As a mysterious countdown on Capcom’s website reached zero on February 20, 2022, fans learned not only that Street Fighter 6 was in development, but that Capcom would be releasing a huge anthology this summer called the Capcom Fighting Collection. What with Capcom’s landmark Street Fighter series turning 35 this year, some kind of celebration was obviously in order, but the depth of the Capcom Fighting Collection has rendered hardcore fans ecstatic.
The Capcom Fighting Collection features 10 games which were all originally released in the ’90s. Additionally, the game boasts features like a gallery of design documents, a 200-song music library, a training mode, and rollback netcode-supported online matches. The 10 games in this hotly anticipated anthology are:
- Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors
- Night Warriors: Darkstalkers’ Revenge
- Vampire Hunter 2: Darkstalkers’ Revenge
- Vampire Savior: The Lord of Vampire
- Vampire Savior 2: The Lord of Vampire
- Red Earth
- Cyberbots: Fullmetal Madness
- Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary Edition
- Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix
- Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo
For the person of casual interest, the obvious standout is the anniversary edition of Street Fighter II, which is one of the most influential fighting games of all time. Yet, there are a few other titles in here that are rather exciting. Red Earth has never been released on home consoles before (previously, it only existed as an arcade cabinet), and Vampire Hunter 2 and Vampire Savior 2 have never been released in North America before.
While the Street Fighter series became more famous, the Darkstalkers series had its own heyday, with both an anime and an American cartoon (there hasn’t been a new game since 2014). The Darkstalkers series is essentially a gothic-vibe Street Fighter with monsters: Throughout the various titles in the anthology, you can play as an alien, a mummy, Sasquatch, a merman, a zombie, a vampire, etc etc. To be honest, I had never heard of Darkstalkers before this announcement, and now I might be more excited for those games than for Street Fighter.
Similarly, Cyberbots is like Street Fighter with gundams. Super Gem Fighter and Super Puzzle Fighter II, on the other hand, feature playable characters from both the Street Fighter and Darkstalkers series, as well as Red Earth of the game of Gem Fighter. While Gem Fighter is a chibi-style fighting game with a few gameplay twists, Super Puzzle Fighter II is a puzzle game disguised as a fighting game.
This gigantic treasure trove of ’90s fighting goodness comes out on June 24, 2022. Furthermore, it will be available on everything: the PlayStations, the XBoxes, the Switch, and Steam.
(featured image: Capcom)
