Capcom Arcade Stadium

[Ivanho]

Street Fighter II The World Warrior is free at the moment

 

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2022/06/capcom-arcade-2nd-stadium-brings-32-classics-to-nintendo-switch-this-july-heres-your-first-look

[Quest]

Looks like pretty much all the games in the first pack are on sale on Switch. £1.13 each.

[Keyboard Koala]

Plus they include a great CRT filter to boot

[Yasawas]

I really got my money’s worth at full price, love this collection. Pirate Ship Higemaru was my big new discovery  plus I got utterly obsessed with Ghouls N Ghosts for a while.

 

Barely touched any of the shooters though, can anyone recommended a strong one (any era) to begin with? Giga Wing looks interesting but maybe some of the less flashy ones have a cheerleader here.

[crocked]

I was looking to see where I could get led storm a few months back and couldn’t find it. Imagine my surprise when I checked last month per chance and saw it’s coming soon. I had it on the spectrum (I think I got in a compilation at Christmas one year) and have fond memories of going to a wedding and there being a led storm arcade machine there.

[Goemon]

On 09/07/2022 at 11:09, Yasawas said:

I really got my money’s worth at full price, love this collection. Pirate Ship Higemaru was my big new discovery  plus I got utterly obsessed with Ghouls N Ghosts for a while.

 

Barely touched any of the shooters though, can anyone recommended a strong one (any era) to begin with? Giga Wing looks interesting but maybe some of the less flashy ones have a cheerleader here.

Carrier Airwing

 

It’s basically an Arcade version of Area 88/UN Squardran on the SNES

[Goemon]

Found myself back playing Bionic Commando recently

 

There’s a timed high score table, which I hadn’t really attempted and on having a go; I was no where near the top! It’s 2 loops of the game which already changes things as the 2nd loop has more enemies spawning and is a big pain in the ass.

 

Due to the random nature of the spawning I think it’s really difficult to get a ‘perfect’ run in this and it’s more ‘how well can you compensate when things go wrong.’ Don’t get me wrong there’s still lots of practicing to be had but there are regular points where RnG doesn’t go your way. I actually ended up doing a lot of routing to basically try avoid some awkward crunch points.

 

So after a few weeks of grinding I finally got a run that I was happy with that put me top of the shop. This run wasn’t perfect by any means but it had no significant RnG situations so I can rest easy knowing that there wasn’t an obvious time save.

 

 

 

[Count Buffalos]

On 10/07/2022 at 19:40, Goemon said:

Carrier Airwing

 

It’s basically an Arcade version of Area 88/UN Squardran on the SNES

It’s actually the sort of the sequel. Area 88 was an arcade game first before being ported (albeit with significant changes) to the SFC.

[Keyboard Koala]

Games are twice as much as the previous batch

[Goemon]

3 hours ago, Keyboard Koala said:

Games are twice as much as the previous batch

How much per game? I see the full set is still £32.99.

[Unofficial Who]

2nd Stadium is out today! I pre-ordered this and somehow forgot this up until a few minutes ago.

 

Started playing with the rather basic Son Son.

 

This is the Monkey (Journey to the West) game I wanted as a kid! It's pretty simple. Collect the fruits and vegetables and kill or avoid the bad guys.

 

 

Even for 1984 this was somewhat dated fare but it gets surprisingly manic quickly. Autofire makes this ok to play for these old fingers.

[Keyboard Koala]

5 hours ago, Goemon said:

How much per game? I see the full set is still £32.99.

 

Wasn't the first one £19.99 ?

 

[Goemon]

47 minutes ago, Keyboard Koala said:

 

Wasn't the first one £19.99 ?

 

Naa, pretty sure it was £32.99. Which, when there’s 32 games isn’t too bad a price I reckon. 

[Keyboard Koala]

Lol at Capcom's Taiwanese flag.

[Unofficial Who]

Earlier I played a lot more Savage Bees than I ever had before, partly due to being able to rewind. And while I spammed the rewind an awful lot early on near the end I was able to duck and weave past loads of bees and bullets. I "finished" all 16 levels but in reality this was an exercise more akin to kinking a football against a wall for a couple of hours and trying it again without cheating I managed to get further than I've ever gotten before.

