I have been excited for the release of Capcom Arcade ever since the iPhone app was announced. It’s a freemium application that allows players to play classic Capcom arcade games either by using up the 3 free tokens you get every day, buying 10 tokens to use at any point for $1 or buying the game to play without limits for $3.
Being able to sample Ghosts & Goblins, 1942 and Commando is great, though I have no real interest in playing them in depth. However, there was no doubt in my mind that I needed to buy Street Fighter II, which is also available with Capcom Arcade. Even though Super Street Fighter IV is on the cusp of being my favourite Street Fighter game of all-time, nothing will ever touch the nostalgia I have for Street Fighter II. Considering how awesome Capcom handled Street Fighter IV on the iPhone, I was expecting nothing less than the same treatment for this timeless classic.
From a technical perspective, this is a fairly accurate port of the arcade version. The graphics look as great as they did back in 1991 and the soundtrack is as catchy as ever. The only drawback here is that the game doesn’t fill the screen. I’m not sure if it’s a technical limitation or a conscious design choice, but it kind of sucks that it doesn’t take up the full screen.
Having played Street Fighter II recently on the Wii Virtual Console and in the arcade, I can confirm that this version of the game doesn’t quite move the same. It’s not as easy to quantify as saying it’s slower, and it’s not necessarily running choppy, but the overall motion of the game isn’t as fluid. It doesn’t break anything, but it’s noticeable enough if you’ve played a ton of Street Fighter II.
Even though this game is almost 20 years old now, it’s still holds up as a quality gaming experience. What made Street Fighter II fun back then is still fun now. This game brought back a lot of great memories and it’s cool to have this on the go. Beyond that, the iPhone fighting game scene is really weak. This game, even at this age, is still one of the best fighting games available on the platform.
The million dollar question is, “How does it control?” It’s a given that this port wasn’t going to control perfectly due to the touch screen controls and the limited buttons. However, if the controls worked exactly the way they did on the iPhone version of Street Fighter IV, I’d be a happy camper. For better or worse, they aren’t.
What remains the same from Street Fighter IV to Street Fighter II is the on-screen joystick. This works great for character movement, but doesn’t work as well for special moves. Charge moves work just fine. Quarter-circle motions work alright, but it’s almost impossible to throw a fireball 100% of the time. For characters that require a zig-zag motion for uppercuts or 360-degree motions for their special moves, have fun with that. It’s extremely difficult to make those moves work at all with the on-screen joystick.
This is where the special move button shined in Street Fighter IV. Using that button along with basic joystick commands, you could easily pull off any special move in your character’s arsenal. With that button, I never had to worry about execution errors and could just play the game like I was playing on a fightstick. In this game, that functionality has been nerfed, which really highlights the shortcomings of the touch screen controls.
Instead of allowing you to use the button for every special move, the special move button acts as a shortcut for only one special move. The game doesn’t even let you choose which special move is mapped to that button. In fact, the special move button is useless for half the cast. For Chun-Li, Blanka and E. Honda, the special move button is a substitute for mashing light punch or light kick, except worse. Instead of instantly triggering the move, you’re forced to sit through your character whiffing jabs or shorts before the move comes out, with no way for you to cancel it. Why not just mash the button yourself and have the ability to cut it short when you want? For Guile, the special move button does Flash Kick. The problem is, pressing the button forces Guile to crouch for two seconds before the move comes out. Once you’re in this state, you can’t block or cancel out of it, which makes it way more dangerous than useful.
One important point I should mention to owners of multiple iDevices: purchases do not transfer between devices. It’s great that you’ll get two different sets of free credits per day, but it sucks that if I want Street Fighter II to work on my iPod Touch and iPad, I’ll have to buy it twice.
I have my concerns with this package, but it’s hard to argue the value proposition. You can play this game for free forever if you play it in short spurts and at $3 for the full game, it’s still less than a third of the price of Street Fighter IV. Above all, it’s still Street Fighter II at its core, which is still awesome. I’m just disappointed that this is not as good as it could have been. I’m still happy I bought it for the nostalgia, but the iPhone version of Street Fighter IV has this beat in every way.
In Third Person 