Hands On: Capcom Fighting Collection 2 - Come For The Power Stone, Stay For The Project Justice

Capcom's first fighting game collection, cleverly entitled Capcom Fighting Collection, saw a splendid assemblage of arcade classics put together by the Japanese giant, covering some of its very best coin-op releases of the 1990s and early noughties.

In our 8/10 review, we called it the "best Darkstalkers collection around," saying it "contains years of longevity." So, it's kinda like this writer in that regard. Of course, buyer beware, we also knocked it a little at release as it does, by its very nature, strip away some extra features that were presented in later console versions of the games on offer. It's not ideal when many players have only experienced the home ports, as it can't help but make these 1:1 arcade-perfect joys feel a little threadbare, when they really shouldn't.

Capcom Fighting Collection was/is all about giving you the fast-paced arcade thrills of these games without any dropped frames or messing around. It's a sort of purist's venture vibe, so you lose a few bonus characters and console modes, but then this, apparently, absolutely ensures you're getting the best possible gameplay, with the streamlined versions presenting pretty much zero lagginess with regards to inputs (well, offline at least).

And so now, as is customary in Capcom-land, here comes a new challenger! This time, in the form of Capcom Fighting Collection 2 (whoever is doing these names needs a pay rise). This new bundle, in this writer's opinion at least, is a much more exciting prospect on paper, because it brings together a whole bunch of really great stuff that was on the Dreamcast, so there are lots of lovely memories attached.

What can we tell you in this preview? Well, we can only tell you about six of the eight games included: Capcom vs SNK 2, Project Justice, Street Fighter Alpha 3, Capcom vs SNK, Power Stone 2 and Plasma Sword 2 (so, Power Stone 1 and Capcom Fighting Evolution are off-limits). And wowee! If you know your retro Capcom games, you already know this is a bit of a belter of a lineup. Also, some of these golden oldies haven't seen outings in a very, very long time, either. So it's just great, first off, to even have them readily available like this - especially Power Stone 2. And Project Justice. OK, look, they're all good...so let's just move on.

Now, let us repeat, and this really is gonna be the big sticking-point, if the idea of stripped-back arcade versions of stuff does put you off, then prepare to be a little disappointed, as there's no sign (thus far, at least) of any of the extra modes or bonus content you might remember.

What does this mean specifically? Well, you don't have access to stuff like Power Stone 2's Adventure Mode and Item Shop, which kinda sucks. We're not 100% sure just yet if any of the items of old have made it into the game as surprises, you never know, but for sure Adventure Mode is nixed. However, in terms of mechanics, it's a mode that's identical to the others, and you still get the best part of the package, which is slick and addictive multiplayer mayhem that, 25 years later, absolutely delivers the goods.

And so it goes for the rest we've sampled so far. There are bits and bobs missing from the console ports for solo players, sure, but the gameplay is slick and smooth, the most important modes are there and, for big fans, it's stuff like rollback netcode, the ability to play the likes of Street Fighter Alpha 3 (still the best Street Fighter, thanks) online with nary a stutter, and having both Power Stone 1 and 2 on a modern system like this that are the magical aspects and biggest draws here.

Oh, and for those slightly less familiar with what are — let's face it, oldies — pretty ancient games, both the Capcom vs SNK titles included here are straight-up magic, too - amongst the all-time greats as far as arcade fighters go. You could just play these two and be perfectly content for years.

It really does bring us back to what it is that makes this vintage of games as timelessly special as they are.

And then we have what, for us at least, is the best surprise of the lot: they've gone and put Project Justice in the mix. If you've not played this one, it's all about slapping the crap out of rival school gangs, and it all still looks and feels as incredibly cool as it did back in 2000. Check out the menus in our screens below, they are gorgeous!

Plasma Sword 2 is the one game from this bunch that this writer didn't play previously, so we've been spending quite a bit of time on that one. It really does bring us back to what it is that makes this vintage of games as timelessly special as they are. They look and sound and feel incredible to play still, every last one of them, but it's in how some so cannily sat between the 2D and 3D trends of the time. To go too far into 3D was often a convoluted mess, but to take elements of it, to allow deft shifts into and out of the foreground and background, for example, added layers to scraps that still feel wonderfully underplayed and hugely strategic today. It also brings us back to team mechanics in fighters. Gosh, we miss when this was a bigger thing.

Now. When you can spend a preview of a fighting collection ignoring the likes of Street Fighter 3 Alpha because there's so much other good stuff to mention, you can tell you're in good hands overall. With the likes of quick-saving at any time, and some additional bonus goodies that we aren't allowed to mention, there are also plenty of modern touches applied outside of the straight-up nature of the ports themselves.

You've got lots of wallpapers to choose from, eight different display filters, a choice of five aspect sizes, and the option to up the internal resolution x2. Note, you can even bring up a little screenshot that changes on the fly, so you can see the upgrade this resolution tweak makes as you apply it.

As with the first collection, each game also lets you jump into a training mode from the main menu, and there's also a one-touch specials system in place that allows players to fire off Hadoukens and all that good stuff without needing to enter the stick movements. Nice! Oh, and you can select the Japanese version of any of the games included, too.

Apart from this, we also get Marquee cards for each game, which we love. Yes, you can call up easier-to-read control lists, too, but there's something about these lovely arcade representations of the moves that gets us back in that pool hall state of mind.

So, with everything we've played looking and sounding great thus far — remember we've yet to try the online — we reckon Capcom Fighting Collection 2 is shaping up to be a bit of a cracker for those amongst you who love your early noughties fisticuffs, or just really great fighting games in general. Come for the Power Stone, stay for the Project Justice, as the old folks used to say.