Capcom Fighting Evolution – XB – Review

Like it or not, Capcom has created
some of the best and most memorable 2D fighting games known to all gamers. Their
roster includes franchises such as Street Fighter (and trillions of sequel’s and
remakes), Darkstalkers, and many more. Since there are so many different
fighting games, players have always wanted to prove that their favorite
character could take their friends favorite fight character in a different game.
If you were one of these people, Capcom has heard your plea and created a
fighting game that takes characters, their moves, and other things and puts them
in one game to face off against each other. Now that your wish has come true,
are you ready for the challenge?

There are a couple of different game
modes to choose from: Arcade, Versus, Training, and Xbox Live. Arcade mode plays
like any arcade mode in any fighting game would. You choose your characters and
the fight it out to see if you can beat anyone that comes before you. Versus
mode allows you and a friend to duke it out to see who the better fighter is.
Training mode will allow you to get adjusted to the game’s mechanics and prepare
yourself for all of the other game modes. If you choose Xbox Live you will get
to play against other people from around the world to gain the bragging rights
of who is the best player in the entire world.

Capcom Fighting Evolution is a
combination of the following games: Street Fighter II, Street Fighter Alpha,
Street Fighter III, Darkstalkers, and Red Earth. This game takes several of the
more popular characters from each game, and pits them against each other. Each
of the characters from their particular game retains their special moves and
gameplay style. For instance, Street Fighter II is all about getting powerful
combos to knock your enemies into oblivion while Red Earth characters main focus
is on guarding and then waiting for the perfect chance to attack.

My biggest complaint I have with
this game is the character selection. While the characters they choose were some
of the more popular ones, why not include a more robust selection for us to
choose from. There are more than 20 characters to choose from in this game. Even
though 20 characters sounds like a lot, if you factor in that this spans five
different games you will have a better understanding for this complaint.

Personally there are many characters
from Darkstalkers that I prefer over the ones that I am allowed to use. It is
not like adding more characters would have been overkill for the space needed on
the game disk. This is one of the game’s biggest weaknesses. Since they are
marketing this like it is the huge mesh of fighting games they needed to include
at least half of the fighting roster from each game, if not the entire roster to
make it feel more complete.

Another huge gripe I have with this
game is the pseudo-tag system. When you first load the game you get to choose
two characters. After playing multitudes of fighting games, when you choose two
different characters this means that during a match you will get to tag them out
to help expand your fighting strategies. During my first match I pressed every
button on that Xbox controller trying to figure out how to do a tag out. To my
horror I found out that you don’t tag out during the game, when you lose or win
a match, it is then that you use your other character for the next match. In my
mind I was thinking how lame is that? If you have the choice to choose between
two characters for a match, let me tag them in and out; we are not back in the
original PlayStation days when there was more of a hardware limitation to make
that hard to do.

Everything from Capcom Fighting
Evolution has been ported over from their original games. This means that the
characters look exactly like they did back in their main games, which means some
characters will look better and slightly more detailed than some of the other
ones. Since the developer’s just hand picked just several of the fighters from
each game would it have been that hard to make sure they all looked somewhat the
same.

I have to admit I am still somewhat
impressed by the environments that the fighters will do battle in. They are
nicely detailed and have some background animation as well as cameos of some of
the other fighting characters (that should have been included in this game)
during the fights. The explosions and special effects are nicely done though.

Not only does this game use the same
artwork for the characters, but it also uses the same voices, sound effects, and
music from those games as well. This is not that bad because many people are
used to certain characters yelling a certain way as they perform an attack. I
would have liked it if the game would have supported custom soundtracks so I
could listen to some more updated music while I beat down some of the characters
than the same music Capcom has been using all of these years.

Capcom Fighting Evolution is rated T
for Teen for suggestive themes and violence.

Gameplay: 6.7
Depending on the characters you choose to fight as, Capcom Fighting
Evolution will play exactly how you remember it. I just have to wonder what is
up with choose two characters for each match, and not even get to tag between
them? That was just a poor choice in my opinion, let us either choose one
character to fight with, or let us tag out between the two characters.

Graphics: 6.5
Would it have been that hard to update all of the sprites so that they
looked better? While it is nice to see them in their original form it would have
been better to see them with a little bit of a makeover.

Sound: 7.2
Capcom Fighting Evolution used the same voices, sound effects, and
music that it has been using for many years for all of its fighting games. This
isn’t a bad thing per se as you hear the familiar voices yell as they commence
with an attack. It is a shame that the soundtrack wasn’t updated though.

Difficulty: Medium
If you have ever played a 2D fighting game, you will know what to
expect from a game of this nature.

Concept: 6.9
I loved the idea of playing some of my favorite Capcom characters
against characters from other games. What I don’t like is the lack of choices in
the roster and the pseudo-tag system.

Multiplayer: 8.0
Playing this game online is a nice touch, especially when you
don’t run into any lag.

Overall: 6.7
Capcom Fighting Evolution is a game that could have been so much
more. If only the developers had put more time in refining the graphics,
updating some of the music, and more important of all: give players a complete
roster. Sadly all we are left with is a seemly half baked product with lots of
potential.