Capcom Fighting Evolution (Arcade, 2004)

 

Interesting mash-up of a bunch of different Capcom games here, as CAPCOMANIA continues. Just mash-ups upon mash-ups this past month. Sometimes Capcom mashes up with Marvel, sometimes Capcom mashes up with SNK. Sometimes Capcom mashes up with both of them! Marvel isn't allowed to mash up with SNK on their own though, Capcom would fly off the handle. This despite that Capcom would mash up with LJN if the money was right 'cause Capcom's a total slut. So you can do it but I can't, huh??

As usual, I don't really know what's going on or what I'm doing with these fighting games. So this is a mash-up of a bunch of things I don't get, creating a vortex of "I don't get it" inception. Playing this on Capcom Fighting Collection 2.

You choose two characters in this one, and pick between them at the start of every round. This game combines a smattering of characters from SF2, SF3, SF Alpha, Darkstalkers, and something called Red Earth.

I've got a theory that the Alpha games were intended to be a replacement for Street Fighter 1 in the canon since it's such a weird historical blip.

At this point in time SF3 is the latest one, and Alex is the new main character. While Ryu is a studious Japanese martial arts master, Alex is more of a Big American Beefy Boi. He's gonna take Street Fighter nationwide! The territory days are over!

We also have, selectable on the sides, the boss characters for this game: Shin Akuma and Pyron. Lastly, in the middle is a character unique to this game, that isn't from anything:

Ingrid, this fetching waif. Not sure if she's supposed to be some sort of sex robot, or maybe a killer maid. Either way, this game right here is her debut.

...Alright, I looked it up. She's some sort of sun deity with magical powers. She's probably the best thing about this game - and the only truly new thing - so it's surprising that they left her out of SF4 and SF5 after this. Indeed, despite her appearing in a bunch of other spin-offs and side-games with names like "Card Fighters DS", it took until Street Fighter 6 for her to finally be in another real game after this. Twenty years later. Wow, Capcom hates Ingrid. Why debut her with the fanfare of being the sole original character in this game?

Time to commence Ingrid: The Post. First, though..

The Darkstalkers wing of the character select doesn't have Morrigan. The one character people want from Darkstalkers isn't here. I'm pretty Morrigan'd out at this point but it's still weird. Instead we get this Felicia character. Lemme see what this one is like.

"Meow!" says Felicia. "I'm a cat!"

...........nope nope nope nope nope nope nope

nope nope nope nope nope

Shin Akuma is pretty cool to play as. He's red for some reason and crackles with electricity. He also has the most rarely-seen of fighting game outfit colors, brown. #Justice4Tremor

There's one primary mental image I think of when I think of Street Fighter: Intercepting an air attack with a Shoryuken.

I was always an MK series guy but at this point I've become an SF series guy. This is in large part because of how different the characters play, the quicker speed, and the sheer coolness of things like finishing a fight with a super move. I still haven't played the majority of the series, though, not yet.

Behold Shin Akuma's electric crackles. Normally I'd play as this guy for this game, but since this is my one chance to check out Ingrid...

Ingrid can cast spells and make gold light appear in the air like Doctor Strange. My first opponent is this Urien guy who is basically a large man in a speedo. I think he's from SF3. My main memory of Street Fighter 3 (from seeing it growing up) is how much less cool the characters were than SF2. They're like this rogue's gallery of weirdoes.

Ingrid has dainty, elegant jumps. Look closely at the background and the crowd contains some of the characters that didn't make it into this game, like Cammy and Dee Jay.

Urien then BATISTA BOMBS Ingrid right out of her shoes!

...man, even Urien's name is kind of gross. Get this guy outta here!

Ingrid has cute victory poses and has "coyness" down to an art form.

I see T-Hawk back there. Was wondering where T-Hawk was. I haven't seen his black ass in ages!

Next up is Zangief, as Ingrid coyly flees.

This picture right here is pretty much the human race in a nutshell, going back hundreds of thousands of years.

Ingrid's special attacks involve casting gold energy spells, which I believe is her channeling the Sun.

However, no attack is as powerful as her doing that "put one knee in front of the other" thing that women do when posing. That's it for Zangief.

Since you have to pick a second character, I went with Karin from the Alpha series. She's pretty cool. However for the most part I just select Ingrid for every round. Unlike other games where you pick multiple characters, this one doesn't put you under any obligation to use both of them. Every round, you pick one of your two fighters, and the first side to take two rounds wins.

Next up is Alex, Capcom's new superstar for the NEW MILLENNIUM. This guy was getting the mega-push and this is probably the first time I've ever actually seen him in action. Karin is unimpressed, belting out a yawn.

ALEX-MANIA RUNS WILD as Alex rips off his shirt. Alright, this guy definitely needs to be in the inevitable Street Fighter 2 movie (while it'd make more sense to keep him for the third one, that could be practically forever from now). Hopefully Kenny Omega plays him.

Karin has a notable "cool factor", like how her Strong Punch is just her doing this dance pose.

Ingrid is just something else though, even her jumps are gorgeous. Unfortunately, I now face down the toughest fight in this entire game: Demitri from Darkstalkers. Who?

This guy is some sort of vampire, and he's REALLY TOUGH. Not sure why, but he puts up way more of a battle than any other foe in this game. He blocks almost everything and no-sells a lot of what he doesn't block. Just straight-up no-sells while taking minimal damage.

