JAMMA 2002: Hands-onCapcom Fighting All-Stars

Capcom showed off its new 3D fighting game, Capcom Fighting All-Stars, at the JAMMA arcade game show in Japan. The game combines Capcom characters from a handful of Capcom's past fighting games and puts them into battle with one another in classic fighting game fashion.

The game uses a five-button setup, including two punch strengths, two kick strengths, and a sidestep button. The gameplay runs at a fairly slow speed and follows the standard Capcom fighting game structure, including a super meter that builds up and allows you to unleash various super moves. Each character has a couple of standard super moves and one level-three super move that can only be done when your meter is completely full.

The playable characters in the version shown at the show were Chun-Li, Mike Haggar (Final Fight), Ryu, Alex (Street Fighter III), Batsu (Rival Schools), Charlie, Hiryu (Strider), and three new characters: Rook, D.D., and Ingrid. The game also appears to feature Poison (Final Fight) and Rose (Street Fighter Alpha) as playable characters, but neither of them were in the version shown. Mike Haggar fights similarly to Zangief, complete with the spinning clothesline and spinning piledriver. One of his supers is a wrestling-style giant swing. The new characters have a different feel to them that makes the game seem quite a bit like the Street Fighter EX series.

The gameplay and fighting system in Fighting All-Stars is largely the same as in Capcom's other fighters, but there are a few new twists. Certain basic attacks can deflect other basic attacks--so if both fighters jump-kick at each other, the moves will cancel each other out and knock the characters back a bit. Counterattacks are now called "dramatic counters," and matches can be finished with "dramatic finishes," which would appear to be triggered when you end a match with a level-three super.

Capcom Fighting All-Stars is running on the PlayStation 2-based System 246 hardware and will hit Japanese arcades in a few months. There has been no official word on a US arcade release or any home release at this time.