CAPCOM Fighting Jam









Fresh from release. Capcom Fighting Jam is once again Capcom's attempt to make something new by using old stuff. Nothing in this game is new besides the new character Ingrid and some animation tweaks (Zangief's firey nose), music (J-pop!) and backgrounds (full of cameos). So once again, reused sprites galore and pretty much nothing new.

BUT!

Being a 2D fighting game softie and a big Capcom fanboy at heart, CFJ is still a decent purchase ($60 rrp). Consisting of characters from 5 separate fighting games grouped into their respective homes.

Super Street Fighter II X:
- Ryu
- Zangief
- Guile
- M Bison
- Shin Akuma (unlockable)

Street Fighter III 3rd Strike:
- Alex
- Urien
- Chun Li
- Yun

Street Fighter Alpha 3:
- Guy
- Sakura
- Rose
- Karin

Darkstalkers 3:
- Demitri
- Jedah
- Anakaris
- Felicia
- Pyron (unlockable)

Red Earth:
- Leo
- Kenji
- Hauzer
- Hydron

CFJ Original:
- Ingrid

23 characters all up with a very interesting selection of characters. I myself find the roster very very nice and included characters that I do love from each game they originated from. I mean, c'mon. The 4 characters from SFIII3s are my four main characters. The inclusion of Anakaris and Felicia will be perplexing to many who don't enjoy their style and overall will probably dissapoint the less adventurous players. There is still plenty of shotowhoring here though with Ryu, Sakura, Demitri, Leo and Shin Akuma. Newcomer Ingrid is ok, pretty much a clone of SNK's KoF's Athena. Overall I love the choice of characters, I just wish there was more. Perhaps 8 characters from each game they represent.

The fighting engine is solid, with very responsive controls and the different system each represented camp has. The Super Street Fighter 2 X have the X meter and the unfortunate disclusion of air blocking; Street Fighter III 3rd Strikes parries, EX specials but an all in one Super Arts selection; Darkstalkers chain combo's and rapis super moves; Alpha 3's Vism mode and it's fast & techniques aplenty; and Red Earth's "level up" system. Each of these are locked to the specific characters from the game they belong. Ingrid has her own special groove which is very similar to CvS2's C groove. The systems involved is an interesting thing as pitting SSF2X's simple system against Darkstalker 3's combo crazy system is interesting and initially may seem mismatched, but Capcom has tweaked it to balance them out a little. although certain systems will be better than the others and tier lists will soon form. Also added is a tag battle system which has you selecting two characetrs, but can only exchange between rounds. It adds only a small sense of strategy but at least offers the player the option to vary their games to tryto put off the opposition.

The graphics in the game is nice. The backgrounds consists of digitized and hand drawn art. Which sounds horrid but actually looks alright. The actual character sprites were ripped straight off the games they came from. Some characters have been given some new animation but largely remains exactly as they were from their respective origins. Although it is dissapointing to see the rather low frames of animation within the Alpha and Red Earth characters when in contrast with the well animated SF3 or even Darkstalker characters. Once again, a lazy effort from Capcom in this front. the music is ok. consisting mainly of rawk but does offer up some world beats, techno and j-pop.

To sum up the game is ok. It's a safe purchase, but don't expect to be totally blown away. It isn't a stinker like Capcom Vs SNK 1 but it isn't as good as something like Alpha 3 or CvS2. And certainly nowhere near the quality of SF3:3s. It almost feels like a special demo of 5 separate games but somehow put in a blender to allow you to interact with each game. It's also like a museum of sorts like Smash Bros where Capcom's pedigree of 2D fighters are on show. A tasty teaser from their past. And at $60, it's not bad at all.

7/10

Now if only Capcom would release SF3 3rd Strike locally and give us aussies the best 2D fighter ever created.

Aussies already have access to SF3: 3rd Strike... it comes as a part of the SF Anniversary Collection on the Xbox.

I just wanna play KoF. :(

DZ, You can play KoF! KoF 2000/2001 has been available for quite some time now.

And ElPres yeah I now that SF3 is available ont he xbox, but for us non-Xbox owners. Believe me I'd ratehr have an XBOX right now with all these Live enabled fighters but that requires a huge amount of cash to set up for me.

-Stompy

I was just checking you knew because you referred to Aussies, I didn't realise you were speaking about PS2 owning Aussies only. :P

Thought I'd better check.

Man, it's a shame you don't have an xbox, Live and SF Collection. Ultracrazy1 and myself have had some good matches online. :)

As for this game - it looks interesting, but I'd rather take a look at a Live-enabled xbox version...

Yeah ElPres I know. I should have said PS2 owning in the first place. But yeah I'd rather people get the XBOX versions of any fighting game if it supports online play. Oh man do I want to play SF3 and CVS2 online. I wanna kick ass!!!!!

ultracrazy1 will so be owned if I go online with Urien and thunder thighs.

-Stompy

*cries because he has an Xbox, the SF Collection, a kick arse Hori arcade stick and no BB access in his area* :(

Since Capcom puts so little effort into these games (not updating the characters), would it really be that hard for them to just put all their characters into the game rather than a few from here and a few from there.

Having all the characters they've included in their previous fighters would make for quite a nice little game.

Or at the very least, make a sequel to Pocket Fighter...

OMG That is like torture of the worst kind ElPres!!! I feel your pain oh so much. (;_;)

And yes Kicky, that would be the ideal thing that Capcom should do. Plonk every damn character from every fighting game. Still CFJ isn't too bad. Having locked systems on each character is a good way to match up strengths and weaknesses. And something Capcom fanboys have been craving for. So we get the full SF3 system vs the crazy chain comboing system of Darkstalkers including the no pause supers! Basically the systems are untouched but tweaked so it's somewhat balanced. I still believe that Zangief is way too powerful in this game. Not that I mind.

And as for the laziness... well they actually tweaked some of the character sprites actually. Just some graphical tweaks here and there and some new voice actors on some of them. The real complaint is the small number of characters. I wish there was 6 per camp. I would have been happy. But 8 or 10 per camp and I'd be creaming my pants! They've done massive casts before (CvS2 and MvC2) so there's no excuse, I guess we have to wait for part 2 as is the case with CvS and MvC.

I unlocked Akuma today and despite being under the Street Fighter 2 camp, his sprite is actually the SF3 one. The cpu version even parried! Gonna see if I can parry with him as a playable character.

-Stompy