Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium Review: Pixel Memories

With their third pack of arcade classics, Capcom has potentially reached peak nostalgia. Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium adds 32 more games to their run of classic collections, across a whole field of genres. For those that really love this kind of thing (like, say, me), it’s a brilliant pile of old-school goodness.

Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium Review: Pixel Memories

Hot on the heels of their recent Capcom Fighting Collection, 2nd Stadium adds a slew of favorites. Side-scroller hack n’ bashers include Magic Sword, the King of Dragons, Knights of the Round, Black Tiger, and Tiger Road. Scrolling shooters include classics like 1943 Kai, Last Duel, ECO Fighters, Hyper Dyne Side Arms, Gan Sumoku, and Savage Bees, along with Gunsmoke and Hissatsu Buraiken. There are a few puzzlers, racers and sports games, like the Speed Rumbler, Rally 2011 LED Storm, Block Block, Pnickies, Capcom Sports Club, and Saturday Night Slam Masters, as well. 

Finally, 2nd Stadium includes a surprising number of fighters given Capcom just dropped that collection separately. More obscure releases like Megaman: The Power Battle and Megaman 2: The Power Fighters, alongside the original Street Fighter and all three Street Fighter Alpha games, are welcome, but there are some redundancies for those who bought the Fighting Collection.

2nd Stadium also includes several of the titles already in the Fighting Collection itself. Darkstalkers, Nightwarriors, Vampire Saviors, Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix, Hyper Street Fighter II Anniversary Edition are all superfluous inclusions if you own both collections. And, of course, you could buy the games in 2nd Stadium separately; the initial download for 2nd Stadium is free and comes with Sonson, a goofy side-scroller. 
 

Much like the original Capcom Arcade Stadium, there is a host of features that greatly increases the enjoyment of playing arcade games at home. The 3D-rendered arcade machine cabinet interface remains as well, though you can customize the visuals in key ways to suit your tastes, such as adjusting the visuals with retro filters. There is also a variety of screen border options, online leaderboards, and difficulty and speed settings. Best of all, the rewind button returns, which helps make up for all those reflexes some of us have lost in the intervening decades. Finally, most of the games include both the English and Japanese version of the ROMs. 

The appeal of a collection like this is admittedly dependent on your need for retro nostalgia. Game design has come a long way since the days when coin-op was king. The primary design focus for most of the games in this collection was to make players feed quarters into a machine. Some games are just long and hard enough to be brutal, but not necessarily rage-inducingly frustrating. 

So, the general tone is on short, frantic experiences, usually with multiple players. To that end, local (though not online) play is supported, so gems like Knights of the Round and King of Dragons can be the three-player brawling adventures that made them classics to begin with. 

Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium Review — The Bottom Line

Pros

• Impressive array of classic Capcom arcade games covering a wide range of genres.
• Excellent presentation and customizing options.
• Rewind button is my new best friend.
• Lots of great action for both single-player and local multiplayer sessions.

Cons

• No online multiplayer.
• Includes several games from the Fighting Collection.

Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium continues in the fine tradition of the original Stadium with a great collection of classic coin-op games. While these retro compilations are largely for the overly nostalgic older gamer, there’s a lot of great action to be had here, especially with friends playing in the same room. 

[Note: Capcom provided the copy of Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium used for this review.]