Genre: Compilation / Arcade

Players: 1-4 Competitive (Local), Online Leaderboards

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Review:

Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium is a Compilation of games that follows the first Capcom Arcade Stadium, acting as a marketplace of sorts to sell their classic Arcade games. This game was released on the Nintendo Switch in 2022, and being something of an “a la carte” experience, the core game is free to download, but only contains one game, SonSon. All of the other games in this Compilation must be purchased separately at $4 each. Alternately, players can spend $40 on Capcom Arcade Stadium Bundle 01 to get all of these games at once, making for a total of 32 games.

Because of the flexible nature of the price and content of this bundle, I’ll say that this isn’t going to be a normal review with a score at the end. Rather, this will be an overview much like my reviews of the Nintendo Switch Online NES and SNES Apps.

As new games are released for the service, I may revisit this review. But for what’s available now, here’s how these games hold up by today’s standards:

Free

Game	Genre	# of Players	Score
SonSon	Action-Platformer	1-2 Co-Op (Local)	C
tl;dr SonSon is a perfectly decent old-school Action-Platformer, but it’s repetitive and doesn’t do anything particularly noteworthy by today’s standards. Not bad, but not a game you’d be likely to seek out unless you’re looking for a hit of nostalgia.

Individual Purchase

Game	Genre	# of Players	Score
1943 Kai – Midway Kaisen	Shmup	1-2 Co-Op (Local)	C
tl;dr Originally released only in Japan, this Shmup set in WWII’s Pacific Theater tries something interesting with its “aerial loop” dodge maneuver, but mostly this is a pretty standard entry in the genre. Not bad, but nothing special.
A.K.A. Block Block	Arcade Block Breaker	1-2 Co-Op (Local)	C+
tl;dr This is a pretty decent, but unspectacular, Arcade Block Breaker.
A.K.A. Knights of the Round	Arcade Brawler	1-3 Co-Op (Local)	C
tl;dr Like The King of Dragons, this is a medieval-themed Arcade Brawler, with players taking the role of Arthur, Lancelot, and Perceval. There are fewer characters with less variety than in The King of Dragons, and while this game does add elements like horse mounts, this is still a pretty repetitive game.
A.K.A. Magic Sword	Action-Platformer	1-2 Co-Op (Local)	B-
tl;dr It’s a bit on the simple and repetitive side, but even so, this classic Action-Platformer is still a blast to play.
A.K.A. The King of Dragons	Arcade Brawler	1-3 Co-Op (Local)	B-
tl;dr While visually less striking and iconic than Final Fight, medieval-themed The King of Dragons nevertheless manages to be more fun to play thanks largely to its variety of playable characters, including a few whose primary attack is a projectile. There’s also some clever boss design going on here. However, it’s still a fairly simple game that can get a bit repetitive.
A.K.A. Vampire Savior: The Lord of Vampire	Fighting Game	1-2 Competitive (Local)	A-
tl;dr The third game in the Darkstalkers franchise introduces multiple new characters, including some of the series’ most iconic characters,features slightly improved gameplay all-around, and utilizes a new “Damage Gauge System” that gets rid of “rounds” and makes each use of the life bar flow into the next. This game is 24 years old, and yet it still feels pretty close to modern pixel art 2D Fighting Games.
Black Tiger	Action-Platformer	1-2 Alternating (Local)	C+
tl;dr This Action-Platformer has its positive qualities, but its frustrating physics and frustrating time limits make it harder to appreciate those positive qualities.
Capcom Sports Club	Compilation / Sports (Various)	1-2 Competitive (Local)	C+
tl;dr This Compilation features a pretty sloppy, frenetic version of Soccer, and simple but fun versions of Basketball and Tennis. It’s not likely to blow anyone away, but it’s enjoyable enough.
Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors	Fighting Game	1-2 Competitive (Local)	B
tl;dr While it’s not nearly as iconic as the Street Fighter series it’s clearly modeled on, and its roster of only 10 fighters seems pretty quaint by today’s standards, this horror monster-themed take on the Fighting Game genre is still very good and even brings some new features to the genre that would become genre standards, like air blocking. Given the option, you’ll probably still want to go with one of the later games in the Darkstalkers franchise, but this is still a solid Fighting Game.
