Capcom Fighting Evolution
Some of Capcom's best come together to duke it out one more time. Emphasis on some...
The Game
Capcom’s latest foray into the dying 2D fighting games market sees them once again making a compilation game grabbing characters from other fighting games in their catalogue and throwing them into the same arena to see who is the best of the best of the best and so forth like almost any other fighter out there today.
This time around you get 16 fighters from 5 Capcom classics:
Street Fighter 2: Ryu, Guile, Zangief and M. Bison
Street Fighter 3: Chun Li, Yun, Alex and Urien
Street Fighter Alpha: Guy, Sakura, Karin and Rose
Darkstalkers: Demitri, Jedah, Felicia and Anakaris
Red Earth: Leo, Kenji, Hydron and Hauser
There is also one new original character, Ingrid, who looks like a little girl, but is actually much older. She also plays kinda like Kula from the King of Fighters games.
And also two unlock-able boss characters: Pyron from Darkstalkers and Shin Akuma from the Street Fighter series.
There isn’t an overall storyline either. Just everyone thrown into the game like I mentioned above. You do get a very nice comic book page type ending for each character when you finish the game though. SNK/Playmore should learn from that and not make the King of Fighters game endings so pointless like they are now.
Gameplay
You’ve got the standard Capcom six-button controller setup, and the regular special move sets for each character from their game. But the thing about it now is that you only get the super moves and abilities that each character had in their original game. Meaning the Street Fighter 2 cast only have one super move, where as the Street Fighter 3 fighters can parry attacks from other fighters. They also gave the Street Fighter 3 fighters all their super moves instead of selecting just one when you pick your character.
Another aspect of the gameplay is that you play in a tag team instead of one-on-one. So you pick two fighters at the start to play through the game with. They also borrowed the Rival Schools system where you can switch fighters between rounds. It’s not really a big deal though it does add some element of strategy as certain characters do have advantages over others, so being able to switch fighters in between rounds sort of balances things out a bit.
The last boss Pyron isn’t much of a challenge, but get to Shin Akuma, and you’ll once again see his classic cheapness as he just owns most of the fighters. They actually managed to make his attacks even cheaper and more arrogant as he will stand RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU and no matter what you try he’ll still beat you to the punch! I hate it when programmers make bosses that read your moves like that.
Graphics & Sound
Despite touching up the characters a bit, there’s still the sense of copy and paste for most characters. The only noticeable character with improvement in his looks is probably Zangief. Everyone was resized to fit in here, but I really would have preferred some more tweaking to the fighters looks rather than just using back the sprites from the previous games. I also would have liked if the characters were made just a tad bit bigger.
The backgrounds for each level are really nothing to shout home about either. You’ll see other Capcom characters in most of the backgrounds, but most of them are motionless statues, save for maybe a swinging arm much like the first Street Fighter 2 game backgrounds.
Audio is pretty much OK also, with the usual Capcom flare background music and all the current voices for the fighters. Beating the game also unlocks the original arcade themes for the fighters in the audio options. The music is mostly nothing memorable like those classic tracks though.
Miscellaneous
One of the main complaints about the game is the lack of characters to select from. 17 characters in this day and age isn’t really a lot.
Another problem I have with the game is the lack of an in-game movelist. There isn’t even one in the training mode! This might be OK if your already familiar with the characters, as I’m sure most of you are, but not everybody knows the moves for all the characters here, like the Red Earth fighters and Ingrid.
There’s also a lack of play modes. Arcade, Versus and Practice just aren’t enough. A Survival mode would have been nice.
Overall
As the name refers, Capcom Fighting Evolution sort of shows how the games have evolved over the years, but it ends up as really being nothing all that special. I get the feeling Capcom are planning a sequel that would definitely be bigger than this and perhaps throw in more characters from other fighting games in their vast catalogue. This game is suitable only if your into collecting Capcom fighters, or are really into 2D fighters. Otherwise, it’s better to try renting or borrowing it from someone to try it out before actually buying it.
After this, Capcom still have Capcom Fighting All Stars coming out, a 3D fighter featuring characters from Street Fighter EX, Rival Schools and Final Fight. But seriously, when are they gonna stop kidding us and just put out Street Fighter 4?
