Capcom Fighting Evolution (PlayStation 2) review "Evolution is not always a good thing"

Capcom Fighting Evolution is a port from the Arcade titled Capcom's Fighting Jam, whose title makes more sense than the ill-named US counterpart for the PS2. The idea behind mixing up characters from various Capcom fighting themed games seemed like a neat idea, but there were several complications that made this game a total bust once it entered US shores.

This game has to be the most unbalanced fighter since the Capcom vs. SNK series. Every "group" of characters retains their style and method used in their original game, which makes it incredibly frustrating when you pit a character from Red Earth against a well-rounded character from the Street Fighter series. It is a good chance that you will stick with the likes of Ryu and M. Bison rather than dealing with huge, almost useless characters like Hauzer and Leo.

The game is a bit similar to other titles where you choose a team of two characters and select the order which they will face before the bout starts, but you cannot switch partners during the fight. I will also nitpick and include silly elements like having to press not, one, but TWO buttons to choose the order of characters after each round. It is very uncomfortable when you know it would make no difference after losing for the 100th time against at team which is better at fighting than your selection.

The story seems to circle around the newest addition to the Capcom fighting roster, a girl named Ingrid which looks like a rip-off from King of Fighter’s Athena. Other than this, there is little else to say what this game is really about, other than pitting fighters from several Capcom franchises against each other.

Graphics are standard Capcom issue as with previous Street Fighter Alpha and Darkstalker series, at the same time it does resemble a bit from other fighting games like Capcom vs. SNK 2, although the backgrounds themselves seem bland at best, with other Street Fighter characters making unnecessary cameos just to get that feeling that you are playing an all-Capcom game this time. The sprites for the game seem to have the worst share of it all, being that some are hideously pixilated just to fit in wit the rest of the crowd from other series.

The music would be labeled as average as well, being that I could not remember any other theme that would keep me away from the monotonous feel of the entire game. Bonus include BGM sounds from specific characters and their stages, which makes me wonder why this game lacks so much in the music department, unlike any other Capcom brawler of yesteryear.

This game would be your average 2D fighting in the long line of fighting games that plagued the mid-90s and so forth, but instead of getting the satisfaction of using characters from various Capcom titles to beat the pixelated pulp out of each other in an enjoyable title, we get some of the worst attempts to cash into a premise that probably would've worked better if the game itself was planned better. The game is so unbalanced that you end up turning it off in the middle of a fight just to reminisce how good Capcom fighters were in the past instead of what this game resembles nowadays.

It is a good rental if you happen to find some copies in a videostore, or elsewhere, but as far as owning it, that is pretty questionable, at least in the sense that this game would only be played a couple of times and forgotten afterwards with no regret other than buying it in the first place.

I can't bring myself why would anyone want to play this game much less owning it, unless you are a hardcore fan of everything Capcom or at least, some of its products in the 2D fighting franchise. I still would just keep my copy of Street Fighter Alpha 3 into my dusty Dreamcast and forget about this title all the while. Perhaps Capcom should stick to the Capcom VS series. It seems to fair better than this attempt.

Community review by CptRetroBlue (November 14, 2018) A bio for this contributor is currently unavailable, but check back soon to see if that changes. If you are the author of this review, you can update your bio from the Settings page.