Eco Fighters	Shmup / 2-Stick Shooter	1-2 Co-Op (Local)	B-
tl;dr This is a pretty fun mix of Shmup and 2-Stick Shooter, with a silly but unique environmentally-friendly (bordering on eco terrorist) theme. You’ll probably want to remap the controls though, and even then it won’t be perfect.
Gan Sumoku	Shmup	1-2 Alternating (Local)	C
tl;dr Better known in the West by the title Gun Smoke, this is a Wild Western-themed Shmup whose only noteworthy feature beyond its unique theming is the ability to shoot 45-degree shots in addition to straight ahead. Otherwise, this is a pretty mediocre entry in the genre.
Hissatsu Buraiken	Top-Down Action	1-2 Co-Op (Local)	D-
tl;dr Originally released in Japan only, and for good reason apparently – the hit detection in this Top-Down Action game is so awful it’s virtually unplayable. The only reason anyone should get this game is if they’re getting the bundle, and if they do they should absolutely skip over this one every time they see it in the menu.
Hyper Dyne Side Arms	Shmup	1-2 Co-Op (Local)	C+
tl;dr This is a decent but unspectacular Shmup with a mechanic that lets you shoot left or right and cycle through multiple different weapons. It’s not particularly memorable, but it’s not bad.
Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary Edition	Fighting Game	1-2 Competitive (Local)	B+
tl;dr This version of Street Fighter II lets you play using versions of the characters from each of the prior major versions of Street Fighter II. It makes for minor differences, but it’s a nice touch. I felt like the game’s detection for performing some moves seemed a bit off, and the game’s default difficulty setting has computer-controller characters dealing way more damage to you than you do to them, so you may want to adjust that all the way down before starting. This is still one of the greatest games of all time at its core, but I felt like this release didn’t show the game at its best.
Last Duel	Shmup	1-2 Co-Op (Local)	C+
tl;dr This is a pretty good Shmup with ground and space stages, though the way the ground stages zig-zag can make it hard to see and aim at enemies. It takes some getting used to but once you do, it’s quite fun.
Mega Man: The Power Battle	Action-Platformer / Fighting Game	1-2 Co-Op (Local)	B-
tl;dr This game is basically an expanded boss rush of various games throughout the franchise (sorted into Mega Man 1 & 2, Mega Man 3-6, and Mega Man 7). It’s a pretty fun game, but it’s also pretty short.
Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters	Action-Platformer / Fighting Game	1-2 Co-Op (Local)	B-
tl;dr Much like its predecessor Power Battle, this game is basically an expanded boss rush of various games throughout the franchise. It’s a pretty fun game, but it’s also pretty short.
Night Warriors: The Darkstalkers’ Revenge	Fighting Game	1-2 Competitive (Local)	B
tl;dr The second game in the Darkstalkers series makes the first game’s boss characters playable, adds two new characters, and allows players to save multiple Super bars at a time. Otherwise, this is much the same experience as the first Dark Stalkers. Which is to say, it’s good, if a bit dated.
Pnickies	Falling Block Puzzle	1-2 Competitive (Local)	B-
tl;dr Originally only released in Japan, Pnickies is a Falling Block Puzzle game that’s similar to Puyo Puyo, but with slightly different rules. This is a pretty good Puzzle game overall, but it’s limited by the lack of any game modes beyond an endless mode and a versus mode that is only 2-player (i.e., no computer-controlled opponents to fight against).
Rally 2011 LED Storm	Top-Down Racing	1	B-
tl;dr A pretty fun take on the Top-Down Racing genre with transforming futuristic cars in strange landscapes with a fun jump mechanic. The only real issues here are that the camera is too close to the action, making it hard to react to oncoming obstacles, and the complete lack of multiplayer. Still, this is a surprisingly excellent addition to this lineup.
Saturday Night Slam Masters	Sports (Pro Wrestling)	1-4 Competitive / Team Competitive (Local)	C+
