With its third bundle of arcade classics, Capcom has potentially hit the pinnacle of nostalgia. Capcom Arcade Second Stadium adds 32 more games to its series of classic collections, across a range of genres. For those who really love this sort of thing (like, say, me), it’s a brilliant stack of old-school goodness.
Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium Review: Pixel Memories
Hot on the heels of his recent Capcom Fighting Collection, 2nd Stadium adds a large number of favorites. Side scrolling hack n’ bashers include Magic sword, the king of dragons, knights of the round, black tigerY tiger road. Scrolling shooters include classics like 1943 Kai, Last Duel, ECO Fighters, Hyper Dyne Sidearms, Gan SumokuY wild beesWith gun smoke Y Hissatsu Buraiken. There are some puzzles, racing and sports games, such as Speed Rumbler, Rally 2011 LED Storm, Block Block, Pnickies, Capcom Sports ClubY Saturday Night Teachersalso.
Finally, 2nd Stadium includes a surprising number of dice fighters Capcom just released that collection separately. Darker releases like Megaman: The Power Battle Y Megaman 2: The Mighty Fightersnext to the original Street Fighter and the three alpha street fighter games, they are welcome, but there are some redundancies for those who bought the fighting collection.
2nd Stadium also includes several of the titles that are already on the fighting collection itself. Darkstalkers, Nightwarriors, Vampire Saviors, Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix, Hyper Street Fighter II Anniversary Edition are all superfluous includes if you own both collections. And of course you could buy the games at 2nd Stadium separately; the initial download for 2nd Stadium it’s free and comes with Sonson, a fun side-scrolling game.
very similar to the original Capcom Arcade Stadium, there are a lot of features that greatly increase the enjoyment of arcade games at home. The 3D-rendered arcade cabinet interface also remains, though you can customize the visuals in key ways to suit your tastes, such as adjusting the visuals with retro filters. There are also a variety of screen border options, online leaderboards, and difficulty and speed settings. Best of all, the rewind button is back, helping make up for all those reflexes some of us have lost in the intervening decades. Finally, most of the games include the English and Japanese version of the ROMs.
Admittedly, the appeal of a collection like this depends on your need for retro nostalgia. Game design has come a long way since the days when coin-op gambling was king. The primary design approach for most of the games in this collection was to have players insert quarters into a machine. Some games are long and difficult enough to be brutal, but not necessarily rage-inducing frustrating.
So the general tone is on short, hectic experiences, usually with multiple players. To that end, local (though not online) play is supported, so gems like knights of the round Y king of dragons it may be the three-player brawling adventures that made them classics to begin with.
Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium Review: The Bottom Line
advantage
- Impressive variety of classic Capcom arcade games covering a wide range of genres.
- Excellent presentation and customization options.
- The rewind button is my new best friend.
- Lots of action for both single player and local multiplayer sessions.
Cons
- No online multiplayer.
- Includes several games fighting collection.
Capcom Arcade Second Stadium continues in the excellent tradition of the original Stadium with a large collection of classic coin games. While these retro builds are largely for overly nostalgic older gamers, there’s plenty of great action here, especially with friends playing in the same room.
[Note: Capcom provided the copy of Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium used for this review.]
