Capcom's Fighting Collection is a nice blast from the past, but how well do these fighting games hold up in the modern day?

Fans of classic fighting games would take delight as Capcom brings fans a blast to the past with its new Capcom Fighting Collection. Released last June 24, 2022, the Capcom Fighting Collection is a set of ten of the most popular arcade fighting games from the video game publisher. These include the likes of Darkstalkers, and even Street Fighter titles!

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However, in the context of fighting games today, it’s no question that not a lot of games in the collection would hold a candle to present superstars in the genre. Thankfully, some Capcom titles in the Collection still hold up today despite their age, courtesy of innovative mechanics, gorgeous design, and captivating stories.

Two of the more confusing titles within the Collection come in the form of Vampire Hunter 2: Darkstalkers’ Revenge and Vampire Savior 2: The Lord of Vampire. However, they’re much less full titles and more “upgrades” and distinct variations of Darkstalkers 3.

At its core, Vampire Hunter 2 simply adds the full roster of Darkstalkers’ Revengeto its version of Darkstalkers 3. Meanwhile, Vampire Savior 2 removes the likes of J. Talbain, Sasquatch, and Rikuo from the roster and instead adds Pyron, Huitzil, and Donovan. With these in mind, players don’t necessarily need to focus on these two titles unless they specifically want to play Darkstalkers 3 as specific characters.

When fans think of a “mecha fighting game,” they will likely think of either the tactical-oriented Super Robot Wars or the intensity of 3D battles in Armored Core and modern Gundam titles. However, Capcom already made an attempt to add a mecha twist to the intensity of fighting games at the time. This came in the form of Cyberbots: Full Metal Madness, set in the near future where mech pilots ride awesome mecha to represent space colonies away from a crowded Earth.

Boasting vibrant backgrounds and rather uniquely-designed mechs, each bot in Cyberbots has different dashes, specials, and explosive combos tied to rather basic keypad-based gameplay. While this game is relatively easy to pick up and play for casuals, its lack of expansive content makes it fare less compared to other games at the time.

It’s one thing to enjoy the likes of Ryu and his friends duke it out against M. Bison in Street Fighter, and another thing entirely to see them do it as cute chibi-fied mini-fighters. This is exactly what Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix provides, as players can dish out devastatingly-quick and powerful signature moves with the added twist of blasting gems off opponents to power up their special moves.

However, players shouldn’t let the game’s rather cute animations fool them. After all, Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix is a fighting game in the arcade through and through. Granted, the game doesn’t have a lot of technical components compared to other games, but the fighting game essentials remain the same in terms of having dedicated punch, kick, specials, and taunt buttons. Players who want a more casual fighting game or a more “chill” but stylishly quick experience definitely need to give this game a shot.

Despite its rather mysterious name, Red Earth holds a special place in the hearts of a lot of retro fighting game fans. After all, back when the era of 3D Fighting was just starting to bloom, Capcom took a final shot at introducing an entirely unique fighting game to fans. This came in the form of Red Earth, a game where there were only four playable characters and eight unplayable boss characters.

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Each of the four playable characters on Red Earth boasts unique moves and playstyles like in other fighting games: the frontline fighter Leo, the stealthy Mukuro, the long-ranged Tabasa, and the fast-paced Tao. However, Red Earth shines the most with its mechanics, featuring six-button controls that make way for extremely fast combos, experience points that give players more combos as they “level up,” food and orbs that restore health and supers, and even password options that save the character’s current experience progress. Not only that, but the game also boasts a rather steep difficulty, making it a 2D equivalent of a Dark Souls experience.

Serving as the first sequel to the Darkstalkers game, Night Warriors: Darkstalkers’ Revenge or Vampire Hunter: Darkstalkers Revenge and Darkstalkers 2, will have the original cast of Darkstalkers return with a new threat on the loose. This time around, the villain Pyron has begun his invasion of Earth and wants to add the planet to his “collection,” having this time hired the likes of newcomers Donovan Baine and Hsien-Ko to hunt the Darkstalkers, serving as the planet’s last defense.