tl;dr This is a decent Pro Wrestling game, but a pretty simple one. It’ll likely entertain you for a bit, but not for an extended amount of time.
Savage Bees	Shmup	1-2 Co-Op (Local)	C-
tl;dr This old-school Shmup is slow-paced, monotonous, and dull. There’s not much else for me to say about it.
Street Fighter	Fighting Game	1-2 Competitive (Local)	D-
tl;dr There’s a reason most people focus on the second game in this series when talking about its roots – the first game is garbage. Terrible, unresponsive and laggy controls, choppy animations, overall ugly visuals, indecipherable muffled voice samples, and the only characters available to play are Ryu and Ken, making this a game that’s not worth bothering with except as a fascinating historical relic.
Street Fighter Alpha: Warriors’ Dreams	Fighting Game	1-2 Competitive (Local)	B
tl;dr Featuring a mostly new roster of ten characters (plus a few secret characters), an entirely new art style, expanded super meters, air blocking, and reworked move sets, Street Fighter Alpha is the first actual full-fledged sequel to Street Fighter II… and it’s technically not a sequel at all, but a prequel. Still, this game goes farther than before to evolve the series’ formula, although the character lineup is nowhere near as iconic or approachable as this game’s predecessor.
Street Fighter Alpha 2	Fighting Game	1-2 Competitive (Local)	B+
tl;dr While this game retains the same basic gameplay as the first Alpha game, it nearly doubles the size of the roster (again, a few returning characters, but mostly new faces, including fan favorite Sakura), and adds a new custom combo system. While I still strongly prefer Street Fighter II’s roster, I cannot deny that this is a bigger marginal leap than Street Fighter II ever got, and a solid overall fighting game.
Street Fighter Alpha 3	Fighting Game	1-2 Competitive (Local)	A-
tl;dr The final game in the Alpha trilogy includes another huge addition of new and old characters (seeing most of Street Fighter II’s roster returning) and adding a new “play style” system that gives players some flexibility in deciding how to use their super meter. It’s a pity this isn’t the improved Max or Upper versions of the game, meaning this isn’t quite the definitive Street Fighter Alpha experience, but it’s still a damn good one.
Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix	Fighting Game	1-2 Competitive (Local)	A-
tl;dr This is a chibi-ified and simplified take on the Street Fighter formula, but this actually makes this a pretty accessible game for newcomers to Fighting Games. There’s depth to be found here too, but if you’re a veteran of the genre the lack of complexity compared to most Fighting Games will probably make you want to skip this one. However, if you’re looking for all the fun of a modern Fighting Game without that complexity, Super Gem Fighter is an excellent choice.
Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo	Falling-Block Puzzle	1-2 Competitive (Local)	A
tl;dr This is one of the greatest Puzzle games ever made, with a flashy, colorful presentation along with some really fun combo mechanics and a multiplayer focus that makes this a great game to throw down in. Even if you have zero interest in the Street Fighter franchise and its characters, you should still consider this a must-have Puzzle game.
The Speed Rumbler	Top-Down Action	1-2 Alternating (Local)	C-
tl;dr This game’s Mad Max-esque theme and car combat gameplay make it fairly unique in this collection. Unfortunately, it’s too difficult to control your vehicle, and you’ll be so swarmed with enemies that it’ll be difficult to avoid dying quickly.
Three Wonders	Compilation	1-2 Co-Op (Local)	C+
tl;dr A compilation of Midnight Wanderers, Chariot, and Don’t Pull. Midnight Wanderers is a surprisingly good Action-Platformer, Chariot is a surprisingly good Shmup, andvDon’t Pull is a surprisingly good Top-Down Arcade-style game. Any one of these games could have easily stood tall as their own title, so the combination of the three of them is particularly excellent.
Tiger Road	Action-Platformer	1-2 Alternating (Local)	C
tl;dr While it’s not a terrible Action-Platformer, your movement in Tiger Road is so stiff, your move set so limited, and you’re so unrelentingly swarmed by enemies that it ceases to be fun pretty quickly.