Ratings:
Graphics – 7
Sound – 7
Gameplay – 8
Lifespan – 6
Overall – 6
The Game
Capcom’s latest foray into the dying 2D fighting games market sees them once again making a compilation game grabbing characters from other fighting games in their catalogue and throwing them into the same arena to see who is the best of the best of the best and so forth like almost any other fighter out there today.
This time around you get 16 fighters from 5 Capcom classics:
Street Fighter 2: Ryu, Guile, Zangief and M. Bison
Street Fighter 3: Chun Li, Yun, Alex and Urien
Street Fighter Alpha: Guy, Sakura, Karin and Rose
Darkstalkers: Demitri, Jedah, Felicia and Anakaris
Red Earth: Leo, Kenji, Hydron and Hauser
There is also one new original character, Ingrid, who looks like a little girl, but is actually much older. She also plays kinda like Kula from the King of Fighters games.
And also two unlock-able boss characters: Pyron from Darkstalkers and Shin Akuma from the Street Fighter series.
There isn’t an overall storyline either. Just everyone thrown into the game like I mentioned above. You do get a very nice comic book page type ending for each character when you finish the game though. SNK/Playmore should learn from that and not make the King of Fighters game endings so pointless like they are now.
Gameplay
You’ve got the standard Capcom six-button controller setup, and the regular special move sets for each character from their game. But the thing about it now is that you only get the super moves and abilities that each character had in their original game. Meaning the Street Fighter 2 cast only have one super move, where as the Street Fighter 3 fighters can parry attacks from other fighters. They also gave the Street Fighter 3 fighters all their super moves instead of selecting just one when you pick your character.
Another aspect of the gameplay is that you play in a tag team instead of one-on-one. So you pick two fighters at the start to play through the game with. They also borrowed the Rival Schools system where you can switch fighters between rounds. It’s not really a big deal though it does add some element of strategy as certain characters do have advantages over others, so being able to switch fighters in between rounds sort of balances things out a bit.
The last boss Pyron isn’t much of a challenge, but get to Shin Akuma, and you’ll once again see his classic cheapness as he just owns most of the fighters. They actually managed to make his attacks even cheaper and more arrogant as he will stand RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU and no matter what you try he’ll still beat you to the punch! I hate it when programmers make bosses that read your moves like that.
Graphics & Sound
Despite touching up the characters a bit, there’s still the sense of copy and paste for most characters. The only noticeable character with improvement in his looks is probably Zangief. Everyone was resized to fit in here, but I really would have preferred some more tweaking to the fighters looks rather than just using back the sprites from the previous games. I also would have liked if the characters were made just a tad bit bigger.
The backgrounds for each level are really nothing to shout home about either. You’ll see other Capcom characters in most of the backgrounds, but most of them are motionless statues, save for maybe a swinging arm much like the first Street Fighter 2 game backgrounds.
Audio is pretty much OK also, with the usual Capcom flare background music and all the current voices for the fighters. Beating the game also unlocks the original arcade themes for the fighters in the audio options. The music is mostly nothing memorable like those classic tracks though.
Miscellaneous
One of the main complaints about the game is the lack of characters to select from. 17 characters in this day and age isn’t really a lot.
Another problem I have with the game is the lack of an in-game movelist. There isn’t even one in the training mode! This might be OK if your already familiar with the characters, as I’m sure most of you are, but not everybody knows the moves for all the characters here, like the Red Earth fighters and Ingrid.
There’s also a lack of play modes. Arcade, Versus and Practice just aren’t enough. A Survival mode would have been nice.
Overall
As the name refers, Capcom Fighting Evolution sort of shows how the games have evolved over the years, but it ends up as really being nothing all that special. I get the feeling Capcom are planning a sequel that would definitely be bigger than this and perhaps throw in more characters from other fighting games in their vast catalogue. This game is suitable only if your into collecting Capcom fighters, or are really into 2D fighters. Otherwise, it’s better to try renting or borrowing it from someone to try it out before actually buying it.
After this, Capcom still have Capcom Fighting All Stars coming out, a 3D fighter featuring characters from Street Fighter EX, Rival Schools and Final Fight. But seriously, when are they gonna stop kidding us and just put out Street Fighter 4?
Ratings:
Graphics – 7
Sound – 7
Gameplay – 8
Lifespan – 6
Overall – 6
posted by Eric Extreme at 12/13/2004 09:24:00 AM
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