REVIEW: Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection


Title	Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection
Developer	Digital Eclipse
Publisher	Capcom
Release Date	May 29th, 2018
Genre	Fighting
Platform	Switch, PS4, Xbox One
Age Rating	Teen
Official Website

I remember playing Street Fighter 2 in arcades when I was a young boy. Arcades are now a relic of the past, like I feel sometimes, but I instantly fell in love with fighting games because of Street Fighter 2. Since then I have never missed a major release of a Street Fighter title until Street Fighter V, and this was because when it launch it lacked content. I may check out the Arcade Edition at some point, however when Capcom announced the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection I was pretty stoked to go back and play some of my favorite entries from the past. I decided to check out the Switch version for this review to see how the controls held up with Joy-Con’s D-Pad. Let’s see how this bad boy turned out.

This collection on the Switch packs in all 12 Street Fighter titles. This includes Street Fighter the original arcade game, five different versions of Street Fighter 2, all three of the Street Fighter Alpha titles, and the 3 versions of Street Fighter 3. Each game does include some settings you can play around with. These include difficulty, turbo level, and damage level. You will need to play around with these to find the right levels for your tastes, though Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo is basically impossible even on the lowest setting. I’ll get to why shortly.

Graphically all of the games look fantastic. They are all arcade perfect and with the filters and screen options you can adjust each game to however you think looks best. I think the arcade filter looks best in handheld mode with the full screen size. Since that screen is smaller it doesn’t distort it at all. I didn’t notice any framerate drops at all in any of the games, and the animations look very spot on as well.

The sound effects and music are just like I remember them from the arcade. I mean what’s Street Fighter without the Ryu’s iconic Hadoken or Guile’s Sonic Boom? I love that museum mode has the soundtrack to each game in there so you can listen to your favorites anytime. There are also character profiles, sprites and lots of history about the Street Fighter series there as well.

While everything has been really solid about this collection up to this point, let’s talk about the crux of this version, the controls. The D-Pad on the Joy-Con is completely inadequate to play these games. I’m not saying it doesn’t work at all, but they certainly make pulling off certain moves more difficult. Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo is almost unplayable against the CPU. This is in part because the AI for this verison was based off some of the top players in the world at the time it was made, and all they do is throw you constantly. The game does have save states so you can power through the game, but its a lot tougher than it should be. I tried the Super Famicom 8Bitdo controller I had and it was a bit better but nothing to write home about. Folks with arcade sticks have told me that they work just fine with this version, so if you’re planning on playing this at the hardcore level you may want to invest in one.

My other big beef with the controls is while you can configure your button layout, there is no way to map all three punches or all three kicks to a button. This has been standard in Street Fighter releases for a very long time and it makes pulling of some of the super moves in some games much harder. Take Street Fighter Alpha for example. The level of the move depends on how many punches or kicks you press when doing them, so pulling off a level 3 move is like an act of Congress. This also make using a character like Zangief much more difficult.

The online multiplayer works well with little lag most of the time and there are several modes to choose from. Online arcade will allow to play the arcade version of one the available titles and folks can challenge you to ranked matches. You can search for a casual match and of course make and join lobbies. Not all of the games can be used for online play. Street Fighter 2 Turbo, Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo, Street Fighter Alpha 3, and Street Fighter 3 Third Strike are the only games that can be played online. This isn’t really an issue in my opinion, since the best titles in each set are here.

The Switch release also features local play. If you have some friends over with Switches you can link and create lobbies and tournaments. This tournament mode is exclusive to the Switch version and you can have up to 8 players while it keeps score. It will also allow you to have sparring sessions while waiting on your next opponent. While this mode is pretty neat I don’t really think it makes up for not including Ultra Street Fighter IV like the PlayStation for Xbox One editions.

While the Switch version does have some control issues and not getting Ultra Street Fighter IV is a bummer, that doesn’t mean this version is terrible. You trade off these things to have 12 of the best fighting games of all time portable. I do hope they address some of the control issues with patches like the not being able to map 3 kicks or punches to a button. If you have a Switch and love Street Fighter I think you would be satisfied with this release despite its flaws. I mean at $39.99 you’re spending less than 4 bucks a title for some great classics.