I proceed to lose...and lose. What is this, a Kintaro fight in the middle of this game? Look at this douchebag aura-farming.

Ingrid then slyly asks for a moment and waits for the sun to come out. Demitri doesn't fall for this obvious trick. Note how the painting in the background contains Morrigan, who really should have been in this game. Instead we got this Demitri asshole!

Ingrid channels the sun herself to dish out SUN BALLS, and I manage to finally take this guy down.

Next up is this monstrosity from Red Earth. Some sort of Cthulhu-like sea monster.

Next to him is his hetero lifemate, Slim Bison. Looks like Wide Bison from the MVC series didn't make it to this game.

He pummels Ingrid with PSYCHO CRUSHER and basically just runs her over. This game is a lot harder than the other games on this collection.

Bison administered an even worse beatdown than Demitri, that was a shut-out. However, since he's the second of the two CPU characters and not the first like Demitri was, technically I don't have to defeat him at all. The CPU goes with its first character for round 1, then second for round 2, then if necessary, the first again for round 3. So a second character like this, I can bypass.

I defeat Hydron, lose to Bison, and then defeat Hydron again in the third round to take the victory.

Hauzer is another Red Earth refugee, and some sort of actual dinosaur. Things are just getting weird now, but it isn't like the SF series was ever built on realism. Not when it contains whatever Blanka is.

Anyway, Ingrid hits a figure skating triple-axel move repeatedly to put this guy down. It was beautiful.

It's figure skating versus dancing as Ingrid takes on Karin!

E. Honda is in the background going "yeah! yeah!"

Karin has Videl-like bike shorts and a hell of a crouching Strong Kick.

Jedah...this guy was in MVC Infinite's story mode, he was one of the bad guys who served as a minion for Ultron-Omega. I guess he's from Darkstalkers.

No relation to the Saudi city of Jeddah, where the world's new tallest building is under construction, the 3200-foot Jeddah Tower. That's a kilometer high. A KILOMETER.

Not sure why the Saudis are bothering to build a 3200-foot tower. Don't they know everything sucks and is terrible and the world's ending any time now? Haven't they watched much modern American entertainment media? WHERE IS THE SELF-DESTRUCTIVE PESSIMISM?

No but really, grats to them. Their world record might hold for a while, until the other planned ultra-tower - in Basra, Iraq - gets finished, and that's a ways off. At that point it's more like building a vertical city than a mere tower.

Final boss is..Pyron! Who-ron? I think this guy is from Red Earth.

As Ingrid flits about, Pyron...is basically this barely-corporeal wall of fire. It's kind of awesome. He never really takes a solid shape, though you can see the makings of a solid shape in there, possibly forming at any given time.

As far as final bosses go, this guy isn't bad at all. The vampire dude and M. Bison earlier were a lot deadlier. Flying kicks mess up Pyron's day. When they work in a fighting game, they usually work too well.

Ingrid takes a moment to poke at Pyron. How does he work?

A Delightful Ingrid Backflip. She's got some ballet moves in there with the figure-skating moves.

Ingrid praises the sun, before finishing her foe off with...

...a stirring opera chorus.

That...was way too easy compared to the rest of the game. Was that even a boss?

The character endings are a bunch of picture panels with little context. Well, no context.

Ingrid slays the fire monster and then stands around looking at flying ships, then shows off her hot-ass silhouette.

You also get an ending for the secondary character, which is nice. My main complaint about the MVC series was how they'd only show me an ending for the character that struck the final hit. ...the last several MVC games came out after this game so not sure what their excuse was.

And well, that's it for Capcom Fighting Evolution. I wasn't going to look at this game but I had the images for it and the historical footnote that is Ingrid was worth checking out.

So what else is on Capcom Fighting Collection 2?

Plasma Sword! Not sure what's going on here. It's characters duking it out with laser melee weapons. Never heard of this game so it didn't catch on. Was no doubt an attempt to move into the hot new realm of 3D before they gave up and went back to what worked for them, 2D fighters. The Tekken series dominated the 3D space immediately in the mid to late 90's anyway.

This background looks like the Saudi desert before the people that live there built metropolises out of it.

We also have...

...this other 3D fighter with a character who is literally just wearing underwear!

And also, there's...

...Street Fighter Alpha 3, complete with Cammy doing a Roman salute. That or a "my heart goes out to you". That or she's hailing the Fuh-

Next is Power Stone, a game that contains one of the sexiest video game characters I've ever seen. She's like if Princess Jasmine was completely stacked.

Fast forwarding slightly, Rouge got the Titular Power Stone. It grants wishes, like Dragonballs.

Rouge is super cool and instead of wishing for something for herself, she uses the stone to grant the wishes of others! Unfortunately all she has lining up for wish-granting are all these seedy men.

All they want are n00d pictures of Rouge. I mean, if we're being honest here, it's probably what I'd wish for too. You can't take wealth with you into the afterlife, but you CAN take your boner.

"This is an outrage!" says Rouge. Has she tried NOT being an intensely desirable love goddess?

So yeah that's Capcom Fighting Collection 2. There's also something on here called "Capcom Versus SNK" whatever that is but it's probably nothing.

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