Capcom Arcade Stadium, the review of Capcom's historical collection

Video games seem not to be able to find an official solution to the issue of the historical preservation of titles beyond some commendable initiative by the publishers themselves, as we also see in this Capcom Arcade Stadium review. The strange situation derives from the particular condition of the video game as a systemic medium, that is linked to a specific platform, which subjected to the process of technological obsolescence risks disappearing from circulation, taking its entire library with it. The thing is ironic, if you think that video games are at the same time perfectly conservable and always usable, given their digital essence, at least as long as their source code exists.

Leaving aside the interesting insights on what could be the best system to recover the glories of the past, which would push us to necessarily consider FPGA systems, however unofficial, the major problem of preservation derives from the thousand legal quibbles that prevent us from considering the emulation as an officially valid system, which makes the initiatives by the individual companies to re-propose on the market the catalogs of the past precious, as in this case. The problem, of no small importance, is that these selections are necessarily always partial and although they provide, as in Capcom Arcade Stadium, the possibility of expanding the catalog, however, always propose very precise limits and exclude even games of enormous importance, as we see in this case. The new Capcom collection it really does everything right for what it offers, the problem is that it fails to offer everything that we would like to review on the displays of modern platforms, even if great steps forward in this sense have been made compared to previous attempts by the same company (between Capcom Generations , Capcom Classics Collection and Capcom Beat'em Up Bundle).

A modular selection

Capcom Arcade Stadium offers an interesting solution: instead of a fixed catalog, it is a "modular" system, which allows you to buy the titles to be played divided into three packages of € 14,99 each, each containing ten games and characterized by a certain theme, even if basically it is a normal chronological scan from the 80s to the late 90s. Or you can buy it all in onesingle solution at the price of € 39,99, that is in line with the price of other similar collections: for a total of Giochi 32 (Ghosts 'n Goblins free until February 25, Ghosts' n Goblins Resurrection release date and 1943 The Battle of Midway is instead free for everyone) is a good deal, also considering the way these are repurposed. There is a good assortment in each of the three packages, with historical titles well distributed in all, demonstrating how Capcom has always been a central element in the production of video games, even in the arcade field. These are games running on original CPS cards, the "heart" of the cabinets that hosted the classic Capcom, which has evolved over 20 years in different versions and whose different capabilities are clearly visible even among the various collections. We therefore range from Package 1 with "The Dawn of the Arcade", containing classics from 1984 to 88, to Package 3 "The Evolution of the Arcade", which offers games released between 1992 and 2001, whose graphics are remarkable today again. To tell the truth, the beauty of a stylish bitmap like the Capcom one is that it faces the test of time with its head held high and still manages to be perfectly fascinating as it was at the time, contrary to what happens to most 3D graphics, therefore practically all Capcom Arcade Stadium games are still gorgeous to see and many of these also to play.

Virtual game room

The peculiarity of Capcom Arcade Stadium is the fact that it presents the games as real cabin cruisers, represented in 3D in a sort of virtual games room. The setting is built with RE Engine and it is realistic, also applying a remarkable effect to the graphics of the individual games, convincingly simulating the curvature of the original screen and its typical inclination. If you keep this type of view, you can also turn your gaze and peek at the cabinets next to it, increasing the feeling of being inside a real game room, with the control panel clearly visible at the bottom. However, the best way to play is probably using the views more standard with the screen placed at the center of attention and the possibility of applying a wide range of filters. There are in total 7 filters to be used, proposing different systems of scanline, reticles, smoothing or doubling of the pixels in order to satisfy all tastes.

There are also several possibilities to reproduce the curvature of the screen, all systems designed to make the rendering of 2D games that were designed to work best on screens as faithful as possible. cathode ray tube and much lower resolutions than the current ones. From the point of view of emulation it seems to have been done an excellent job, deriving on the other hand from years of experience on the reproduction of CPS systems on modern hardware: the games are presented in great shape and substantially identical to the originals, with the possibility of choose between the ROM USA and the Japanese one and enriched by the aforementioned numerous viewing possibilities offered by Capcom, including the ability to rotate the screen vertically, squeeze the image to fill the display or use various frames and interfaces that can also be expanded by unlocking new elements. The multiplayer is provided only offline but there are online leaderboards and an overall scoring system with i "CASPO" points which allows you to get various rewards.

