Quick Look: Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection

Joe, the most recognizable Street Fighter character

JOE!

I love Frank Cifaldi's work on this release.

Let's hope the online improves.

I'm a scanliner. Those games were never meant to look like Greek mosaics, man. Give me a hardcore, intricate, high definition CRT emulation with separation for sub-pixels and emulated colour bleed or GTFO. I have game consoles plugged to CRTs, I've downloaded emulator add-ons with big, expensive shaders to customize different CRT technologies on emulators. I'm that guy.

So yeah, screw you all, come at me, good CRT filters are the best. Also, the one in this game aren't great, but that Arcade CRT emu one is still better than the raw pixels, so I'm using it.

As someone who was still using a CRT for a TV until a year ago, I can attest that they don't produce anything close to that smeared-Vaseline look most filters "emulate."

@noelveiga: ARE there any good scanline filters out there, though? The argument against them, which I agree with, is that scanlines were *barely visible* on actual real-world CRTs, and all the current filters that seem to exist always insist on this grotesquely exagerrated striation that looks like you're playing the game through cheap 3D glasses and flimsy slat-blinds at the same time.

Overall happy with this package, but I wish they could have included extras and new features akin to the godly stuff in SF3: Online Edition (PS3, Xbox 360).

Arent some games actually running at the wrong speed?

@dasakamov: Yeah! There's plenty of filters that will do things other than scanlines, which are not what makes most of a CRT look, anyway. There's pretty over the top stuff like curvature sim like this:

But even without it there's a bunch of takes on heavily customizable CRT shaders that you can tune with many different parameters to match different kinds of TVs:

http://emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/CRT-Royale

And a particular favourite of mine, the 3D emulation of a curved CRT included in some of those wonderful M2 Mega Drive emulations on 3DS, which is goddamn gorgeous and maybe the best way to emulate a CRT on a flat panel I've ever encountered.

If my memory serves me right, shoutouts to the Nestopia and FCEUX NES emulators, because I recall them both having really great NTSC filters, which maybe captured some of the best "classic" looks compared to most emulated filtering options. They add just the right amount of blur and "phosphor" luminescence that you get from using either old-school RF adapters or a composite connection. When mixed together with a VERY mild scanlines filter, it can really hit just the perfect amount of nostalgia.

When it comes to screen curvature, that just has never been my thing, personally - unless it's coming from the real deal.

Huh.. they don't even try to jump into an online match, I also have heard the online on the steam version is decent at least similar to fightcade. Still on the fence about it but would be curious to what platform jeff was playing online with at home.

I like scanline filters that simply apply faint darkened lines aligned with the pixel grid, ideally with adjustable opacity so they can be tuned to be fairly subtle. The Analogue Super NT has an option for that, and some of M2's excellent arcade ports have the same ability. Filters like this (not my photo) complement the game's appearance without being too overbearing or tacky, IMO.

Any scanline/CRT filters that do any of the following, though...no thanks:

• Forced interpolation/blurring (Hamster's Arcade Archives games do this)
• Fake screen curvature
• Fake bloom
• Fake subpixel emulation
• "Scanlines" not actually corresponding to the pixel grid

@heatdrive88: Yeah, I think curvature is a bridge too far, unless you have actual depth to it. Which is why I liked it on 3DS, where it was actual curvature, not just flat deformation. It looked cool there.

Otherwise I'd love a really hardcore filter where you'd get a UHD screen on a 120hz refresh rate and actually interlace stuff. You could get super deep into just rendering a good simulation of a CRT screen on a good enough PC/monitor combo. It's way more trouble than just outputting stuff to an actual CRT, but it's a fun technical challenge. These filters get classy approximations that work at this point, though.

Please tell me there's a way to map the credits button to something else. None of my fight sticks have touch pads. What a horrible design decision.

Its a shame the Switch joycons don't have better D-pads, as this would be an ideal portable collection. The most fun I've ever had with Street Fighter has been Alpha 3 on the GBA though, so maybe I could cope with playing on the Switch after all?

Hey lets look at all these games that have unique characters and still pick Ken constantly

Man, it's so strange to me that Ben and Jason prefer the HD Remix sprites to the originals. They always looked a little off to me, and I don't think they've aged particularly well. Don't get me wrong, Udon's art is generally great, but it always looked like they had to fudge the proportions to match the original sprites in a weird way.

Like, look at Akuma. That tatsu makes his arm look three times the size of his leg, and the knee placement is so far down his leg! His face in that last one too...

