Street Fighter was one of the first fighting games to gather a mass of fans. It gained popularity years ago and even to this day, it’s still a relevant franchise in the fighting genre. It’s amazing to think that this franchise has been around for thirty years already, this demands a celebration! What better way to celebrate than to bundle the old-skool Street Fighter games in one epic collection?
Got to play them all
The game simply delivers what the box states to deliver. In this collection, you’ll find a whopping amount of 12 playable Street Fighter games. The list includes every Street Fighter and the spin-off game released since the 1987 arcade original right up to 1999’s Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike. This alone makes it a worthy purchase for fans of the franchise of fighting game fans in general.
Just like you would in the old days, every game is playable offline where you’ll get be able to play some of the familiar modes like arcade, versus (where you can hook up with a friend for glorious couch co-op, and a training mode. Of course, those modes aren’t new and fans of the franchise will recognize them instantly. That’s nothing bad but it’s also worth pointing out that you can play some of the games online too. Playing online gives you several different options like casual or ranked fights. You can also create your own lobby with your own rules, fight for the top spot on the leaderboards or event tweak your skill levels and input lag. This truly is a celebration for the fans and it looks like Capcom really has thought of everything to make this a product worthy of your time and money.
Some restrictions
Now, the online aspect is probably the biggest selling point of this collection but it does come with its restriction. Important to know is that not every game can be played online, they limited it to four games: Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting, Street Fighter II: Turbo, Street Fighter Alpha 3, and Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike. It’s a nice list for sure but considering it’s just a small portion of the collection, it’s worth knowing before you pick it up in store.
To make up for this, the online arcade mode certainly is an interesting one. Here, you’ll play the traditional arcade mode but with real players occasionally dropping in, making it a lot more unpredictable and fun. The way the games play is just the same as you remember. Your combos still work and all in all, the game didn’t change anything about their default controls. This also means you’ll pick your favorite game out of the bunch rather quickly and let the inferior version for what they are but that’s really not that bad.
The complete deal
While you’re playing this Collection, you’ll notice a lot of time went into this product to make sure fans got what they wanted. The emulations run extremely smoothly and never did we experience any lag or whatsoever. It’s also fun that you can use some filters to emulate arcade screens or older television but be advised that playing in fullscreen might stretch your images a little too much. That being said, everything is done to make fans happy and the museum where you can spot some early character designs, timelines, music and more is just another demonstration of a classic Collection done right. To conclude the party, you and your friends can even create custom controls by changing the input, truly genius!
Conclusion:
Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection is everything it promised to be and that’s the biggest celebration in Street Fighter’s history. Be prepared to (re)discover one of the twelve playable games and lose yourself in the impressive online mode for four of these games. It’s really the perfect celebration and both fans of the franchise and fighting genre should get their hands on this product as fast as possible!
8.5/10
