With a company that has been around as long as Capcom, compilations of older releases seem to be par for the course with your Street Fighter’s and Megaman‘s making up the bulk of the affair in recent memory, a niche has been left that Capcom Fighting Collection fills pretty snuggly.

Featuring somewhat more obscure fighting games from their storied past, Capcom Fighting Collection features 10 titles that include: Hyper Street Fighter II Turbo, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, Super Gem Fighters Mini Mix, DarkStalkers, Night Warriors, Vampire Savior 1 and 2, Vampire Hunter, Cyberbots and the previously Japan exclusive game, Red Earth.

Overall, you’re going to get a lot of Darkstalkers and some familiar Street Fighter action in an otherwise interesting line-up of underappreciated titles. Not to say the DarkStalkers series is unwelcome, in-fact, they’re probably one of the best looking 2D fighters Capcom has ever put out. However, unless you can appreciate the chronological evolution of a franchise, 5 may have been one too many entries from one particular series to include in a package that touts itself as a collection featuring different Capcom fighting games.

The inclusion of some of Capcom’s 3D era brawlers would have been a very welcome sight, particularly titles such as Power Stone I & II. These are some titles that haven’t seen a port since the PSP and would benefit greatly on modern platforms, with online play enabled.

Even still, the games included in the Capcom Fighting Collection are welcome and all run as they should, with each title offering native aspect ratio options that match their Arcade equivalent, to more conventional 4:3 options as well, in addition to 16:9 stretched. Additionally, each game in the collection feature 7 or so filters that emulate the look of different CRT displays, such as horizontal scanlines and dot matrix overlays that give each game a particular antiquated style.

“…if you’re someone interested in arcade fighters that go beyond just Street Fighter, or are looking at trying the DarkStalkers series, the Capcom Fighting Collection will be your best bet.”

In terms of the game selection themselves, standouts for me include Red Earth and Cyberbots, the latter being a title I discovered recently during my time with the SEGA Saturn. Red Earth on the other hand, is a title I had only heard of but never got to experience as it has only ever readily been available in Japanese territories.

Aside from making its debut in an international setting, Red Earth is unique in that it plays closer to something like a Boss rush mode rather than a typical fighting game. Instead of fighting other combatants, players will instead be going up against large-scale bosses such as giant squid and other mythological creatures in arena-style matches.

Capcom Fighting Collection’s UI is stylish and easy to navigate, featuring training modes for every title, the ability to switch the game ROM region, tweak the difficulty, number of rounds, and other settings. In terms of extras, the complication pack includes unlockable art galleries, remixed tracks, in-game achievements and of course the ability to go online. Unfortunately, during the review period of the game, I was unable to connect online and therefore can’t really speak for its quality and implementation.

Overall, Capcom Fighting Collection will probably not blow anyone away or even be the last, definitive collection of fighting games Capcom puts out. Instead, if you’re someone who is interested in arcade fighters that go beyond just Street Fighter, or are looking at trying the DarkStalkers series, the Capcom Fighting Collection will be your best bet.

This content was originally published here.