[Darkstalkers Collection (PC) Download For Computer
Luther Lazaro
Wherein I discuss how I wanna make more TSF stuff, a premature sequel, a sequel 25 years in the making, two collections of disproportionate quality, and how you can make super emulation machines if you are smart enough.
TSF as a genre has experienced rapid growth over the past decade or so, and for pretty much the same reason that anything else gained popularity in that timeframe. Creation tools became more accessible, communities became larger, monetization became way easier, and it became a lot easier to share media with others thanks to social media. It went from something I had a decent handle on during my adolescence, back when I knew of all the usual places to check. Nowadays, things are so fragmented, plentiful, and uncategorized that I basically gave up.
This is something I run into regularly. I identify that I want to change things, but it takes too much effort and too many sacrifices for me to justify this change. I want to do a lot, but I do not have the drive or passion to fully commit to any one thing, as that often means sacrificing something you love.
Acquisition news has become so prevalent in the video games industry. So, I decided to dedicate the second section of Rundowns to simply discussing and outlining the acquisitions that crop up (basically) every week nowadays.
The reason Tencent is doing this is that they see the eastern European games market as something worth getting invested in. Plus, as a publisher and storefront owner, they will have the ability to push Tencent titles to larger audiences. It is all part of their plan to globalize their operations beyond China and soak up the revenues from just about any market they think is worth investing into.
Last week, I struggled to think of many closely affiliated companies Nintendo could acquire during the current acquisition frenzy. I named the obvious ones like Intelligent Systems and Camelot, but in doing that analysis, I was being pretty surface level. Because I did not know that Nintendo has been working with a company by the name of Systems Research and Development Co., Ltd. (SRD) for the past 40 years.
As it is, SFV is in a pretty good place, but the constant updates and iterations have borne a disinterest in the series. To the point where many fans want the series to take a step back and for Capcom to focus on growing other fighters for the time being.
Moving onto a fighting game announcement that actually has people excited, Capcom announced the generically named Capcom Fighting Collection. A compilation of ten Capcom games that was probably a Darkstalkers collection at one point.
The plainly named Soul Hacker 2 looks to take things in a different direction though. With the protagonist being a digital angel of sorts by the name of Ringo who joins with a trio of grungy Devil Summoners to prevent an apocalypse by both battling and seeking out the aid of demons. In a sense, it sounds like a pretty standard SMT game, but it stands out with its vibrant art direction and lighter tone.
For 3DS games, the same principle applies, but the vertical approach is less ideal, due to the wider display of the upper screen of the 3DS. However, I would argue that most 3DS games play just fine on a computer with a controller, as few of them really use the touch screen to do more than display information.
The Capcom Fighting Collection, a collection of various retro fighting games by Japanese game publisher and developer Capcom, is great for fans of the genre as well as fans of game preservation in general.
The Capcom Fighting Collection includes all the games from the Darkstalkers series, Hyper Street Fighter 2: The Anniversary Edition, Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo, Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix, Cyberbots: Full Metal Madness, and Red Earth, and all games include online play with rollback netcode. With all of these games included in the collection, there are plenty of things many fans may not know about them.
While the Capcom Fighting Collection does mark the first time all five titles in the Darkstalkers series are available in one collection outside of Japan, it is not the first collection to feature the series. Vampire: Darkstalkers Collection launched for the PlayStation 2 in 2005 exclusively in Japan and included the arcade versions of all five games.
In 2013, the digital-only collection, Darkstalkers Resurrection launched internationally for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 but included only Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge and Darkstalkers 3, since Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors had launched on PlayStation 3 via the PlayStation Network two years earlier in 2011.
Hyper Street Fighter 2 is a special version of Street Fighter 2 made for the 15th anniversary of the series that launched in Japanese and North American arcades in 2003 and 2004, respectively. Hyper Street Fighter 2 was also ported to PlayStation 2 and Xbox in Japan, North America, and Europe, although the North American Xbox version didn't launch until 2005, alongside Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike as part of the Anniversary Collection.
Hyper Street Fighter includes a game speed option as well as five different versions of Street Fighter 2, all based on previous Street Fighter 2 releases. The console release of Hyper Street Fighter 2 also has several soundtracks players can choose from.
In Japan, Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix, previously known as Pocket Fighter in Japan and all previous console releases, had all story cutscenes feature voice acting for each character. In the international versions, the voice acting was removed from cutscenes but kept intact during gameplay instead of being dubbed over in other languages.
Since there's text to accompany the spoken dialogue in cutscenes, this seems like an unnecessary change. Still, it also doesn't change much for fans unfamiliar with the Japanese voices of the characters that appear in the game. It's not that big of an omission, but it is confusing.
In Japan, Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix had two mobile spin-off titles, Poker Fighter and Solitaire Fighter, based on card games Poker and Solitaire, respectively, which both launched in 2003. Two years earlier, character sprites for Gem Fighter Mini Mix appeared in Fever Street Fighter 2, a pachinko machine made by SANKYO.
Fever Street Fighter 2 also only includes characters that appeared in Street Fighter 2: The World Warrior with the exception of Akuma, despite Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix featuring characters from other Street Fighter games, as well as characters from other Capcom fighting games like Darkstalkers and Red Earth.
At first glance, Cyberbots: Full Metal Madness seems like a completely standalone title, but it is actually a spin-off of the mech beat 'em up game Armored Warriors, which launched in arcades in 1994, a year before Cyberbots. Armored Warriors features an augmentation system where players can customize their mechs with different parts so that they can have a wider variety of attacks, which Cyberbots uses its own version of.
Armored Warriors was also included in the multiplatform Capcom Beat 'Em Up Bundle in 2018 and marked the first time Armored Warriors and fellow previously arcade-only title Battle Circuit launched on home consoles.
Cyberbots: Full Metal Madness originally launched in arcades in Japan, North America, and Europe in April 1995, and two years later saw a home console release for PlayStation and Sega Saturn, but only in Japan. Cyberbots didn't see a console release outside of Japan until an untranslated Japanese version launched on the PlayStation Network in September 2011.
The inclusion of Cyberbots in the Capcom Fighting Collection marks the first time the English version of the game is officially available on both PC and consoles. The 2000 Dreamcast exclusive Capcom title Tech Romancer is also seen as a spiritual sequel to Cyberbots.
The second episode of the North American-produced Street Fighter animated series titled "The Strongest Woman In The World" features several robots that look similar to playable mechs from Cyberbots: Full Metal Madness, and look similar to Blodia, Gaits, and Guldin, respectively.
An original robot that appeared in the same episode was also used as the basis for Hell 3000 in Street Fighter 5, a battle armor robot developed by M. Bison, Shadaloo, and an unknown organization. Hell 3000 may have also been named after the artificial intelligence computer HAL 9000 from the 1968 science-fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Red Earth may be one of Capcom's lesser-known fighting games, but other Capcom games still contain homages to it. In Dragon's Dogma, armor known as the "Cursed King's Belt" says in its description that it was a belt previously owned by a cursed king.
This description refers to the Red Earth character Leo; a king cursed by an invading force that caused him to become half lion and half man. Since Red Earth only launched in arcades in Japan and North America in 1996, The Capcom Fighting Collection also marks the first time Red Earth is available to play outside of arcades.
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