 

This is a game that really wants to be Xevious, it's obvious from the repetitive music and at least one of the attack patterns which is fully borrowed from the earlier game.

 

Weirdly enough this game left it's mark on the UK home computer scene in the shape of Bounder. Surely the dual parallax background and tile patterns inspired the tennis ball based platform game.

 

[Unofficial Who]

Gunsmoke is the western themed follow up to Commando and it has a very weird control scheme that I've never really felt comfortable with. Like Exed Exes it delights in throwing enemies behind you where you can't shoot them. Unlike Exed Exes the difficulty in this is pitched far too high to be enjoyable. I managed to beat it through massive use of the rewind button and I dof my cap to anyone who can get through this on one credit unaided.

 

I quite like the pixel art on offer here though.

 

 

[Unofficial Who]

Mad Max inspired The Speed Rumbler always looked a little messy in screen shots and I've never really warmed to it over the years. It's another one I've found way too hard and it's from that middle period between arcade games being about skill and arcade games being about buying your way through. This is all about punishment over fun and I've never really felt the need to play more than ten minutes of it to reassure myself this isn't for me.

 

Again, nice pixel art if very brown which reminds me a lot of Cannon Fodder.

 

[Klatrymadon]

The price of the games still seems fair enough to me, but I'm struggling to justify grabbing the 2nd pack at the moment, because most of the games are in other recent collections I already have (the SF 30th Anniversary, Belt Action and Fighting Collections), and on the PS2 Capcom Classics discs, etc. It would definitely be nice to have versions with active leaderboards, though!

[Unofficial Who]

43 minutes ago, Klatrymadon said:

The price of the games still seems fair enough to me, but I'm struggling to justify grabbing the 2nd pack at the moment, because most of the games are in other recent collections I already have (the SF 30th Anniversary, Belt Action and Fighting Collections), and on the PS2 Capcom Classics discs, etc. It would definitely be nice to have versions with active leaderboards, though!

 

I have them on the PS2 but I don't have my PS2 set up right now. Also for some reason the achievements make me knuckle down and play them for more than five minutes at a time.

[Unofficial Who]

I still remember first seeing Side Arms in the arcade attached to the bowling alley and being impressed as a fan of Transformers and Robotech. But the impression was short lived, at the same time I first saw R-Type and this just didn't look as good.  Add to that the poor US Gold ports to C64 and Amiga and I had put this down as an also ran.

 

Playing it now I can see it's a lot better looking than my memory thought it was. I was playing this the wrong way tonight, single player and rewind scumming but I had a great time, better than I have previously since rewinding got rid of my big issue with these games, losing all your powerups after death.

 

 

This must of been a big hit in the UK as I remember alongside the official conversion there being loads of side scrollers post this release seemingly inspired by this title (Zybex being my favourite of the bunch.)

 

[Scruff]

10 hours ago, Unofficial Who said:

Gunsmoke is the western themed follow up to Commando and it has a very weird control scheme that I've never really felt comfortable with. Like Exed Exes it delights in throwing enemies behind you where you can't shoot them. Unlike Exed Exes the difficulty in this is pitched far too high to be enjoyable. I managed to beat it through massive use of the rewind button and I dof my cap to anyone who can get through this on one credit unaided.

 

I quite like the pixel art on offer here though.

 

 

 

I used to love Gunsmoke. You mention the control scheme, well in the arcade it was a octagonal stick that could twist and click in place for any of the angles. Made shooting at any angle easy. I think there was another game that used it but I can't for the life of me remember what*.

 

*looking it up it appears Ikari Warriors and Midnight Resistance both used it.

 

[Camel]

Were there different versions? I’ve always thought it just had the three buttons for shot direction. 

[Keyboard Koala]

21 hours ago, Goemon said:

Naa, pretty sure it was £32.99. Which, when there’s 32 games isn’t too bad a price I reckon. 

 

Just checked, and the individual games from 2nd Stadium are twice as much as the ones from the first (from €1.99 to €3.99). So I do think they increased the price considerably. I still reckon it's still good value overall, given the elaborate presentation and finish of the whole package.