Anyway, done ranting about a decade old remaster now. Either way, this collection doesn't seem great for playing a lot of these games, but just the ability to finally try out all the versions of SF3 or Street Fighter 1 in any capacity on a console is worth it for me.

"Aaooowiiiight"

Man, I really wish this had that Alpha 3 World Tour mode. One of the best single player things in a fighting game ever.

The collection is alright but i kinda want they lncluded different versions of alpha 2 and 3. And online seemed to be region locked or nobody is playing on the pc.

Joe! Joe! Joe! Joe! Joe! Joe! Joe!

@tracerx: I agree with this, but also, regardless of the quality of the artwork, there's something super weird about seeing these hi-res drawings animated with the tiny amount of frames SF2 uses.

This collection is cool and all, it's a neat way to have all these games conveniently in one place on a modern console, and I think everything here is more than 20 years old at this point. But yeah, doesn't feel like they did very much when none of the home console features or characters were included, besides versus and training mode. And it's like, that is the bare minimum for any fighting game. I'm glad it's up to arcade standards when home ports used to be pretty gimped, but it just feels anemic in content compared to some other versions of these games.

"Look at all these weirdos we made" when referring to SFIII is quite the statement when you prefer the stupid-ass designs of SFII if you ask me.

One of the Rainbow Edition I've seen was

Guile throwing Sonic Boom x 3 mid air

man those 3rd strike animations are as gorgeous as ever

Charlie Nash with the thickest of thighs.

This seems cool as hell, although not quite as comprehensive as I'd like.

As a Mortal Kombat guy, it's funny to hear this being called barebones. The Arcade Kollection, now THAT was barebones.

Wished they would have picked some different characters instead of their favorites that we see over and over again.

I don't really get the need for scan line filters...is it just a nostalgia filter?

@bathala: There was one at a laundromat near my childhood apartment that would have a floor-to-ceiling walls of fireballs come out whenever Ryu performed a fierce dragon punch. Wild stuff, man.

Super Joe or regular Joe?

Select starts the game on arcade sticks without touchpad...

3rd Strike is still my favorite. I especially liked the range of characters. Just different enough without going too weird system-wise. Q and 12 were alot of fun to play.

The game just suffered from severe lack of player base due to the high learning curve. It was so hard to get any practice without people to play with.

Same problem with Virtua Fighter, my choice of 3D fighter. That series needs an accessible revival like SF4.

The way the announcer says "Round Two" in Alpha 2 is one of the best announcer voice samples in history.

i hope a ql for the ps4 sega comp is coming soon.

Pretty upsetting that the game is being presented as this kind of archival piece, when some of the interesting, more esoteric stuff like different romsets, the CPS1 version of Alpha 1, Hyper SF2, Alpha 2 Gold, that weird VS-only Hyper SFA from the PS2 anthology, and Zero 3 Upper are nowhere to be seen. The lack of ubiquitous online multiplayer, even in private matching/lobbies, is also really lame.

also how is someone gonna here gonna play SF2 Guile and not know how to do the cuffs/magic throw/freeze/crash

I think the one thing I don't like when they do fighting games, is the slapping/hammering of the sticks and buttons. Maybe it's just me though.

Funk rail!

As someone who's only really played Hyper Fighting and Vanilla 4 (I own Ultra 4 but haven't played much) I'm super excited to get this when I regain employment and have some money.

Although, my stick doesn't have a touch pad, which could be annoying based on what was mentioned in this QL.

Street fighter one is an excellent Museum Piece. But it is super un-fun to play. And i tried to Nuance it to win but started mashing and started winning, Jeff is right on the money with how to beat that game.

@benpack: Good thing you guys disabled that filter, probably without even noticing it added input delay.

@winship: https://youtu.be/ODHKeRS7_wA my ending to SF1 was the absolute best / most canon hahaha. I am playing them in order

not gonna lie. i got goose bumps when i saw Alpha.

Hey, that stage background in SF1 when Jeff is fighting the ninja man is totally Lake Ashi at Hakone! I was there last month (not my photo, it's from Wikicommons/wikipedia).

Yun, Yang, Elena, Makoto, Dudley, Sean, and Alex are not wierdos!

Going back to regular-ass World Warrior, I noticed just how slow Chun-Li's spinning bird kick is. Takes FOREVER to get going. Of course it got replaced by that rising thing in future games, I think.

17:51 Nine Inch Nails Hall in the background.