The Capcom fighting game department is firing on all cylinders as Street Fighter 6 blazes the trail ahead while simultaneously classics packaged accessibly in bundles like the Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection and Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection remind us of nostalgic beginnings.
It seems blasts from the past are still very much on Capcom’s radar as during a recent interview with Gamerbraves Street Fighter 6 Director Takayuki Nakayama and Producer Shuhei Matsumoto noted they’re not done with old titles quite yet.
“As we speak right now, [Nakayama and Matsumoto] are also working on bringing back as many games as possible that have been out in the past that are no longer playable to make sure that it’s on as many playable platforms as possible in the future,” explains Jessica, Capcom’s English/Japanese translator.
“The producer himself does want to bring back every past game, if possible,” continues the Capcom rep, “but there are certain limitations that can happen, especially with games like in the Versus series, it’s not just Capcom. So, then, of course, there’s a lot of hurdles that you have to jump through, and physical limitations as well, in terms of which hardware, which version of the past game to bring back on, which hardware, stuff like that,” she finishes.
So which games actually fall into the category we’re discussing here? Both the Street Fighter and Marvel vs. Capcom franchises have seen the majority of their older entries made playable via the aforementioned bundles, and we can currently run previous console versions of both Ultra Street Fighter 4 and Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 on current gen systems thanks to backwards compatibility, not to mention both are standalone options on Steam.
As we sift through the titles available on Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium, 2022’s Capcom Fighting Collection as well as the upcoming Capcom Fighting Collection 2, we find that the company has already accomplished much of what they’re aiming for here, but with a few notable exceptions.
Titles that still can still be categorized as not all that accessible on modern consoles include the likes of Rival Schools: United by Fate, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars, Tech Romancer, Star Gladiator, Plasma Sword: Nightmare of Bilstein, and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Heritage for the Future.
An additional and much more recent title fits into this mix as well: Street Fighter X Tekken. The 2012 crossover is not currently available on Steam nor is it on consoles after the PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 era, so for us to get it on modern machines, Capcom would have to work a little magic.
How does this all land with you? Are any of these mentioned titles on your list of favorites you’d like to see come back? Let us know in the comments below.