Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection Review and Potential Esports Impact

The Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection is a love letter to one of gaming's most iconic franchises and a dream come true for fans.  

Forged in the arcade fires three decades ago, the original Street Fighter from 1987 and 11 other titles come to home consoles in a flawless experience, with the four most competitive games getting online play and the collection boasting goodies like a franchise timeline and exclusive pitches from the developers all those years ago. 

A must-have for fans, this collection of Capcom's finest from its juggernaut of a series is a technical feat and one likely to reinvigorate the esports scene in a major way. 

Graphics and Gameplay

These 12 games aren't ported, and it shows. 

Instead, modern consoles have the horsepower to recreate these games nearly flawlessly via ROMs, meaning no compromises like past home console versions that struggled to keep up with the power of an arcade machine. 

In other words, the games remain as visually colorful and fluid as fans will remember. A bezel art framing is by default placed around the standard resolution, which keeps the picture perfect. But players can turn off the bezel and stretch out the image to fit a full screen if desired and it doesn't hurt the games too much. 

Those really thirsting for nostalgia can turn on a TV filter to alter the image to what past home console versions looked like, while the arcade filter darkens the screen to mirror what arcade boxes projected. 

As expected, the game feels as good as it looks across all 12 titles. There's no delay on presses or combos and users can get into the controls to edit how things work on their system of choice. It's barebones, though necessary for a game where every press needs to be responsive. While the hardcore fans will pick up a fightstick, the d-pad on controllers works just fine thanks to the superb job done here. 

Esports Analysis 

First, a bit of housekeeping: 

• Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting
• Super Street Fighter II Turbo
• Street Fighter Alpha 3
• Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike

Those are the four games available for online play. It's a quality-over-quantity approach here, and those who have enjoyed the series for three decades won't have many complaints. 

Besides the expected fluid gameplay itself, the ecosystem here might be what gives this collection the juice to gain some traction on the esports scene. A single lobby handles matchmaking and requests from all four games at once, making it easy to hop between a player's game of choice. Players pick which game they want to play, and a disagreement results in random. 

And it doesn't stop there. Basics like casual and ranked modes with leaderboards are here, but so is the ability to tone up your skills in arcade mode while waiting for a match. Players have plenty of options at their fingertips as well, such as being able to sort matchmaking parameters by various factors such as connection strength. Speaking of connections, players can dive into the settings and shift around latency if the network connection to another player is struggling. 

Outside of training mode, ranked is where esports players will look to grind the ladder by earning skill belts of varying color. One of the matchmaking filters is by skill as well, though the invite system will enable tournaments. That training mode is as 2018 as it gets, with the four online games each getting their own, which are fully equipped with things like recordable opponents and customizable meters, among other advanced options. 

The esports scene should eat the fluidity of this online system up. Jumping from the speed of Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting to the implementation of the parry in Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike should make for some must-see tournaments and inspire a new wave of pro players to pick up a fightstick on their system of choice. 

30 Years of Collecting 

Developer Digital Eclipse has really outdone itself here by immortalizing Street Fighter's rich history in the Museum section. An interactive timeline guides players through it all in immense detail, with the museum's series-long character profiles stealing the show. The museum feature, located on the main menu screen, includes extensive in-depth backgrounds, ranging from character debut info to motivations, fighting style and more. They even feature a sprite gallery showcasing the most important attacks in each character's arsenal. 

The museum also features original concept art and even original game design documents, including the pitches the creators of the series showed to companies while formulating their arcade machines. Don't forget about complete soundtracks for each game, either. 

Impressively enough, some of these items weren't available online before this collection launched, and it's hard to find an offering as in depth. The collection of info here is a work of passion for a community that grew up with the game and for those just discovering it. 

Conclusion 

Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection is an impressive modern retelling of a classic series. 

That's the rub—it's 2018, and walking from machine to machine with a handful of quarters in the past is now swapping out one game for another in a smooth lobby system. Looking at the sign of the times another way, players now have 12 titles at their fingertips in a handheld capacity thanks to the Nintendo Switch. 

Those four online titles should help revive and upholster the communities around those scenes. When the rejuvenated communities aren't organizing tournaments, the load-free swapping and nearly perfect arcade experience is something a Twitch-based gaming community will embrace if the right sponsors and prizes come calling. 

Given the job done by developer Digital Eclipse and four modern titles that hold up to the best fighting games on the market in 2018, a renaissance of classic games from the Street Fighter pipeline should arrive shortly.