Capcom Arcade Stadium

[Unofficial Who]

So Block Block reminds me a lot of Arkanoid inspired games you'd get on the Amiga.

 

 

Take Arkanoid. But "improve" it. Add pinball type features. Moving barriers. Holes. And a bat made of ice that loses it's width every dozen or so hits. After all, if you keep adding to something good you get something even better right?

 

 

In practice this is the worst. It features the two things I hate in Arkanoid. Invincible steel bricks and near invincible bricks. I can't remember seeing this at the arcade but if I did I probably immediately ignored it as I was spoiled for choice at home with the C64 and Amiga. I played through all the stages using rewind a lot and I'm positive that the collision detection on the bat and ball isn't always the greatest. Consider this an also ran.

[Keyboard Koala]

On 30/07/2022 at 21:59, Unofficial Who said:

 

I'd love for more DLC in order to play some of their licenced titles.

 

Like this.

 

 

And this.

 

 

Or this.

 

 

This might have dated a bit.

 

 

 

 

Alas, some of their best work that we will never see again I'm afraid. Add to that the excellent X-Men COTA, Street Fighter vs X-Men and Marvel vs Capcom.

Maybe we'll eventually see a 3rd Stadium featuring their later 3D games like Star Gladiator and Power Stone, but that too is probably just wishful thinking. 

[Yasawas]

6 hours ago, Keyboard Koala said:

Alas, some of their best work that we will never see again I'm afraid. Add to that the excellent X-Men COTA, Street Fighter vs X-Men and Marvel vs Capcom.

 

 

I know you're probably right but I take a glimmer of hope from the recent Capcom/Arcade1Up announcement which I'm sure has a licenced game or two on it. 

[Camel]

10 hours ago, Keyboard Koala said:

 

Add to that the excellent X-Men COTA, Street Fighter vs X-Men and Marvel vs Capcom.

 

 

Marvel vs Capcom Origins has the last of those in, as well as Marvel Super Heroes, so I wouldn't rule out the chance of seeing licensed games again entirely.

[Unofficial Who]

Knights of the Round felt as average this time around as it did when I last played it back in 2019 but I suspect I'm playing this wrong. Playing this alone, at a desk PC when it really needs to be played in front of a tv with two mates. Still love the pixel art, especially the backgrounds.

 

[Keyboard Koala]

They sure got creative when it came to naming the enemies.

[Unofficial Who]

Others are going to have to fill in the gaps for me with the fighting games as I'd started moving away from this genre and they're all a bit of a mystery to me.

 

I did try Saturday Night Slam Masters as it's one I'd always seen in the arcade. I'm not a wrestling fan and this failed to win me over but again, some of the best pixel art in the business here.

 

 

[Unofficial Who]

Eco Fighters feels like a really odd mix of Capcom's horizontal shooters mixed with, well I don't know. You have a ship. You have to destroy all the bad guys. The bad guys in this game are polluters and your ship looks like a little toy with a large arm which can be rotated in any direction. It might hold a gun. It might hold a giant weight that can expand. It's very odd and somewhat ungainly.

 

It's also very very hard and even by cheating a lot I found getting to the end a real challenge.

 

 

According to a lot of 1cc'ers this is an easy game. I'm getting old.

[Unofficial Who]

Pnickies is....hang on....is this Puyo Puyo? Compile is on the title screen so I guess it's another Puyo Puyo variant of which there seems to be hundreds!

 

 

Now in the early 90's I would have loved to have played this at home.....and I got the opportunity thanks to Amiga Power! 

 

 

Amiga Power put out the call for someone to make a version of Puyo Puyo for the Amiga and someone came up with the goods. Which led to me playing this game to death back then to the point of never wanting to see it again! I guess some of you will enjoy Pnickies, but I'm guessing most of you own this in some way shape or form already.

[Goemon]

More self glorification from me in this thread…

 

I’ve finally managed to get the 1CC on Strider, which I’m pretty chuffed with. It’s only actually put me 9th on the leader board, which surprised me slightly. I was expecting a big hit of points for beating the last boss but it didn’t come and there’s no loop 2 to continue your score.

 

With this in mind people must be grinding points at enemy respawn spots as the top score is over double mine. 
 