It bears mention that some of the games here appear in other bundles on the Nintendo Switch. Street Fighter, Street Fighter Alpha: Warriors’ Dreams, Street Fighter Alpha 2, and Street Fighter Alpha 3 also appear in Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection and Capcom Fighting Bundle; Knights of the Round and The King of Dragons also appear in Capcom Beat ‘Em Up Bundle; Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors, Night Warriors: Darkstalkers’ Revenge, Vampire Savior: The Lord of Vampire, Hyper Street Fighter II, Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix, and Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo all appear in Capcom Fighting Collection and Capcom Fighting Bundle. If you want a full rundown on which games appear in which packages, you can check here. Consult that before making a buying decision.

I will also add here my frustration at Capcom not only double-dipping on a full third of the games here (11 out of 32) being available in other Compilations (with some of those other releases including online play absent in this Compilation), but also at the fact that Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium even exists at all – I do not see why this could not have been offered as an additional DLC for the first Capcom Arcade Stadium, which would have been a much more efficient way to keep all these games in one place.

So, taking all of that into consideration, if you don’t include the games that are also present in other collections, then Standout games you can only get in this Compilation are Three Wonders, Eco Fighters, Magic Sword, Mega Man: The Power Battle, Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters, Pnickies, and Rally 2011 LED Storm. That’s seven games out of 32, which isn’t great. I suppose you could just buy these games individually, but at $4 each, 7 games comes out to $28, and at that point it seems like you might as well just spring for the entire bundle.

Of course, this decision becomes a lot easier to make if you don’t have Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection, Capcom Beat ‘Em Up Bundle, and/or Capcom Fighting Collection, as pretty much all of the games this bundle shares with those collection are excellent (save for the original Street Fighter, which is absolute garbage). I guess it’s up to you which bundles to get and whether you’re okay with this sort of double-dip, but I really wish Capcom avoided this sort of content duplication, especially when there are plenty of classic Capcom games that still haven’t made it into any of these bundles.

However, moving on to the features of this bundle, I should note that even though I say this package supports 4 players, only one game in this entire selection, Saturday Night Slam Masters, supports 4 players, with two others supporting 3 players: Knights of the Round and The King of Dragons. Everything else here supports a max of two players. Players have instruction manuals for each game, the ability to play both US and Japanese versions of all games (except 1943 Kai – Midway Kaisen, Hissatsu Buraiken, and Pnickies, which are only available in Japanese form), multiple display options, save states, multiple speed settings, a rewind feature, the ability to change difficulty settings of the virtual arcade cabinets, the ability to reassign button assignments, multiple optional “challenges” to undertake for each game, a point system to unlock screen borders, and an optional invincibility mode (via free DLC) for those who just want to blast their way through the games without any resistance.

I will note that the game’s menus do come with a few major frustrations. For one thing, once you start a game, the options listed in the overarching menu change, meaning that you have to go into and out of games to see all the options, something that’s extremely frustrating. What to change button assignments? You have to go into the game for that. Want to see just how many players a game is designated to support? You have to exit the game to look. It’s arbitrary and absurd, and adds a little frustration to this package. In addition, you’re not able to change settings for all games at once. If you don’t want the game’s gimmicky 3D “simulated arcade” presentation and just want to play the emulated versions of the game directly, you’ll have to adjust the screen settings in all of the Compilation’s 32 games individually. Ugh.

There is one other element of the presentation here that deserves mention, and that is the surprisingly catchy synthesized Menu Theme. This menu theme does a fantastic job of psyching up the player and getting them excited for some old-school Arcade-style fun.

Overall, there’s a lot of good in Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium, and a fair amount of frustration too. How these elements balance out is really going to depend on how you approach this package. Are you getting the bundle, or buying the games a la carte? Do you have one or more of the other Capcom bundles that include some of the same content? Is seven good games for $28 a good deal? Is it a better deal if you’re getting the full 32 games for $40? Or perhaps, you can see this bundle as an opportunity – for example, perhaps you want to get Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo without having to buy all the other Fighting Games in Capcom Fighting Collection. If that’s the case, just spending $4 to get that game in Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium will probably be an absolute steal for you.

I suppose in the end, Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium provides players with more options to buy the games that interest them, and that’s never a bad thing. Just make sure you know what you’re getting into when you buy, and select the right Compilation(s) and/or a la carte purchases that make sense for you. Er… I hope all this helps to clarify things!

tl;dr – Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium is a marketplace for Capcom to make available classic Arcade games for purchase, with 32 games currently available. Many of these games are also available in other Capcom Compilations on Nintendo Switch, and I would say that seven of the games available only in this Compilation are worth picking up. How much value that will provide to those looking to dive into Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium will really depend on what you’re looking for and what else you have.

Grade: N/A

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2022 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Best Compilation / Collection, Laziest Copycat