action you’d expect from something like a superhero comic or a Marvel vs. Capcom game.  It still has the core tenants of a 3D weapons fighter: vertical and horizontal slashes, a kick, side stepping and parries.  It’s just that it also has time stopping, fireballs and flying eagle men.

Almost half the characters in the game are moveset clones, but I don’t actually mind that because each character has in-universe explanations as to why they are that way, they still have their own stories and they still have their own unique super attacks.

The plasma field mechanic is one of my favorite parts because of the brief boon you get having the opponent at your mercy in different ways.  Plasma fields can make swords giant, fighters giant or even stop time and yes that last one works exactly like Dio’s.

Being an early 3D game, Plasma Sword isn’t the most polished game in the collection, but it’s a worthy addition to the Capcom library.  Capcom already won 1998 so it doesn’t make a difference for the competition.

2000: Capcom vs. SNK Pro

The reason Capcom vs. SNK 2 gets so much more attention than the first one isn’t just because it’s a better game.  It’s also because you almost certainly couldn’t play the first one.  I only found an arcade cabinet of this game once, played it and then it was gone afterwards, meaning this collection now allows me to play it for the second time and as many times as I want from this point onward.  The only other ways to play it were a bad PS1 port and a Dreamcast port that goes for unreasonable prices online.  The slightly updated pro version featured in this collection didn’t even get an American arcade release.

The gameplay is a mishmash of Capcom and SNK.  There are 4 attack buttons like an SNK game, but the pacing feels more like Street Fighter and KOF characters have some of their moves changed.  There’s no KOF-style running and regardless of whether you choose Capcom or SNK-style play you can do a forward dodge roll, but not a backwards one.  It sort of creates an even playing field between players of both games because neither side plays quite like they do in their home game, but I suppose that might actually be a point against it from a certain point of view.  With two styles of play and a plethora of EX movesets, there’s a lot to play with.

Capcom vs. SNK’s presentation is the standout.  The techno synth soundtrack and TV aesthetic is a unique touch and the final bosses, Geese and Bison, have some dialogue to present a little bit of personality for the finale.  The best part is by far the stages though.  All of them come with a unique introduction and all take place within locations from Capcom and SNK, like right outside Neogeo Land, Metro City, a Pao Pao Café and what appears to be the Shadaloo base from Street Fighter Alpha 3.  All of the stages have fun, stylish details to them.  On the Neogeo Land stage, it will start raining outside, but not in the building itself and in the Metro City stage, one part of the stage projects the character’s shadows against a wall in the background.  You don’t 2D stages like that anymore.

This new collection makes the stages stand out even more with the addition of a new soundtrack choice similar to Capcom Fighting Evolution’s, but unlike that soundtrack, which was character-based, the one used for CVS is based on the stage used.  The original game’s soundtrack is kind of vibing, but I’ll take Esaka, Ryu’s theme and Kurington over it any day.

Now the question is whether this game nudges Capcom up to winning the year 2000.  I’m going to have to say no.  It’s a little unpolished and apart from the presentation KOF 2000 released in the same year does everything better and even then that game is no slouch in presentation either.  The next game is another story.

Project Justice

The other big title of this collection and the most unplayable before this collection.  Arcade cabinets for project justice are a myth and the only home console versions go for around 500 dollars.  The moment this collection came out I could hear the collective wailing of scammers online who can no longer hold Project Justice hostage for outrageous ransom.  We can at last play it!  A shame about the first game though.

I wasn’t too upset at Capcom for not including Plasma Sword’s prequel because of how minimal the story was in the first one, but the original Rival Schools has a much more detailed story that Project Justice builds off of, meaning anyone playing this one loses out on a lot of already established plot points and characters.  It’s not like anyone can go out and play the original either.  The first Rival Schools is also rare and goes for at least 100 dollars online.  That sucks because otherwise this is the new game of the year 2000.

Project Justice has it all.  The combat is a 4 buttons with several different tools at your disposal and every character doubles as a unique support attack.  The story of each of the schools has lots of dialogue and even some branching story paths (that the collection has a guide for).  The 3D graphics have expressive faces and body animations, combined with excellent artwork for the cutscenes.  I especially like the extra detail with the secret characters being story-specific variants of other characters, like the fake Batsu and helmeted Akira.

If that wasn’t good enough, the fighting collection goes a couple steps further by allowing the usage of edit characters with mixed-up move sets, the previously-mentioned doubled internal resolution and, like Power Stone 2 and CVS2, a brand new arranged soundtrack! It’s the best version of a fantastic and fun shonen fighting game!

Face-off!

Capcom vs. SNK 1 wasn’t quite good enough to usurp SNK’s victory in 2000, but this one nudges Capcom to the top.  I know what that means for the competition, but before I get to that, there’s one more game.

2001: Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper

Contrary to the rest of the collection, the original Street Fighter Alpha 3 hasn’t exactly been difficult to get up to this point.  You can get the PS1 port on PSN, the arcade version in Capcom Arcade Stadium 2 and the Street Fighter 30^th Anniversary Collection and hell, even the Street Fighter Alpha Anthology on the PS2 included Alpha 3 Upper, plus there’s the more updated PSP version Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max available on PSN.  None of those versions will make you break the bank to get them.

Similar to the Power Stone games, that PSP version is better with even more characters and options, but in this collection you can play online with a more dedicated online experience than what the Anniversary Collection has.  There isn’t a lot to say about version differences.  It’s just Street Fighter Alpha 3 with a few new characters to officially have every Street Fighter 2 character included.  Unlike Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, the new characters have just as much effort put into their story as everyone else, so it’s not half-assed, but it’s still just Street Fighter Alpha 3 and this collection doesn’t have any enhancements; no new soundtrack or even an internal resolution option.  The only option is toggling some kind of exploit called crouch canceling, which apparently the original Upper did away with.  This one feels like it was thrown in just as a little bonus, but that’s ok.  I like Alpha 3.

Capcom won 2001 so this doesn’t make a difference.

As a whole the Capcom Fighting Collection 2 is a must-have.  Project Justice and CVS2 alone are worth the price so that it comes with 6 other games makes paying only 40 dollars highway robbery, even before you get to the gallery, the new soundtracks or the online options.  The only things that could’ve been better is more options for the Power Stone duology and the inclusion of the first Rival Schools, but with how highly polished everything included is, I forget about that in the moment.  I give the Capcom Fighting Collection 2 a 9 out of 10.

Furthermore, as stated, Project Justice was such a good game that Capcom has taken the point for the year 2000 from SNK!  That means Capcom is now officially (by my standards) the king of arcades!  At least until more of SNK’s later games become available and I’m able to re-organize those sectioned-off periods of time for potential re-evaluation.  Now Capcom can claim the throne and revel in the company of all the fans they have left after a full decade of not releasing Sengoku Basara 4 in English.