Now that I’ve finished this it actually makes sense to me to grind locations and take intentional deaths to do so. I didn’t realise but the game has the dreaded dynamic difficulty (shudders) and in the last stage there is an insanely tough section which is made a lot easier if you’ve died multiple times (dumb).

 

So my run had me getting to the tough section without dying and then losing 3 lives at the tough section, the difficulty dropped, and I continued on to the end. If you paced this better I imagine you could really improve your score.

 

The other thing this session has made me realise is that the game is janky as ****! 99% of my death are due to jank, I’m talking  glitching through the environment, wonky collisions etc. which is quite frustrating as it’s not your fault.

 

I’ve actually been jumping between the Arcade and Megadrive versions and I was impressed with how close the Megadrive version is. The entirety of the game is there, layout, enemies etc. it’s like a carbon copy and what’s especially crazy is that it was reprogrammed by Sega and they kept the same jank! The only real issue is that the MD version slows down a lot more.

 

I don’t think I’ll be trying to improve my score, was just happy to have 1CCed another game

 

 

[acidbearboy]

I’ve just seen that all the individual games for Capcom Arcade Stadium 2 are half price on PS4 at the moment (£1.64). 

[Goemon]

40 minutes ago, acidbearboy said:

I’ve just seen that all the individual games for Capcom Arcade Stadium 2 are half price on PS4 at the moment (£1.64). 

I personally consider this an absolute bargain. 
 

Arcade Archive games are near £6 a shot and half of them aren’t as good as Capcom games.

[jonnyalpha]

Is there a season pass deal like there was for Stadium 1?

[Vespa Alex]

22 minutes ago, jonnyalpha said:

Is there a season pass deal like there was for Stadium 1?

Yes, but it’s still full price (about £30?) so only worthwhile if you want a full set
 

[Rex Grossman]

6 hours ago, Vespa Alex said:

Yes, but it’s still full price (about £30?) so only worthwhile if you want a full set
 

This was reduced recently so I finally picked it up.

[jonnyalpha]

I'm looking to get this on the switch so may hang on for a reduction in the season pass. Hopefully it may come down in the xmas/new year sales.

[Rex Grossman]

https://www.dekudeals.com/items/capcom-arcade-2nd-stadium-bundle-1-switch

[MagicalDrop]

Final Fight is a free download today

[Yasawas]

Hitting this pretty hard at the moment - Daimakaimura and Strider are the mains this week but there's always something I didn't know waiting to be found it seems. Had a bit of fun with Eco-Fighters recently for example.

 

As a general query for arcade emulation though how do people approach the question of feeding in virtual credits? Do you have a rule you stick to, play it by ear or just pump in four hundred before hitting Start and brute force a way through? I tend to start with three, never touch difficulty options and just repeatedly throw myself against it. There's something to be said for the repetition. 

[MagicalDrop]

20 minutes ago, Yasawas said:

 I tend to start with three, never touch difficulty options and just repeatedly throw myself against it. There's something to be said for the repetition. 

 

I tend to play as if I've just deposited one coin then off I go. At game over I wait for the title screen then start again. Partly because I cut my teeth on games where there was nothing more to see other than the next, harder wave and it was all about beating your score. It's probably the main reason why I've only ever seen about a tenth of every arcade game I've ever played since about 1986 😂

[merrychan]

3 hours ago, Yasawas said:

Hitting this pretty hard at the moment - Daimakaimura and Strider are the mains this week

 

As a general query for arcade emulation though how do people approach the question of feeding in virtual credits? Do you have a rule you stick to, play it by ear or just pump in four hundred before hitting Start and brute force a way through? I tend to start with three, never touch difficulty options and just repeatedly throw myself against it. There's something to be said for the repetition. 

I was save-rewind scumming Daimakaimura and it's just the wrong approach, end up getting to parts of the game that are too hard given the skill level (that lift ), I like the idea of setting yourself a number of credits initially and only using those

[Goemon]

4 hours ago, Yasawas said:

Hitting this pretty hard at the moment - Daimakaimura and Strider are the mains this week but there's always something I didn't know waiting to be found it seems. Had a bit of fun with Eco-Fighters recently for example.

 

As a general query for arcade emulation though how do people approach the question of feeding in virtual credits? Do you have a rule you stick to, play it by ear or just pump in four hundred before hitting Start and brute force a way through? I tend to start with three, never touch difficulty options and just repeatedly throw myself against it. There's something to be said for the repetition. 

