Compilation discs may evoke skepticism in the shrewd game-buyer, and with good cause. Such retrospectives are a dime a dozen and, in essence, rehashes, advertising a plurality of games from bygone eras, many of which are sheer rubbish. And with the Capcom Classics Collection (the first of two volumes for the PS2) there is indeed dross—top-down shooters like Vulgus, for instance, that have not aged favorably. But with that being said, the first of the Capcom Classics Collections is still eminently purchasable. In this essay, your correspondent will argue as much on account of Final Fight, Forgotten Worlds, and the plurality Street Fighter II iterations appearing on the disc.
We begin with the Street Fighters. Capcom Classics Collection (vol. 1) contains Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (1991) and its updates Street Fighter II: Champion Edition (1992), and Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting (1992). There is, as one would expect with the Street Fighter titles, only a hair's breadth difference between the games, particularly the latter two. And indeed, we’ve seen these versions re-released before. However, on this compilation, the PS2's analog stick is a blessing, ensuring that the games play with high fidelity vis-a-vis their arcade versions, and certainly much better than the SNES and Genesis console versions of the 1990s. This disc's Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, in fact, is a much better translation than the stiff and pixelated port that appears on the SNES Classic, the control of which suffers from the comparably rigid Super Nintendo D-Pad. As a bonus, beating all three Street Fighter II games on Capcom Classics Collection opens up a fourth, of sorts, entitled "Deluxe Versus Mode". This mode allows two human opponents to compete against each other with a sampling of characters from all three installments of Street Fighter II series included on the disc. Essentially, Deluxe Versus Mode allows for matchups of fighting styles and costumes that couldn't otherwise be done on any previous game, which should be enough to warrant a purchase for Street Fighter diehards.
The inclusion of 1989's Final Fight, the famed arcade and multiplatform beat-em-up, renders the Capcom Classics Collection even more buyable. The game is, fundamentally, a side-scrolling Street Fighter, allowing the gamer to choose from a street brawler (Cody), karate guy (Guy) or pro wrestler/civic politician (Haggar) and then embark upon a series of hundreds of mini one-on-one (or one-on-two or one-on-three) showdowns; indeed, the boss battles are more formalized fights in the Capcom style. In fact, the first takes place in a wrestling ring against the unfortunately named Sodom—soon-to-be Street Fighter Alpha Samurai—for a no-holds-barred weapons match. The next takes place in a cage against “Andore”, a none-too-subtle Andre the Giant clone. In short, Final Fight's sensibilities are as much pro-wrestling as they are Street Fighter. You can turn these showdowns into handicap matches by enlisting friends, as Final Fight is of course, in the style of the Double Dragon which it was cloning, best enjoyed as a multiplayer game. Certainly, teaming up with a friend makes dispatching the waves of antagonists much easier. In terms of difficulty, Capcom was gracious enough to afford the player(s) infinite continues in this version, a luxury one did not have on the arcade and Super NES releases. With this merciful concession, now everyone is able to enjoy the game from start to finish—even the not-so-quick of thumb—and so proceeding through Final Fight becomes akin to watching a movie or playing a vinyl, albeit one with which players can actually interact. And while Final Fight may not have the artistry of even a mediocre movie or album, its conclusion is not altogether non-compelling. After button-mashing your way through six levels of cityscapes and subways infested with hoods, hookers and transgender delinquents, the eponymous finishing battle puts you up against a crime-boss named Belger, who weaves all about the screen in his motorized wheelchair, leggy blond in tow. If there had ever been a Final Fight movie, Belger would have been played by Sid Haig. In that way, among others, beating Final Fight is kind of like playing through a B-movie. And, true to the (mean) spirit of most B-movies, you'll feel a certain satisfaction when you reach the game's climax—kicking the wheelchair-bound villain out of a top-floor window.
The third reason for buying the Capcom Classics Collection is 1988's Forgotten Worlds, a game that, contra the modifier in its title, should not be disremembered. This side-scrolling shooter casts you (or you and a friend) into the role of airborne super-soldier with a punk rock haircut and a massive weapon. The screen scrolls slowly, and you can move anywhere on it, all the while shooting in 360 degrees. This feature was quite revolutionary for the time, and affords the player a sense of freedom not found in the majority of elderly games. Kudos to Capcom for delegating this ability to the right analog stick, making rotational shooting silky smooth. As you proceed through wave after wave of flying lizard men and other idiosyncratic baddies, you can collect "zenny" (Capcom's early in-house currency) to periodically purchase weapon upgrades from a shopkeep named Sylphie (whose name says it all, as the gamin blonde is certainly sylphlike.) What makes Forgotten Worlds so unforgettable is its hard-to-place aesthetic. The titular worlds consigned to oblivion seem to have been drawn with reference to the visual cultures of cyberpunk and orientalism, making for an art style that is a bricolage of sci-fi and fantasy, the latter both apocalyptic and intercultural. With the preponderance of Ancient Egyptian motifs, we might venture to label the visual style as "Scarab punk". The villains include dragons and mechanical arthropods, as well as an Egyptian-themed Galactus clone, and even an icicle man who looks like the original PlayStation mascot (and eventual PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale boss). The player will also face-off with a giant zombie head—not unlike Bub from Day of the Dead—half-submerged at screen's bottom. In short, the aesthetic is eclectic. And sonically speaking, the soundtrack crawls on tarantula legs, technocratic and febrile, tinny and tinctured with downbeat valor. In sum, Forgotten Worlds is an action-packed, incomparably surreal tour through an uncannily memorable fantasy hellscape.
On account of the Street Fighters, Final Fight, and Forgotten Worlds, Capcom Classics Collection is a solid purchase that won't be regretted. If the aforementioned games aren't enough to convince the reader, consider that the disc also contains Ghouls 'n Ghosts and Super Ghouls'n Ghosts, the inclusion of which would most certainly justify a purchase for those masochist fans who like their games ultra-hard. Also, the WWII shooters 1942 and 1943 are on there, too, if that's your mise-en-scene. In sum, if you've felt any inkling for any Capcom game at any point in time, there's probably something on the Capcom Classics Collection disc warranting a purchase.