Capcom Fighting Evolution
An eclectic jumble of fighters from some of Capcom’s fighting games.
Tags: Capcom Fighting Evolution Categories: PS2 Reviews, Reviews
Posted by David Hinkle on Dec 21st, 2004
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Capcom Fighting Evolution (title page) | 2 | ||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Fighting (2D) | No | ||
Capcom Fighting Evolution seems like a Capcom fan’s dream. Take a bunch of different characters from some of the more popular Capcom series and put them together to duke it out. While it’s a cool idea, Capcom sort of already did it with Street Fighter Anniversary. Aside from that, it’s immediately apparent that Capcom didn’t really think through what they wanted to accomplish with this project.
 |
Capcom Fighting Evolution takes a handfull of fighters from the Street FIghter 2, Street Fighter Alpha, Street Fighter 3, Darkstalkers, and Red Earth games to comprise the roster. First of all, the biggest problem is that the picks aren’t varied enough. I mean, it’s nice to be able to use so many different characters from the various Street Fighter games, but what about Capcom’s other characters? How about some of the characters from the Marvel Vs. Capcom games? What about characters from the Capcom Vs. SNK games? Even without, the characters from all of the Street Fighter games aren’t exactly the best picks. I mean, where is Ken? Blanka? Ibuki? Vega? These are all popular characters amongst players and they are omitted. You’d think maybe Capcom would of polled its fans to see which of the characters should of been included. Aside from my gripes with the rosters, the amount of fighters is also dramatically lower than other Capcom games.
 |
It’s very common to see over 30 fighters available in your average Capcom fighting game and Evolution falls short here with a roster of 23 fighters. You’d think they could get more in there, even more so considering all of the sprites and voicework is just recycled from the original games these fighters hail from. While not severely outdated, you notice how little life is left in these sprites when comparing the Street Fighter 3 characters to the Darkstalkers characters. This department could of really benefitted from a facelift or even a little nip and tuck. New art, however, is represented through new backgrounds, splash menus, and the original endings. The Street Fighter 3 and Red Earth characters look and move extremely well, which is understandable since they both were run on the latest engine. Red Earth was actually the first game designed with this new engine, but was never released stateside so our only familiarity with it is through Street Fighter 3.
 |
Each of the characters handle as they do in their respected games. All of the Alpha characters have Alpha Counters with all of the Street Fighter 3 characters being able to parry. While it’s nice they retained the original feel and control of each character, the play suffers because of it. Street Fighter 3 characters, now having access to all of their specials as opposed to picking only one before each match, emerge here at the top of the class. With the parry ability and more devestating specials, they have a natural advantage over the opposition. This game is mostly fan service though, so it’s not likely that anyone playing this game will be using whichever character for the first time(excluding Red Earth of course). Also, don’t let screen shots fool you – this is no tag team brawler. You pick two characters and dictate before each match which round they will fight on. A slightly new spin on the whole tag-team approach, it works well strategically.
The worst of Capcom’s flaws though is the stale amount of modes of play. You are limited to Arcade, Vs., and Training. That’s it. Don’t expect any of the more diverse modes that were present in any of the games represented by each fighter. I personally would of loved to see Street Fighter Alpha’s World Tour mode here, but looking at the bare menu screen anything would of been nice. Toss in Color Edit mode, anything dammit!
 |
 |
All of the sound, as previously mentioned, is recycled from previous games. All of the ‘Hadoken’s and ‘Psycho Crusher’s are those you’ve heard before, so nothing new here. The music has some unique selections, but nothing special. In short, the sound is passable.
 |
At the end of the day, Capcom Evolution is a hastily-put-together game that doesn’t make any advances in the 2D genre and falls flat of what most fans dreamed of. With its small roster that is clearly missing some of the big C’s big guns, it’s apparent how little time and devotion went into this title. Seems the only thing the developers concentrated on were the original menus, endings, and backgrounds. Capcom really missed out on a chance to make something brilliant, on par with the excellent Capcom Vs. SNK2. The final product is something diehard fans will enjoy briefly, if only to use the Red Earth characters.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
|
+ Controls + Interesting backdrops |
6.0 |
| What Doesn't | |
|
- More shallow than the kiddie pool - Poor roster selection - Recycled art and sound |
|
| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| This is purely fan service. Given that, you need to be one big fan to get any lasting value out of this title. Rent it. | |
[ Post the first comment | View related posts ]
Tags: Capcom Fighting Evolution
Posted by David Hinkle on Dec 21st, 2004 and is filed under PS2 Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