[Unofficial Who]

15 hours ago, Scruff said:

 

I used to love Gunsmoke. You mention the control scheme, well in the arcade it was a octagonal stick that could twist and click in place for any of the angles. Made shooting at any angle easy. I think there was another game that used it but I can't for the life of me remember what*.

 

*looking it up it appears Ikari Warriors and Midnight Resistance both used it.

 

 

KLOV lists it as being released with a standard 8 way stick and three buttons.

 

https://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=8042

 

Possible though that a conversion kit was available for those with SNK cabinets.

[Unofficial Who]

Hissatsu Buraiken is on the collection in lieu of the English language version called, er, Avengers. I guess I can see why they stuck with the one version here. Sometimes during the early days of the arcade novel approaches would be tried and would fail. This is a Capcom beat-em up but from above.

 

 

It just looks and feels awkward. With your character moving upwards most of the time he's almost anonymous. The controls feel spongy and at times I would get stuck in the landscape. I did enjoy the "fists" powerup that reminded me of that kid fighting move where you just walk forwards flailing out with your fists.

 

This viewpoint works really well for ranged combat. Melee though? Not so much.

[Unofficial Who]

This isn't the first time I've tried to make progress in Black Tiger but yet again it's bested me. It's like the Dark Souls version of Wonder Boy in Monsterland with loads of secrets and shops and dead ends. And tonight I got stuck in a dead end with no obvious way to progress. At least this time I can save to try again another day.

 

[Unofficial Who]

I'm not going to give a running commentary on all the Street Figher games here as it's a genre I didn't really get into (blame one button joysticks and my sad sad devotion to Ultimate Body Blows for that.)

 

But it's worth mentioning the first title Street Fighter, the game that started and almost killed the franchise.

 

I remember when this hit the arcade with it's large buttons. We're talking the one with the two huge fist sized buttons. One for punch and one for kick. The idea being the more force you hit the button the harder you hit in game.

 

Straight away this put anyone with poor or weak upper body strength out of contention. But for those strong enough to be a contender there were two additional problems.

 

Short term I saw some people injure themselves, either bruising their fists by hitting too hard or bruising their wrists by hitting the button off square and glancing along the edge.

 

Long term the machine was often out of order because of course it would be with kids pounding it like there was no tomorrow!

 

It's an odd looking Capcom game with the art looking almost Amiga like.

 

 

Weirdly enough the Amiga version looked nowhere near as good.

 

 

And then there was the C64 release where different versions were made in the US and UK. Not unheard of but weirdly enough US Gold released both on the same tape reportedly. 

 

 

(UK version.)

 

 

(US version.)

 

All in all it was a bit of a mess and it would be years before Capcom came back with the follow up that became a genre defining title.

 

 

[Unofficial Who]

Hope you all don't mind me posting my thoughts on the games in this collection, feel free to interrupt or scroll past. Tiger Road is a bit of a weird one.

 

I was quite taken by the Zzap review of the C64 version back in the day (despite the average score it got.) I never ended up playing it though even though I could have any time in the past 20 years. It kind of got forgotten.

 

 

So tonight I played through the arcade game and got to the end. Coin scumming helped here. Rewinds? Not so much. This is a game where you have to get good. Like the arcade version of Bionic Commando it has that odd better than 8 bit but not as good as 16 bit quality to it with the stand out bits of art being the pixel backgrounds of friezes and statues.

 

 

It reminds me of an odd mix of Ghost's'n'Goblins and Kung Fu Master (although the way he sprints up stairs and ladders is amusing.) Worth a try.

[Rex Grossman]

I’m all for run downs of the games ESPECIALLY with commentary about home conversions.

[Yasawas]

Really enjoying this collection so far. I love that while I keep picking it up to play Puzzle Fighter or something I know, if I make the effort to boot and learn an unknown then it frequently surprises in a positive way like with Don't Pull (from Three Wonders) this morning. A fun wee half-hour - bright, cute, quick, addictive - of a game I may never return to, but which brightened the no-mans' land of my post-breakfast early Monday regardless.