A Quick Look At Every Game In The Capcom Home Arcade Collection
GameSpot may receive revenue from affiliate and advertising partnerships for sharing this content and from purchases through links.
Insert coin(s)
Capcom has officially unveiled the Capcom Home Arcade, a two-player arcade stick in the form of the Capcom logo that lets you play 16 preloaded arcade games over HDMI. It features a few Capcom games that have never been officially released outside of the arcade, and its sticks and buttons are sourced from Sanwa, a respected arcade manufacturer. All told, the package will cost €230 (roughly $260) and is slated to release on October 15 later this year.
Whether or not that price feels right to you will depend on many factors--we have no idea how well the games will look or play running on the embedded hardware--but chief among them is the selection of games. Capcom's arcade output was huge in the '90s and '00s, and with only 16 games on board, the included library simply can't please everyone.
To give you a taste of what's in store, we've compiled a brief rundown of every game shipping with the Capcom Home Arcade. Let's kick things off at the top by traveling back in time to 1944.
1944: The Loop Master, 2000 (CPS-2)
Capcom used to produce a lot of vertical-scrolling arcade shooters, often loosely based on World War II. 1944: The Loop Master was the final arcade game in the series and is not currently available on any other platforms, making it one of the more special games on the Capcom Home Arcade list.
Alien vs. Predator, 1994 (CPS-2)
Due to the licensing involved, with two Hollywood film franchises on the docket, Capcom has long been forgiven for not including Alien vs. Predator in its previous classic game collections. It wasn't even included in the compilation of arcade "belt-scrollers" a few months back, which would have been the most predictable venue for it to reappear. All that said it's great to see it will be playable yet again, but due to the nature of the Capcom Home Arcade's two-player setup it doesn't seem like you'll be able to play with three players, which was possible in the arcade. Here's hoping that the USB port on the back of the unit allows for an additional controller to be connected.
Armored Warriors, 1994 (CPS-2)
Speaking of three-player side-scrolling beat-em-ups, Armored Warriors is another such game from 1994 that will appear in the Capcom Home Arcade--it was, however, included in the aforementioned Belt Scrolling Collection, unlike AvP. Armored Warriors isn't often referenced as a high point in Capcom's past, but it's nonetheless an impressive looking 2D game featuring big mechs with interchangeable body parts. Odds are it will be new to most people, making it a strong entry in the Capcom Home Arcade.
Capcom Sports Club, 1997 (CPS-2)
There may be no game on the list as obscure as Capcom Sports Club. This 1997 arcade exclusive features simple renditions of Tennis, Soccer, and Basketball. Each game is playable in a PvP scenario, but you can also enter a tournament as a single player to take on increasingly more challenging AI opponents.
Captain Commando, 1991 (CPS-1)
Captain Commando is another game from the Belt-Action Collection that will be available on the Capcom Home Arcade. It released a few years before the impressive-looking Armored Warriors and Alien vs. Predator. Captain Commando is best remembered for its unusual character designs, including Baby Head (a mech-riding baby), and a mummy from another planet, named Mack the Knife. Capcom clearly has a soft spot for Captain Commando, not only because he has appeared in multiple Vs. fighting games, but also because of the fact that this game was ported (in Japan) to Super Nintendo, PlayStation, and was included in collections of classic Capcom games on PS2, PSP, and Xbox.
Cyberbots, 1997 (CPS-2)
Remember the mechs we mentioned while looking at Armored Warriors? Presumably, seeing the potential in them beyond the side-scrolling beat-em-up genre, Capcom designed an entire fighting game around them for the arcade, and eventually ported it to Saturn and PlayStation in Japan--the latter of which can be found as an untranslated PS Classic release on PSN, for both PS3 and PSP.
Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors, 1994 (CPS-2)
Though the series was sadly short-lived, the original Darkstalkers was a very exciting release when it arrived in the mid-'90s. Street Fighter II still had a following thanks to the recent release of Super Street Fighter II Turbo earlier that year, but Darkstalkers easily stood out thanks to monstrous character designs and the highly detailed animations that brought them to life.