In terms of gameplay, the only note we feel like making concerns the control system: the Joy-Con of Nintendo Switch are not exactly the most suitable tools with which to face challenges of this magnitude (although they have the undoubted advantage of allowing multiplayer "on the fly" everywhere), so the advice is to use the Pro Controller or even better a compatible arcade stick, you can feel the difference.

Games for all tastes, but with some shortcomings

Speaking of a publisher in business for over 40 years and always on the crest of the wave, it is inevitable that a collection of games released over the various decades can only be partial. The choices of Capcom Arcade Stadium are generally spot on but stand out absences important, including old classics such as Three Wonders, Area 88 (UN Squadron), Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, The King of Dragons, Willow, Aliens vs. Predator and even more recent and still current titles such as Darkstalkers, X-Men vs. Street Fighter the Dungeons & Dragons and Knights of the Round, just to name a few. In any case, the games present are sufficient to satisfactorily cover the great classic sectors of the arcade: fighting, shooter and action-platform game, with some of the most seminal games that have been seen for each of the genres in question, and sorry if it is little. Evaluating titles of the genre from a qualitative point of view, nowadays, seems almost inappropriate, being real classics, but there are some games that certainly stand out more than others and are worth the entry price themselves.

On the shooter front, the collection really includes a large amount of titles such as the historical-fantasy series 1941-42-44-XX, among the action there is Ghouls' n Ghosts, Mega Twins, Dynasty Wars while among the fighting games there is the legendary Street Fighter 2 also in the Hyper Fighting and Super versions (and three versions are perhaps even a little redundant), in addition to the sci-fi digressions such as Powered Gear and Cyberbots, a mixture of titles that try to range as much as possible between Capcom's offerings in the arcade and that can deliver a great deal of hours of play. They are all great games and moreover they can be tackled in different ways and with the possibility of saving the position, the quality of the offer is really high. Pack 2 is perhaps the most balanced in terms of variety of genres and situations, counting milestones such as Street Fighter 2, Strider, Final Fight, Mega Twins and Carrier Air Wing, and can represent the best introduction for the less experienced user, but the advice is to buy all the packages.

Beyond the disappointing but inevitable absence of some games, what is really missing in Capcom Arcade Stadium are above all the "encyclopedic" content, which have become a standard feature of this type of operation and have elevated titles like Konami's SNK 40th Anniversary Collection and Arcade Classics Anniversary Collection above a mere collection of re-releases. We are talking about concept art, illustrations, original promotional materials or developer notes that would have further embellished Capcom Arcade Stadium by increasing the nostalgia effect and making us fall even more into the magical world of the golden age of arcades. Obviously these are marginal elements compared to the gameplay, but in a product that still relies on historical re-enactment they would have not exactly secondary importance.

Comment

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8.4

Readers (11)

8.7

Your vote

A storm of graphics and gameplay of yesteryear: this is what we can say about the games in Capcom Arcade Stadium, whose evaluation then concerns more the operation of collecting and repurposing than the indisputable value of the titles. The quality of the emulation is good and the quantity of visualization options makes this one of the best collections recently released, moreover its "modular" proposal allows different and progressive approaches, satisfying everyone. The choice of titles is interesting and there is a good variety between the three main genres (shooter, fighting game and action-platform), so the only discordant notes are some particularly heavy absences in the lineup and the total lack of outline elements and documents of in-depth documentary that would have really made a great pleasure, adding precious touches to the nostalgia operation.

PRO

• Many and excellent titles, also available in different selections
• Good emulation, with plenty of options for graphical display
• Online leaderboards, saves and additional options, plus Switch's "on the fly" multiplayer

AGAINST

• There are, necessarily, heavy absences
• Total lack of "museum" style documentary elements
• Joy-Con are perhaps not the best tools for playing these classics