I’m a 1 credit guy, but I do it with a mix of save states too so I can practice certain sections.

 

So if I get to a point where I always die, I’ll make a save state just before said point and then break it down by constantly reloading the save until I have it clear in my head how I’m gonna get through.

 

I find this method allows you to beast games fairly quickly as there’s no replaying to get to said difficult part and you’re not just brute forcing your way through (so not figuring it out) either by chugging lives with multiple continues.

 

The figuring out can be the most fun as you really get into the nitty gritty of what’s going on, how the game is trying to trip you up and how you can manipulate it to get past.

 

[Yasawas]

3 hours ago, merrychan said:

I was save-rewind scumming Daimakaimura and it's just the wrong approach, end up getting to parts of the game that are too hard given the skill level

 

We've all been there. My only proper rage-quit as an adult was save-scumming the hell out of the final fight in Super Punch-Out! until I had so many states I got confused and essentially painted myself into a corner with crap ones 

 

2 hours ago, Goemon said:

I’m a 1 credit guy, but I do it with a mix of save states too so I can practice certain sections.

 

So if I get to a point where I always die, I’ll make a save state just before said point and then break it down by constantly reloading the save until I have it clear in my head how I’m gonna get through.

 

I've never managed to 1CC anything but it is the dream and this sounds similar to what I do currently. I do set myself a limit and try to get as far as I can honestly but if I come up against a bit I'm crap at (the end of Daimakaimura stage 2, the shirtless mid-boss with the machine gun in the snowy stage (4?) in the first Metal Slug) I'm not against a cheeky save to practice. For the former one I'd ultimately be satisfied if I could eventually complete one loop of the PC Engine version which I think has six credits or something. That sounds achievable but still challenging to me.

[merrychan]

21 minutes ago, Yasawas said:

 

We've all been there. My only proper rage-quit as an adult was save-scumming the hell out of the final fight in Super Punch-Out! until I had so many states I got confused and essentially painted myself into a corner with crap ones 

This sounds just like me playing Advance Wars back in the day

[Goemon]

9 hours ago, Yasawas said:

 

We've all been there. My only proper rage-quit as an adult was save-scumming the hell out of the final fight in Super Punch-Out! until I had so many states I got confused and essentially painted myself into a corner with crap ones 

 

 

I've never managed to 1CC anything but it is the dream and this sounds similar to what I do currently. I do set myself a limit and try to get as far as I can honestly but if I come up against a bit I'm crap at (the end of Daimakaimura stage 2, the shirtless mid-boss with the machine gun in the snowy stage (4?) in the first Metal Slug) I'm not against a cheeky save to practice. For the former one I'd ultimately be satisfied if I could eventually complete one loop of the PC Engine version which I think has six credits or something. That sounds achievable but still challenging to me.

This is actually a fair point.

 

A lot of console games give you a set amount of credits to finish something, which I’d consider the devs balanced it to. I think it’s going to be very much dependent on the game though.

 

If you’re looking for the 1CC on an arcade game I would recommend Strider. I got the 1CC on this fairly easily with only the last stage taking a decent chunk understanding to get through. I also have some tips for certain sections if you’re struggling.

 

Actually I forgot to mention another thing that I do…

 

I’ll also go onto YouTube and look for 1CCs of games to see how other people handle certain sections if I’m struggling. This can be pretty interesting too as they may do something that you never thought of, even at sections that you’re confident with. I’ve stolen multiple techniques doing this. I actually completely rewrote my route through Bionic Commando stage 2 after watching a video and that wasn’t even the reason I was watching it!

[acidbearboy]

Just noticed that all the individual titles from Stadium 2 on eShop are 91p each (46% off) compared to the complete set which is 25% off. There seems to be more overlap with other Capcom collections on Stadium 2 - particularly Street Fighter stuff, but I also think I have a couple of scrolling fighters elsewhere.
 

Any recommendations?

[Unofficial Who]

I can recommend the three in on cabinet Three Wonders

 

 

You get Midnight Wanderers, a fantastic looking run and gun game.

 

 

Chariot, a neat horizontal shooter.

 

 

And Don't Pull, a Pengo clone with extra bits.

 

[DeciderVT]

Which console platform has the best version of these collections? They completely passed me by until I saw Progear on sale. I've been reading about lag on the Switch when docked and almost nothing seems to be out there about Xbox performance.