Profile
General: Originally called Capcom Fighting Jam, this 2D fighter includes an assortment of characters that range from the likes of the worlds of Street Fighter 2, Street Fighter Alpha, Street Fighter III: Third Strike, Darkstalkers, Warzards, and even Ingrid from the canceled Capcom Fighting All Stars. The fights are 2 on 2 (team style, not tag), and each character uses his / her "super meter bar" from the game that they are originally from. A novel idea on paper... but a few key things went wrong with this "effort," if you dare call it that.
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While the game seems like a dream come true for 2D fighting game enthusiasts, the gameplay seems to be most similar to that of Capcom VS SNK 2... Which is ironically the last 2D fighting game Capcom released. Overall, this game gives off the same aura that Capcom VS SNK 1 did when it came out... (Not having enough characters, missing combos, and leaves MUCH to be desired). For one, the character roster could be A LOT bigger. Especially for the quality of characters we're getting... I mean, where's Captain Commando, or Strider Hiryu, or even Jin Saotome? True Capcom legends!?!? Unfortunately, we're stuck looking at some very outdated 2D sprites and characters.
For one, Demitri's sprite is seriously too old to be in a 2004 fighting game (10 years old to be exact). And to top it off, his sprite looks particularly shitty in this game (yes, he actually looks better in the Darkstalkers series). And believe it or not, they actually edited the Zangief (Alpha) sprite and changed some of his facial expressions. And he looks quite terrible (yet funny)... And for a quick comparison, his taunt actually brings out his old face, so you can compare the two whenever you need to. It's something to laugh at, at least.
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Yes, graphically the game looks below below BELOW average. Some of the backgrounds are pretty cool looking (and even have decent background music), but many backgrounds include Capcom characters from other games, and for some reason, they closely resemble 2D cardboard cutouts... Friggin Capcom designers, what were you on?! All in all, and simply put, this game is "MESSY." All the sprites from different games blended together just gives me a headache. Third Strike characters still manage to have somewhat fluid movement, but they don't mix well visually with other characters who have REALLY stiff and outdated animation.
At least the characters have endings, yes... REAL endings. The art for the endings come up in a comic-panel-like sequence, and they look pretty damn good. (Drawn by UDON!) But damn, besides the magnificent endings, this is definitely one of Capcom's worst 2D fighting game ever. Capcom used to set their standards high for 2D fighting, what the hell were they thinking???
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Manufacturer: Capcom
Platforms: Arcade,
PS2, Xbox
Release: 2004
Characters:
Ryu,
Chun
Li, Demitri, Guile,
Leo,
Hydron,
Ingrid,
Felicia,
Hauzer,
Yun,
Guy,
Sakura,
Bison,
Alex,
Kenji,
Jedah,
Rose,
Anakaris,
Zangief,
Karin,
Shin
Akuma, Pyron
Related Games:
Capcom
Fighting All Stars
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Closing Comment: Long-time Capcom fans will be able to enjoy the game for it's historical value and classic 2D gameplay, but only to a certain extent. Most characters retain "almost" all of their special & super moves (but a few are missing). And also, the characters definitely don't play "exactly" like I remember. (Which is funny, because the back of the US version box says different). I happen to be a quite decent Third Strike Urien player myself, and most of his (good) Aegis Reflector combos are NOWHERE to be found... Disappointing indeed. What's the use of having Urien from Third Strike if he's nothing like the real thing?! This case repeats itself with other characters as well... But on the other hand, the SFA, SF2, and Darkstalkers characters actually play like they should. I'm sure most fighting gamers can find a handful of characters in CFE that they enjoy using, but in most cases those characters are more fun to use in the original games that they are from.
So what crawled
up into Capcom's ass and died? I have a theory... Perhaps, they made the
game look "cheap" to mock the people currently ripping off their 2D fighting
games on the net? Why would they do that? Who knows. But hopefully Capcom
makes Capcom Fighting Evolution 2 and adds about 40+ characters to it,
then it might be worth it. ~F.Yagami,
Webmaster
of TFG