Eco Fighters, 1993 (CPS-2)
Eco Fighters is a side-scrolling shooter that was built with environmental awareness in mind, but that mostly manifests itself in subtle ways. Most notably, the game is known for its varied and colorful stages, and of course the unusual design of its hero ship. Its primary weapon is equipped to the end of a rotating arm, which allows you to both reorient your firing trajectory on the fly and harm nearby enemies that wander into the energy radiating around the gun. Given that Eco Fighters is a relatively obscure release, most people probably got their first taste of it in the Capcom Classics Collection Vol. 2 on PS2, PSP, and Xbox.
Final Fight, 1989 (CPS-1)
Final Fight was an iconic Capcom arcade game when it was released, and remains beloved today. Despite the original game's success and the arrival of a few sequels, the series would enter a downward spiral and eventually fade into obscurity. Thankfully, its legacy has endured in Street Fighter, with characters and stages appearing in the Street Fighter Alpha games, and Street Fighter 3-5.
Ghouls ‘n Ghosts, 1988 (CPS-1)
Ghouls 'n Ghosts is well known for its punishing difficulty, and for Arthur, the boxer-wearing knight in dingy armor. The 1988 classic is set in a medieval fantasy world brimming with monsters. From the very first level, Ghouls 'n Ghosts is designed to punish sloppy or overconfident play. And just when you think you've come to the end after trudging through five stages, fair warning: Lucifer kicks you all the way back to the beginning of the game, forcing you to replay every level once again before you get to the real final battle.
Giga Wing, 1999 (CPS-2)
Capcom continued to develop arcade shooters well into the '90s (and beyond), and Giga Wing is one that may be familiar to Dreamcast owners. It, and its eventual sequel, were two of the rare arcade shooters on the system to get released outside of Japan. Giga Wing was an impressive-looking 2D game in its day and definitely stands out compared to other games of its type on the Capcom Home Arcade.
Mega Man: The Power Battle, 1995 (CPS-2)
Mega Man has repeat appearances in Capcom's Vs. series of fighting games, starting with Marvel vs. Capcom, but long before that debut he had a pseudo-fighting game all of his own. Mega Man: The Power Battle is a part boss-rush, part fighting game, and even if it's not remembered all that fondly, it's an interesting footnote in the blue bomber's story.
Progear, 2001 (CPS-2)
Progear is another Capcom Home Arcade game that has never seen an official home release, and it's hard to understand why. It's a standout side-scrolling shooter with beautiful 2D graphics and a reasonable difficulty curve, the latter of which is somewhat rare for the genre. Progear is also notable for being a game designed by Cave, the studio responsible for the popular (among genre fans) DoDonPachi and Deathsmiles series. This is the most recently released game on the Capcom Home Arcade, slightly edging out 1944: The Loop Master.
Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting, 1992 (CPS-2)
Don't be confused by the Capcom Home Arcade's titling for this one; if it indeed carries the "hyper fighting" subtitle, then this is Street Fighter II Turbo. Despite the fact that there are three newer arcade iterations of Street Fighter II, Turbo is considered the defacto version of the game by many, making it a smart choice to include on the system.
Strider, 1989 (CPS-1)
When most people think of Strider, the valiant Genesis/Mega Drive port probably comes to mind. It wasn't arcade-perfect, but hardly any arcade-to-console ports were at the time and it was a close enough facsimile to make most players happy. A proper port arrived 17 years after the arcade release for PlayStation, and now, 30 years after it first debuted, it's resurfacing again for the Capcom Home Arcade.
Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, 1996 (CPS-2)
A Street Fighter puzzle game sounds like the definition of a gimmick, but Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo hit the scene and surprised everyone. Yes, the iconic songs and the cutified Street Fighter characters made it easy for fans to get into, but the puzzle mechanics were also simple enough to grasp with plenty of headroom for mastery. The puzzle fighter was a one-off despite how beloved it was and continues to be, but Capcom would go on to create a simplified fighting game around the super-deformed characters, dubbed Pocket Fighter, the following year.