Review: Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection displays the good and bad of the series

Disclaimer: Review copy provided by publisher

Platforms: PlayStation 4 (reviewed), Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch

Publishers: Capcom

Developers: Digital Eclipse

MSRP: $39.99

Street Fighter is one of the most iconic franchises in both the fighting genre and gaming as a whole. It features major pop culture figures such as Ryu and his trademark moves, recognizable levels, ridiculous stories, fantastic music, and much more. Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection celebrates all of that and even some of the less glamorous aspects of the series.

The acclaimed Capcom series turns 30 this year and to celebrate, the studio has opted to release a collection of the original arcade versions of 12 Street Fighter games from throughout the 90s such as the original Street Fighter and Third Strike. As someone who hasn’t played every Street Fighter and hasn’t kept up with all of the digital re-releases across consoles throughout the years, it’s great to be able to have access to this slice of fighting game history.

This collection keeps pretty much everything intact from their original releases but adds some new features such as the ability to save during the story modes for each game so you won’t have to sit and play through each game until the very end in order to avoid losing progress. Developer Digital Eclipse makes just enough small changes to add to the presentation and value the time of the modern gamer. You don’t have to save if you really want that old school playstyle but for those who just want to play through and not have to worry about playing through those harder fights you already finished, fear not!

There’s also the addition of being able to change the borders and other little details on the screen to enhance the experience with fun art if you’re really into that but I was personally focused on trying not to get my ass handed to me as usual. If you’re a massive Street Fighter fan, you can also go behind the scenes with rare development docs that have hundreds of pages plotting out the games’ stories, mechanics, and more.

All of it is written in Japanese so if you don’t speak it, you likely won’t understand what it says but there are captions provided by Capcom/Digital Eclipse on some slides talking about what they say in detail. Most of the meat of these docs revolves around Street Fighter II but you can still learn a bit from the ones revolving around the original game, SFA, and SF III. It’s a rare, deep insight into how some of the beloved games came to be and as someone who loves these things, it’s much appreciated.

You can also listen to various Street Fighter music tracks, look at a cool timeline that tracks the series from the 1980s to 2018, and read up on all the characters that appear in the various games in the collection via extensive character bios/galleries.

The ports of each game are so well-done that it feels like every aspect has been perfectly translated over with no sweat. It’s pretty commendable that there are no issues with the ports and everything feels rock solid and consistent. If it weren’t for my own personal knowledge of how these things work, I’d think they just copy and pasted some files and called it a day, everything works without skipping a beat.

The netcode in online is near perfect, something obviously essential in these games. I never had a moment where I threw my controller in rage because the game screwed me over with its technical ineptness which has happened in other fighting games in the past. Digital Eclipse expertly gives you the feeling of playing with someone at the arcade cabinet from the comfort of two separate couches on opposite ends of the world. This is one of the smoothest online fighting experiences I’ve played which is quite a shock but a welcome one. It’s impressive and likely was no easy task.

Of course, with Digital Eclipse’s tireless work to make sure these ports feel as authentic to their original versions, they maintain some of the jank of the old games. Yes, the original Street Fighter is still a headache to play and made me want to bang my head against the wall but that’s the game we’ve come to know and depending on who you ask, love. I can’t fault them for staying true to what the game is, it would be quite jarring if the game felt different and didn’t stay true to its roots.

The Verdict:

It’s incredibly clear a lot of love and care went into this collection, this was no cash grab from Capcom. It serves as a love letter to the franchise by keeping everything both good and bad in the ports while also adding small features that won’t scare away the modern gamer. With tons of little trinkets for those who want to learn about one of the biggest franchises in gaming and staying true to the roots of each and every game no matter how painful those roots are, it’s hard to say Capcom and Digital Eclipse didn’t deliver an awesome collection.