Street Fighter Anniversary Collection

It would have been nice to make the collection more complete by adding the first two versions of "Street Fighter III."

With the release of Street Fighter Anniversary Collection, Capcom has basically thrown us the keys to their studio to do to this game whatever the hell we want.

This homage to the old series includes Street Fighter III, which is more than enough to win over 2D fighting game fans. The rest of the collection, however, pales in comparison.

No other 2D fighter offers the same weirdly perfect blend of tight controls, intuitive moves, and lovable characters. [Sept 2004, p.105]

"Third Strike" is, arguably, the definitive 2D fighting game on the PS2.

Though it’s not the dream collection fans hoped for, it’s still nice to be re-acquainted with these venerable fighters.

Conspicuously absent is anything pertaining to "Street Fighter Alpha", as well as new bonus features or incentives to keep you playing. [Sept 2004, p.110]

While not fully comprising the complete scope of this ground breaking series, the Anniversary Collection does a great service to fans by providing six solid recreations of Street Fighter games.

It’s probably Capcom’s most disappointing offering to the fighting game genre since 1997’s dismal "Street Fighter Collection."

Thankfully, Capcom included a near-perfect arcade port of "Street Fighter III", a fighting game as unsung as it is flawless. [Oct 2004, p.82]

The gameplay remains top notch, and the graphics and sound are vintage Street Fighter. Dig in and get your Shoryuken on.

Great value and a slice of gaming history, but it's still a shame they couldn't have put some more stuff together. [GamesMaster]

These fighting games--true to their classic roots--have aged gracefully. In particular, Street Fighter III: Third Strike stands out as one of the best 2D fighting games available on the PlayStation 2.

Even with the disappointing lack of online play and the utterly unsurprising graphics issues, Street Fighter Anniversary Collection's two superb fighters offer enough outstanding gameplay to keep you cracking skulls and throwing fireballs for a long time to come.

While you can expect that an Street Fighter Anniversary Collection would have only remakes of original titles, you would hope there would be some history included – something this game is sorely missing.

Whether you know everything there is to know about Street Fighter or you’re new to the series, Street Fighter Anniversary Collection is an incredible package.

The gameplay is dead on in "Third Impact." It’s one of the most well handling fighting games produced, with every move coming across to the screen at the same split second rate as player input it into the control.

To be perfectly clear: This is the best 2D fighting game ever made...a 2D fighter fan's dream come true. [Sept 2004, p.95]

The only real quandary is for multi-system owners who have both a PlayStation 2 and an Xbox. As the Xbox version of the game includes online play (while the PS2 doesn't), which really diminishes the value of picking up Sony's version when gamers know they can go head-to-head with one another cross-country in just a few months.

If you don't mind waiting, the Xbox version of Street Fighter Anniversary Collection will arrive in early 2005 and will feature online play. That alone makes the Xbox version seem far superior but for those of you that just can't wait, this game is easily worth the money.

For the casual player, this is archaic stuff that’ll provide about an hour of nostalgic fun.

It reeks of desperation and greed, as if Capcom just threw this together to make as much money as possible. They include the most obscenely difficult and unworkable version of Street Fighter 2 for one part of the package, throw in the forgotten spawn of the series for another, and top it off by including a lousy licensed anime movie instead of any other Street Fighter game.

It's really fun to have one version of a character go up against another version of the same character to see who's better. [Sept 2004, p.92]

The presentation and bonus features are top notch - Capcom even included the entire SFII anime movie. [Aug 2004, p.57]

It may not be the ultimate Street Fighter compilation, but in the end, Street Fighter Anniversary Collection offers great 2D fighting at an excellent price. [Sept 2004, p.20]

Visually, the game is a stunner.

The visuals are a little dated but everything else about this package screams ‘class act.’

This edition costs only $30, but you essentially get one game, with a lot of variants, for the money. If you want to go retro, you should pick up "Midway Arcade Treasures" for more 2-D bang for less buck.