Preview: Capcom Fighting Collection 2 Is Shaping Up to Be Another PS4 Compilation That Slaps

The school of hard knocks

It feels a little strange to preview a retro compilation like Capcom Fighting Collection 2. After all, the titles included in this bundle have existed in some form for decades, so there are few surprises here.

If you’ve already played the previous Capcom Fighting Collection or Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection, then you’ll find few surprises here.

The menus and overall presentation is largely identical, with a ribbon of the eight included games allowing you to freely hop into whichever one you like. You can toggle between the Japanese and English language ROMs, and there’s multiplayer with online netcode.

Capcom’s even added a few improvements to its emulator, and it’s patching these features into the previous games. You can now quick restart any ROM, for example, from the main pause menu – and you can even upscale some of the games using a new resolution toggle.

This makes the various Dreamcast-era titles included in this collection look a lot cleaner, removing any jagged edges and tidying up the overall presentation. But we prefer the imperfect look of the originals, so we’ve generally been playing with all of the jagged edges still enabled. As it’s a toggle, you’re free to choose whatever you prefer.

We can’t talk about all of the games in this bundle just yet, so we’ll focus on just a few.

Let’s start with the two Capcom vs SNK titles, which haven’t been re-released in over 20 years. Both are more traditional 2D fighters, similar in style to their contemporaries of the time, Street Fighter Alpha and The King of Fighters ’98.

You choose a “groove” based on the style of special meter you’d like to use, although this mechanic is further evolved in Capcom vs SNK 2, where there are a total of six sub-systems to choose from, as opposed to the original game’s two.

Combat is frantic and frenetic, and balanced by a “ratio” system, which effectively sees you divvying up the power of your selected fighters strategically in order to gain the upper-hand on your opponents.

Neither game is particularly instantly accessible, but there’s obviously depth for those who want to unearth it, and these versions of the game incorporate one button special moves for those who don’t want to deal with all of the complicated special move commands.

Of course, if you’re looking for something a little more straightforward, both of the original Power Stone games are also included.

Unfortunately, we can’t talk about the first game just yet due to the restrictions of our embargo, but the second title is just as chaotic as it was in 2001 on the Dreamcast.

For those of you not familiar with Power Stone, it’s effectively a 3D arena brawler perhaps best compared to Super Smash Bros, where you can collect items on the stage in order to deal damage.

Each character has a “transformation” which triggers when you collect three coloured gems – or Power Stones, we suppose – so the gameplay revolves around beating those gems out of your opponents and maintaining control of your own.

The original game was a more straightforward arena fighter, but its sequel sprinkles in all sorts of minigames, including skydiving and an Indiana Jones-style boulder chase.

For our money, even at the time, we thought it was a little too crazy for its own good – but it’s still an undeniably entertaining party game.

Also entertaining is Project Justice, another Dreamcast-era fighter, and one that we never actually played at the time. This is the successor to infamous PS1 fighter Rival Schools: United by Fate, and it adds some interesting wrinkles to the gameplay.

Like the original, you’ll need to compose teams, but in this edition, you’ll be battling with three party members as opposed to two. This allows you to trigger even more devastating Team Up attacks, although these can be countered by your opponent via a short minigame.

The character art is incredible, like an old anime, and as the release has a high school premise, many of the fighters have combat styles inspired by afterschool activities, such as tennis or swimming.

This being a Dreamcast-era game, the background geometry is basic and the action not as responsive as many of Capcom’s 2D era titles, but it’s still very enjoyable.

However, it should be noted that the board game campaign mode which shipped with the Japanese version of the original is once again missing here. Sadly, that was to be expected, as it was never included in the Western releases of the Dreamcast version either.

Finally, we’ll just quickly mention Plasma Sword: Nightmare of Bilstein, a title we have very little familiarity with.

This is another Dreamcast-era sequel, and the follow-up to Star Gladiator on the PS1. We need a bit more time to properly play this one as it’s totally new to us, but we adore the sci-fi anime presentation and chaotic combat thus far.

Much like with Project Justice, it does feel a bit stiff compared to the 2D titles, but perhaps our character choices have been giving us that impression thus far.

All in all, though, this is a great collection.

It’s cool to see Capcom continuing this line of compilations, and it’s nice to see SEGA’s infamous NAOMI arcade board being represented here.

The games mostly still hold up from what we’ve played thus far, and some of the artwork is incredible – especially in Project Justice, which personally appeals to our tastes.

We’ll have a full review soon, so check back for that prior to launch. In the meantime, if you’re a fan of late 90s and early 2000s fighting games, maybe slap this one on your wishlist already. You’re going to want it.

Are you planning to buy Capcom Fighting Collection 2? Which of its featured titles are you most looking forward to? Let us know, as always, in the comments section below.