Street Fighter: 30th Anniversary Collection is a well-designed and deserved trip down memory lane. For those who never experienced arcade games before and never truly saw Street Fighter in its heyday, it's a nearly perfect way of seeing it at its best. Sans the controller issues that still plague the Switch version of this release, and any Street Fighter release, it's a solid collection that is worth the money.
Has it really been 30 years? Oh, lord. Rarely do I feel old as a gamer when it comes to looking back after seeing anniversary collection of games, but this one really laid it out there. It certainly has been 30 years since I came across that wonderful fighting machine in an Aladdin’s Castle back in Maryland inside of White Marsh Mall. While I should have been paying attention to my high school date, I was instead pumping quarters into an arcade machine that made me realize how great a fighting game could be. Different types of fighters, including a sumo wrestler, a flat-top marine, and one-eye Thai fighter made this game incredibly diverse when it came to ways you could fight your opponent. Street Fighter II was an amazing experience that I will never forget. It was also the beginning of a fighting game revolution that never let up.
Winding the clock back a little further, and avoiding the fact that the above paragraph would define me as a teenager, college student, and adult, unbeknownst to me I had actually played the original arcade version of Street Fighter earlier in the 80s at a Gold Mine arcade in Atlanta, Georgia. For those unfamiliar with the original Street Fighter game, which had little resemblance to Street Fighter in its current form, you had two people to choose from: Ken or Ryu. Gone were the other characters and also gone were the forgiving and well-designed controls of the sequel. Instead, the gamer had to tough it out with basic punch/kick/special, while trying to figure out the gigantic punch bag buttons on the arcade machine. That is correct, there were two giant pads the gamer would have to physically punch down on to actually get the appropriate action executed inside the game. This is basically working for your food, folks. Essentially, my brother, Bryan, and I had to man different parts of the arcade game. Bryan was good at hitting those pads, while I was good at directing the characters in the fight. He broke a sweat, as if he had been working out all day, while I methodically got us through stage after stage. The game wasn’t incredibly fun, but it was unique enough to remember and the beginning of it all.
Childhood memories aside, and more to the point when it comes to this particular review of Capcom’s Street Fighter series, it was neat to see the original Street Fighter arcade games in one single collection. It has been a while since all of them showed up in one place and it was nice to see some respect given to them, as they deserved it — even the first game. The collection includes the following:
• Street Fighter
• Street Fighter II
• Street Fighter II: Champion Edition
• Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting*
• Super Street Fighter II
• Super Street Fighter II: Turbo*
• Street Fighter Alpha
• Street Fighter Alpha 2
• Street Fighter Alpha 3*
• Street Fighter III
• Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact
• Street Fighter III: Third Strike*
The amount of games featured in this single release is a great selling point of the package. While there are about four of those games with minor tweaks (Street Fighter II), the games starting at Alpha and ending with the third installment have some major upgrades, which makes a big difference when actually playing the game. More characters, levels, and smoother animations make for a great time. All in all, the games provided are gems and the $39.99 asking price isn’t outrageous. These are pure arcade experiences that would have been $59.99 (or $49.99) by themselves easily.
In addition to the above titles, the game comes with an online/offline mode of fighting, the former being new because online gaming of this type simply didn’t exist in arcades. That would have been epic, but it simply wasn’t possible considering the speed of our Interwebs and the price. Anyway, this collection also features a versus mode, a training mode, which isn’t too shabby or out of the ordinary for typical fighting games these days, as well as a history lesson of how Street Fighter came to be in small amount of facts, concept art, and other goodies. The Nintendo Switch version of the game exclusively comes with an eight-player tournament mode, which can be used locally. While some cynical people might think this is Capcom shortchanging people into purchasing a collection without much ‘new’ or ‘wow’ to the package, honestly speaking having the arcade games in one collection would have been enough. The extras are just that, extras.
That said, the only knock I have against the Switch version of this game is the use of those horrible Joy Con controllers, which absolutely drive me nuts. The cheap controllers still have issues when it comes to jumping forward using the thumbsticks. Nine out of 10 times your character will jump UP, instead of jump FORWARD. The second time you try it, the controller will work beautifully, but nearly always the first time is going to have your character jumping up. I’m not sure of the reason why, and it doesn’t happen in the PlayStation 4 version of the game, but it is annoying. This happened with the last release of Street Fighter on the Switch and it doesn’t look like it’s Capcom’s issue as much as it is Nintendo’s. In short, use an external, non-Joy Con controller to play this game. Otherwise, you might get your butt handed to you in a frustrated manner.
That aside, the game is still wonderful. It still brings some great experiences and allows for some true arcade play from a series that defined how fighting games should work. Without Street Fighter in the arcade, you would not have Killer Instinct, Mortal Kombat, or Soulcalibur. It designed a blueprint on how to make fighting games work well and should always be honored for its contributions to the industry.
Overall, Street Fighter: 30th Anniversary Collection is a well-designed and deserved trip down memory lane. For those who never experienced arcade games before and never truly saw Street Fighter in its heyday, it’s a nearly perfect way of seeing it at its best. Sans the controller issues that still plague the Switch version of this release, and any Street Fighter release, it’s a solid collection that is worth the money.
