We realize that Capcom is far from abandoning its flagship versus fighting license: Street Fighter. And for good reason, it works! Fans of the license are always present. And with Street Fighter V, we notice that the news of the game is still present with its costume shop (quite abused) and its endless character season passes. It must be said that nostalgia capital is more than ever present around Ryu, Ken and all the others. It is precisely nostalgia that is discussed today with Street Fighter 30th anniversary collection, a compilation aimed at thrilling fans of the first hour. It is true that Street Fighter 2 on super nes was one of the best-selling fighting games of all time. I remember risking tendonitis by hitting Hadoken and Shoryuken when I was 8 years old on Super Street Fighter 2: Turbo. Yes, because there have been versions. And no less than 12 games are offered here. What is this compilation worth? We'll see about it!
Street Fighter 30th anniversary collection: 12 games or nothing
In terms of content, 12 games seems pretty good. We trace the entire history of the series, from the difficult to forgive Street Fighter (more on that) to Street Fighter III: Third Impact. This timeline of Street Fighter is really valuable for fans, since it allows to realize the concrete advances that took place, and this, between 1987 and 1999. Note that we are only talking about the arcade here, the console versions are another pair of sleeves. But it is easy to see the work done over the years. Take Street Fighter II, for example. So certainly, it vaguely resembles what we knew as a kid. Already, if we compare it with Street Fighter, there is no photo, at least it remains playable, there are several characters (8 to be precise) who have all entered the legend since. On the other hand, if we compare the game to its "Champion edition" released just 6 months later, we realize that the balance is much better, because you have to see how Zanghief chains the takes in Street Fighter II. In addition, the four bosses (namely Balrog, Vega, Sagat, and the legendary Mr.Bison) are now playable (while they were only there to break our mouths at the beginning). These differences are further accentuated if we compare the Champion Edition to Hyper Fighting released 6 months later. In short, there is something to analyze for fans who want to look into the issue.
Street Fighter: Super Masochist Edition
It must be recognized that the first opus smells of septic tank if we play it in 2018. Already, the characters are impressive in number of 1 (we wonder who I will choose!). Come on, I'm being a bad tongue. In fact they are 2, Ken is available in single swap color for the 2nd player. Beyond that, the fights last about ten seconds on average as you get high (and I'm not even talking about Sagat as an end boss, set to turn you into a Danny Trejo-style minced steak in Machete). You have a small chance of surviving if you master the Hadoken, which is very random it must be said. That's with our eye today. But in 1987, versus fighting didn't exist! So we had to go through it to get to the fighting games we have today. The historical interest is there, but frankly, it is unlikely that you will spend more than 30 seconds (the time to suffer two or three defeats!).
Pure and hard arcade (a little too much)
We have already specified it, but these are the arcade versions, the ones where you put a small piece to add a continuous. The obvious concern in a compilation like this is that it will quickly run out of game modes. A training mode is available, but only for four games. A shame. For the rest, we forget. Just an arcade mode that pits a set number of characters in a row, and ends on the usual bosses. There is a small parameter to modify related to the difficulty, but honestly it will not prevent the game from violating you if you are not a huge regular of the series. This kind of compilations, in general, there are still bonuses to unlock (trophies, artworks, and others). Well, in general…
The union minimum
Whether in terms of the ergonomics of the menus or the content itself, it must be recognized that Capcom has not trodden masses. Well already the image has not undergone much change since the time, but that we will say that it is to play on the nostalgic fiber. But on the other hand, the museum is quickly explored, and that's a shame. We could have had a little better than a chronology quickly dispatched, bios of the characters already found on the internet and some design artworks that will be very uninteresting. If we add that to a rather unergonomic menu and the silly transcription of arcade modes in their simplest device, and we would be entitled to wonder if we are not facing a port of lazy. If at least the online was at the rendezvous…
The underexploited online
Well I guess Capcom said to itself: "well we add the online, it's okay it's new compared to the time". Certainly, but we are not obliged to regress on the multiplayer game. There is certainly the possibility of typing ranked matches (with a rank, suddenly) and it is possible to choose an option on the level of the desired opponent. But otherwise, for the control of the ping and the geographical area of the opponent, for that we will fuck ourselves and we just trigger a match at the pif. The only thing that is selectable is on which game we want to fry on the same 4 games offered in training. Okay, making an online on Street Fighter first of the name would not be a great idea, but for the rest… Why so much hatred?
We will not procrastinate for long, Street Fighter 30th anniversary collection will not please everyone. If you are a neophyte (already there is less chance that you want to buy the game) you may quickly move on to something else by realizing that at the time, bah it was still very different. But if you're a fan of the series, it's possible that you'll spend a few happy hours pretending to be a video game archaeologist, happy to dig up some little nuggets that helped write the history of versus fighting. If you feel concerned by this last sentence, then go for it without hesitation, take the Street Fighter 30th anniversary collection.