What makes Darkstalkers 2 stand out is not just its visuals, but also its rather “dark” take on the fighting game genre. Unique to the game itself are Special Gauges that players can hold onto throughout the entire match, as well as a playstyle that offers Auto-Blocking. While the six-button layout of the game feels similar to the original Darkstalkers game, Darkstalkers 2 offers a more seamless fighting experience for characters, making their movements more fluid and more appealing to look at.

Players who want a more tactical take on their fighting game would likely appreciate Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo among the titles of Capcom Fighting Collection. The game resembles a typical Tetris clone with a Street Fighter aesthetic, as after all the game does play like the block game. Players need to drop patterns of colored cubes on the screen and clear them to “attack” the opponent with blocks that they have to eliminate. Like in Tetris, players lose if their side of the screen is filled with blocks.

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While this in itself already makes for a suspenseful game, the presence of Street Fighter characters on the screen isn’t for show. Each character chosen has a special “counter-block” they can unleash at opponents, making the Tetris battle game a bit more suspenseful and a lot more times more engaging. Despite not being a fighting game, the extremely accessible nature of Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo definitely makes it a timeless title.

At first glance, Capcom’s Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors have always seemed like a Street Fighter knock-off, but this time with monsters. Despite having a small roster of ten characters, players who love arcade machines did have a blast - after all, each character not only had a unique appearance, but also unique gameplay and flashy movement options.

Similar to Street Fighter 2 and 2 Turbo, Darkstalkers features a six-button layout as well as a Special Gauge where they can perform fast and loose supers. Unique to the game exclusively is called the “Chain Combo,” where players can combine all attack buttons to create various combos and super moves, allowing players to approach their attacks in a much faster and intuitive manner. The phrase “the first is always the most memorable” applies here, as players will definitely have a blast studying the mechanics that made Darkstalkers a niche game in the fighting game scene.

Fans of the fighting game genre may have looked at Darkstalkers as just the “edgier” Street Fighter from Capcom, but Vampire Savior: The Lord Of Vampire -essentially Darkstalkers 3 - changes the equation. A lot of what makes Darkstalkers 3 shine isn’t exactly with its story, but rather more with how it plays with its mechanics.

Instead of the usual best-two-out-of-three mechanic in most fighting games, Darkstalkers 3 instead uses two life bars that are used seamlessly throughout the match. It also features a unique Dark Force power-up that buffs characters in different ways, as well as attack-boosting ES Moves and insanely-animated EX Moves. What’s more impressive are special modes within the game, such as an original character mode that lets players “create” a new character by renaming an existing character and fighting to slowly “build” a unique arsenal of attacks. In terms of uniqueness and innovative features, Darkstalkers 3 definitely takes the cake.

Of all Street Fighter games, it’s perhaps Street Fighter 2 that has the most number of spinoffs that introduce both new characters and intuitive mechanics, making Street Fighter extremely fit for competitive play. For the confused newcomers, Hyper Street Fighter 2 is a modified port of the Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo, which is the game that allows players to control all characters across the five iterations of SF2 that existed in the arcade at the time.

This time around, the Hyper Street Fighter 2: The Anniversary Edition is a PS2 port of the title, and it remains a solid conversion through and through. Being an “upgrade” of SF2 in terms of more fluid and faster gameplay, HSF2 remains both brutal and engrossing. Not only that, but outside its arcade mode, the game features a customizable training mode, and even the ability to switch character versions in a match. In terms of replayability, HSF2: The Anniversary Edition takes the cake from the Collection.

The Capcom Fighting Collection is available on the PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.

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Rhenn is a Manila-based content writer with a love for all things geek and pop culture, and science and technology. He has a BA Journalism degree, and has since then pursued making content about geek culture. Rhenn used to write for a couple of geek and gaming publications, and also served as editor-in-chief for Philippines-based What's A Geek!. He constantly plays video games but also takes the time to try out older titles. If he's not playing video games, he's probably playing TTRPGs.