Capcom Classics Collection – Review

For those gamers bred through the 1980s and early ‘90s who recall relentlessly shovelling ten pence pieces into willing arcade machines while battling breathlessly to beat a high score amassed by some unseen public foe, Capcom Classics Collection is for you. For those—perhaps younger—gamers who presently bemoan the supposed difficulty level of modern videogames, or even lack thereof, then Capcom Classics Collection is also for you, too.

So, what’s on offer? There are 3 iterations of Midway’s ‘one plane against the entire Japanese navy’ phenomenon in 1942, 1943, and 1943 Kai; 3 progressive versions of everyone’s favourite undead-destroying knight in Ghosts’n Goblins, Ghouls’n Ghosts, and Super Ghouls’n Ghosts; and 3 gold leaf brawling classics in Street Fighter II, Street Fighter II: Champion Edition, and Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighter. 9 down, 13 to go…quite some list so far, yes? The remaining titles exist as individual arcade representations and are: EXED Exes. Final Fight, Commando, Forgotten Worlds, Gun.Smoke, Legendary Wings, Mercs, Bionic Commando, Pirate Ship Higemaru, Section Z, SonSon, Trojan, and Vulgus. In short, something for everyone.

Without covering each game in turn, because the review would read like War and Peace, it’s safe to say that there’s so much content choice, so much instant arcade button-mashing fun, that announcing negative comment against the collection is hard to do. Indeed, the titles that don’t appeal to one person may well be the favorites of another—and vice versa. In terms of gameplay, Capcom Classics Collection is predominantly a haven of auto-scrolling mayhem, where modern convoluted controls are gleefully discarded in favor of all-direction movement and single-button weapon activation. Pure simplistic joy in every sense of the word. The more high-profile titles speak for themselves in terms of player expectation; action favorites 1942, Ghosts’n Goblins, Street Fighter, Commando, and Mercs were a constant draw for this reviewer when the travelling fair came to town. Yet slightly less frantic games like Pirate Ship Higemaru, SonSon, and Section Z provide a differing but no less immediate allure.

Visually and aurally you get an unsullied slice of history. There are no added bells, tweaked whistles, or digitally remastered jiggery pokery to attract the more easily mollified consumer. There is no stretched imagery, no scroll issues, and no enlarged pixels; it’s original reduced-screen emulation from start to finish, and once the action begins you won’t even notice the outrageously broad black borders. Game sound is fabulously grating throughout, yet no less appealing in terms of authenticity; though those players eventually suffering with bleeding ears may well wish Capcom had invested in fresh orchestrations. And each game comes with a complementary extras section that includes a brief text history of its development and enduring longevity, along with a selection of unlockable features including specific artwork galleries, sound files, and character explanations.

Without being unduly insensitive, those gamers suffering with hearing impairment are spared the incessant and repetitive game music and flat sound effects, regardless of the historic appeal. Also, none of the games hold much by way of plot immersion, so no spoken dialogue is missed, and there’s only ever a smidgen of preamble text. Girl gamers can enjoy the collection as much as their male counterparts seeing as most of the titles are fairly ambiguous in regard to discrimination. The majority of included protagonists may well be men, but they’re so tiny it’s hard to call them human, let alone male. Plus, Street Fighter always offers up the chance to kick the guys into touch with Chun Li’s trademark spinning kicks.

Aside from the faithful re-creation and reintroduction of gaming yesteryear encapsulated in such magnitude within Capcom Classics Collection, the sheer and almost insurmountable difficulty levels held by each of the games is truly astounding. Modern video games are a breeze when placed against the likes of Ghosts’n Ghouls and Bionic Commando (largely viewed by Capcom as one of the hardest games EVER!). Today’s frighteningly complex button controls exist to offer many solutions to in-game problems, and essentially make the experience easier to manage. Arcade games of the past offered you one or two, perhaps three, button choices, which largely existed for the sake of jumping and attacking; yet in terms of story interaction, the only pre-requisites for these games were simply ‘destroy’ and, in most cases, ‘survive’. Surviving for more then a few minutes in the original 1942 was—and still is—impossible. Impossible. Getting to the end of Ghosts’n Ghouls on a single life. Impossible. There is no degree of human gaming prowess that can prove otherwise against those statements. Fact.

However, if confronting the challenge of an arcade game in the ‘80s meant receiving considerable lengths of playtime in return for your measly 10p, well…perhaps Capcom, Sega, Konami et al wouldn’t be around today to enjoy the profits of our frustrated labour. But Capcom Classics Collection manages to cleverly transcend its own stringent tilt demands by offering the golden nugget of good fortune to arcade fans everywhere: Continues. Forget sacrificing a ride on The Waltzer or The Dodgems for another snatched 30 seconds of Commando…play on freely until the game is beaten, the high score conquered, and the extras secured. It takes a special brand of restraint to refuse the mocking invitation offered when “Continue? 10…9…8…7…” flashes up immediately after your umpteenth crashing failure.

Packed to the rafters with an astounding 22 magnificent games from the heyday of arcade history, Capcom Classics Collection is an equal parts assault of entertaining variety, and challenging frustration. For the most part, today’s games gently walk you through carefully considered introduction, layered narrative, and evolving characters. By comparison, Capcom’s gathered classics throw you roughly in at the gaming deep end, demanding instant integration and superhuman reflex from the off—which is exactly how these games deprived us of so much cash in the first place. Take heart though, because now’s your time for gleeful revenge through continue after continue after continue.

Review by Stevie