365//365: Day 111 – Capcom Fighting Evolution (PS2)

Woo boy. I….really detest this game. Just thinking about it makes me want to snap this keyboard in half and punch the broken bits repeatedly. The unusual thing though, is that while my disgust for Capcom Fighting Evolution is evident, the overall game is not as much of a shameful mess as Street Fighter: The Movie. Don’t get me wrong — it’s still a pretty miserable fighting game. I only replayed this abhorrent piece of Capcom failure just to be refreshed on how truly painful the overall package is to play.

Vampires vs. Dinosaurs are the new Pirates vs. Ninjas!

You have five representatives from five different Capcom fighting game series — Street Fighter 2 (represented by Super Street Fighter 2: Turbo gameplay and Capcom vs SNK models, not to mention two specials each), Darkstalkers, Street Fighter Alpha, Street Fighter 3 and Red Earth. No one will know what a Red Earth is, or why its in this game, yet it’s here and it’s the least of your worries when playing Capcom Fighting Evolution. You can choose two characters, but only switch between them when a round is over.

First and foremost, the gameplay has some glaring faults all around. Fighters go from unbalanced across the board, to so underpowered that they are worthless. The same could be said about just about any fighting game, but CFE decimates any previous attempts at balance. Ryu and Zangief have absurd damage output, and can absorb a good amount of it. Zangief’s super can blow off over 60% of your health, or more. His spinning piledriver is way too strong, combined with his grab range (which is almost always too large for its own good) and you can take down a lot of foes with no hassle. Ryu’s specials take way too much damage as well, although his attacks are balanced enough.

Then there’s the underwhelming rest of the characters, either based off damage output or just how poorly they play. The Street Fighter 3 cast, aside from an implausible 2 super stock combo by Alex I stumbled upon, are so weak and meager compared to their former selves. Parry timing is off big time, super damage, minus Alex, have been reduced to near nothing, and become worthless character choices, especially how they feel choppy to control. In fact, most characters come off as feeling choppy when controlling them.

The mesh of different visual styles looks a lot worse than Capcom vs SNK 2 and Marvel vs Capcom 2 combined....

Visually, CFE is just a mess. You have a mix of prehistoric animations and character models in Darkstalkers, mixed with “newer” models in the Street Fighter 3 characters, mixed with an impressive, yet animation lacking Red Earth set of characters. All together, it looks like a a train wreck. It’s almost as bad as watching Ice Man tagging in Morrigan to fight Cable in Marvel vs Capcom 2. The aged character models and visuals clash wit the “higher quality” models, making for one really nauseating looking game. Not to mention the static backgrounds you’ll encounter. The one stage that takes place in New York City, looks like a poorly painted mural. There’s no animation, no life, no quality to anything you see in the backgrounds. Sure, you see a plethora of unplayable characters standing there, but that’s all they do. Maybe you’ll get a background with E. Honda in a 2 frame animation, seemingly mocking Street Fighter 2′s backgrounds. It’s one of the most nauseatingly lopsided visual presentations in a fighting game that I’ve ever seen.

....especially when it comes to certain moves. Alex isn't even grabbing Rose properly for a German suplex.

With the audio side, you have some forgettable music, which was an off and on habit from Capcom. Nothing screams quality, though nothing is particularly bad. It’s all so….boring. Sound effects are vocally stock, with some extremely annoying blocking sounds. You could more or less mute your television and not miss anything. In fact, if you turned off your television, you’d probably find that the blank screen looks a lot less convoluted than if the game was playing on screen.

Capcom rarely releases a dud of a fighting game, but Capcom Fighting Evolution is one. The gameplay is a bit more unbalanced than I’d like it, the visual style clashes with each other, and it’s just not that well produced all around. Capcom Fighting Evolution took a handful of characters from five different fighting game series, threw them in together with no rhyme or reason and expected to evolve the genre in some fashion. In the end though, it feels like Capcom experienced a regression, rather than an evolution.

Rating: 3.4