This bundle includes the following classic arcade games: Final Fight (1989), Captain Commando (1991), The King of Dragons (1991), Knights of the Round (1991), Warriors of Fate (1992), Armored Warriors (1994), and Battle Circuit (1997).
When you get down to it, these are all basically the same game with different skins. That said, some are more fun than others. I’ve played a little of each so far, and here are my initial impressions:
Final Fight (1989) – When Final Fight was released in 1989, it immediately dethroned Taito’s Double Dragon as the ultimate multiplayer beat-em-up. After the success of Final Fight, Capcom spent the next few years pumping out similar games, some better than others. I still find this one the easiest to enjoy in this collection, but I don’t know if that’s due to the familiarity or because it’s the least complicated to pick up and play.
Playing it again after all these years brought back all sorts of nostalgia, and longing for the days of hanging out in arcades with my friends. Despite being the oldest game in this collection, it still holds up pretty well.
Captain Commando (1991) – This game is basically a sci-fi sequel to Final Fight. It’s still set in Metro City, but in the faaaarrrr off future of 2026, a time when living mummies will wield sonic knives and mechs will be driven by superintelligent infants. Wow, a lot’s going to change in the next seven years. I can’t wait.
It was nice to finally play this one. I remember Captain Commando being Capcom’s mascot in the 80’s, and I always thought it was strange that he didn’t have a game of his own. When this game finally came out in ’91, I heard about it but I never got a chance to play it. I like this one, and will probably play it again.
The King of Dragons (1991) – I like the fantasy theme of this one. It feels a lot like Golden Axe. I like the characters, it’s your basic D&D party. I wish it had a female character, but I’ll whine more about that below. It felt weird to get experience points and gain levels in this type of game. But it works. I will probably play more of this one.
Knights of the Round (1991) – At first glance this looks similar to King of Dragons, but it feels a lot different. King of Dragons has sort of a D&D theme, while Knights has more of a King Arthur theme. It makes knights feel a little more down-to-Earth, like Warriors of Fate. I might come back to this one, but only after I’ve played through King of Dragons. Just looking at the title gets a Monty Python song stuck in my head.
Warriors of Fate (1992) – This was probably my least favorite game in the collection, though it’s hard to say why. It’s basically the same game as the others, but I found the theme less interesting. The Japanese version is sort-of based on the historical novel “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” (which has actually inspired dozens of video games), but the American version simplified things by making it a more generic story. That was probably a good move, but it’s still not my cup of tea.
Armored Warriors (1994) - Of all the games in this collection, this one feels the most different. While is still has basically the same controls as the other games in the collection, the fact that your character is a mech gives the whole game a different feel. It’s still a beat-em-up, but at times it almost feels like a shooter. I don’t know if I’ll come back to this one or not.
Battle Circuit (1997) – I really like the characters in this one. They’re creative and strange, and there were at least three I’d use consistently. It’s definitely the flashiest of the bunch, and the first one I decided to play all the way through (not counting Final Fight, which I beat many times when I was a teenager). Thumbs up.
Extras - You can change the borders, and there's some options for how the games display on your screen. The collection also includes a gallery of artwork for each game.
A minor gripe; I wish there were more female characters in this collection. Out of seven games, only the last two have playable female characters in them. This is surprising, given that each game has three to five characters to choose from. Now of course you could say that was normal at the time, since video games were considered more of a male pastime back then. But Gauntlet came out in 1985 (four characters, one female), Quartet came out in 1986 (four characters, one female), and Rampage also came out in 1986 (three characters, one female).
So while there might not have been a lot of female characters in single-player games, it was quite normal for multiplayer games to have at least one token female. I’ll forgive Knights of the Round (since the characters are based on knights from Arthurian legend) and Warriors of Fate (since it’s based on historical figures). But the rest have no excuse. The King of Dragons has five D&D-esque characters; they could have at least made the archer female.
But that’s not a criticism against this collection, it’s a criticism against five 30 year old games. And I do have one theory: I seem to remember there being a controversy when Final Fight was released, regarding the female enemies (Poison and Roxy). Capcom was worried there might be complaints about violence against women, so they changed Poison and Roxy to male characters in the SNES version. It also caused Capcom to declare that the character Poison was transgender. They even went as far as to say that she was pre-op in the Japanese version, but post-op in the American version.
Just another example of how trans people aren’t taken seriously. I could easily fly off the handle at this one, but there are enough current examples of transphobia in the news every day. I really don’t need to go back and yell at a thirty year old video game. But just to make my position clear: Violence against transwomen is still violence against women.
But in any case, maybe that’s why they put off adding more women to their beat-em-ups; they were afraid of controversy. And to be fair, I understand the conundrum. Is it more sexist to exclude women from these games completely, or to include them and get yelled at when they get punched in the face? It's one of those cases where you can't please everyone.
Personally, I think inclusion would have been better, but I've never had to deal with that sort of backlash. I suppose I can't fault them for being cautious. They must have gotten over it eventually, because Final Fight 2 (1993) had the female martial artist Maki in it. But these beat-em-ups from 1989-1992 were devoid of playable female characters.
So, are these games still fun today? Well, games have come a long way, and these old school beat 'em ups seem pretty repetitive now. Still, it’s a lot of fun letting off steam by beating up on wave after wave of enemies. Especially after a stressful day.
Is this collection worth it? There’s some good nostalgic action in this set. I really wish it had included Capcom’s “Alien vs Predator” arcade game, but maybe that will make into a future collection. I’ll probably only play about three of the games in this collection for any length of time, but I still think it’s worth the money. Seven games for $20 is a decent value, even if they are pretty similar. I wouldn’t blame you for waiting until it’s on sale, though.
No comments:
Post a Comment