Retro Video Game Curation
As I wait to complete the game 100%, and gather enough screenshots to make an article vibrant in appearance, I find myself unable to contain my excitement: I must give my initial impression of Streets of Rage 4.
Continue reading “Streets of Rage 4: First Impressions”
My recent article on my experience with the SEGA Dreamcast sent me on a nostalgia trip from which I have not yet recovered. As the weeks elapsed from the writing of that article, I slowly became overwhelmed with a yearning to delve more deeply into some of the individual games that defined that time in my life. One game in particular kept cropping up in my near-aimless wanderings through my memories; that game was Phantasy Star Online. The reason I so hastily pursued writing about this game was first its incompatability with a formal review in my format thanks to the thousands of hours it would take to replicate my previous playthroughs in their entirety, allowing me to avoid another taxing review, and second its near-evergreen relevance to my gaming life. There have been very few games, if any, that have siphoned such a percentage of my waking hours; Phantasy Star Online is all consuming. This dungeon-crawling, party-based online multiplayer, action-RPG allowed a peek into the future, at a time when online console gaming was truly in its infancy, and it all began with a chance purchase of a Dreamcast magazine at the corner pharmacy.
Piggybacking off of the recent announcement of Megaman 11 and the future re-release of the of the entire Megaman X series, Capcom has again made my week with the announcement of a 30th Anniversary Street Fighter Collection. The collection is jam-packed with content, containing the following:
In addition to the massive collection of games, there will be four games with online functionality including Street Fighter 2: Hyper Fighting, Street Fighter 2: Turbo, Street Fighter Alpha 3 and Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike. The pack also contains a sprite viewer, versus CPU battles while waiting for online matchmaking and save states to bookmark single player progress.
Street Fighter II was one of the first few games my cousin taught me to play when I was two years old, and for that reason the series has held a special place in my heart. I have spent countless hours on consoles and in arcades being thoroughly mediocre at this series, and relishing every second of it.
Is this a return of Capcom to its former glory? Or just a quick, albeit desirable, cash grab?