Capcom is renowned for its fighting games, having helped lay the genre's foundation with rich mechanics and thrilling action. Recently, the company's been on a roll, rereleasing trailblazing and hard-to-come-by titles in feature-packed collections. The latest is Capcom Fighting Collection 2 ($39.99 on Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, and Xbox One), which has eight Dreamcast-era classics, including the beloved Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium 2001 and Power Stone 2. These aren't simple bare-bones ports; they feature welcome improvements like updated soundtracks, robust display settings, and enhanced training modes. Whether you're a die-hard fighting fan or game preservationist, Capcom Fighting Collection 2 offers plenty of fun and variety for the price.

What Is Capcom Fighting Collection 2?

Capcom Fighting Collection 2 is a compilation of fighting games from the early 2000s, and a convenient way to play eight titles that have been out of print for some time: Capcom vs. SNK: Millennium Fight 2000 Pro, Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium 2001, Capcom Fighting Evolution, Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper, Power Stone, Power Stone 2, Project Justice, and Plasma Sword: Nightmare of Bilstein.

(Credit: Capcom/PCMag)

Like Capcom Fighting Collection 1 and Marvel vs. Capcom: Arcade Classics, it has a comprehensive move list for each character, selectable wallpapers, filters for a classic CRT-like appearance, wide-screen display options, and original arcade cabinet marquee cards. You can even adjust different game versions, in some cases. For example, Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium 2001 (CvS2) lets you select either the original or Easy Operation/Extreme Offense (EO) versions via a simple menu tick. The most impactful difference between the pair? The EO versions lack the roll-cancel glitch. The original version had a popular, super-precise glitch that let you cancel an evasive roll into any attack, making the move invincible. It's a popular technique that made low-tier characters viable and high-tier characters beasts.

Capcom Fighting Collection 2 includes each game's original score, but many titles have alternate tracks that you can select from the menu to spice things up. For example, CvS2 includes the original pieces and new 2K25 remixes for hours of auditory elation.

2D Games: CvS1, CvS2, Capcom Fighting Evolution, and Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper

Capcom vs SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium 2001 is the collection's headline attraction. In fact, it still sees plenty of action at tournaments like EVO. Aside from the massive roster of Capcom and SNK characters, CvS2 is known for its Groove system that alters how the characters play. The selectable Grooves determine meter management, special mechanics, and movement options. For example, P-Groove gives your character a parry, while S-Groove requires you to manually charge your meter for supers. These add much mechanical depth, making CvS2 a deep, intense fighting game.

The collection has many tools to help you master CvS2's complexities, such as visible hitboxes in training mode (all 2D fighting games in this collection have this option) and the various settings for input displays and damage numbers. These tools won't make you a fighting game prodigy overnight, but they offer much-needed insight.

(Credit: Capcom/PCMag)

Capcom vs SNK: Millennium Fight 2000 Pro (CvS1) is an intriguing fighting game in its own right. As CvS2's predecessor, its systems aren’t quite as fleshed out. The most notable difference? There are only two Grooves, unlike CvS2's six. With the Capcom Groove, you fill the three-tier super meter by attacking. With the SNK Groove, you manually charge the single meter. When filled, it gives you a damage boost plus unlimited level 1 supers when you're low in health.

CvS1 also has a curious ratio system for team-building. Characters are assigned a ratio value from 1 to 4 based on their strength, and you must create teams that fill all four ratio slots. This means you can have teams of up to four ratio-one fighters, or a team with a single ratio-four character. I'm not a big fan of this system, as it limits who you play with and demands a bit of forethought. Nonetheless, the game is balanced around this mechanic, and I enjoyed experimenting with the systems.

(Credit: Capcom/PCMag)

Capcom Fighting Evolution is the weakest 2D fighting game in the collection. Despite launching three years after Capcom vs SNK 2, Evolution’s mechanics feel regressive by comparison. The biggest issue is that characters have mechanics based on their origin franchise. For example, Street Fighter III characters can parry, while Street Fighter Alpha characters can alpha-counter. Unlike CvS2’s Groove system, these abilities are not universally accessible or interchangeable. This makes some characters and their respective mechanics inherently more powerful than others.

To top it off, most backgrounds are surprisingly bland and blurry. You battle opponents on a pixelated background with very limited, rudimentary moving elements, which give the game an especially cheap feel. Three-dimensional backgrounds don’t look any better, often looking like a mishmash of arbitrary polygons shoddily pasted into a scene. It just looks lazy. I admit I enjoyed experimenting with Capcom Fighting Evolution, but only from a scholarly perspective: like dissecting a frog in biology class. This version of Evolution doesn’t do much to improve the original game, aside from adding a setting to make it easier to play as the secret boss characters Shin Akuma and Pyron.

Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper is this collection's third 2D fighting game. Upper is considered controversial due to several changes, the largest being the removal of the crouch-canceling glitch. Like roll canceling in CvS2, this move offered great combo potential. The good news is that the version in this collection lets you enable crouch-canceling as a menu option, making it the game's definitive version. Crouch-canceling is unavailable in ranked online matches, but you can toggle it in unranked online lobbies.

3D Games: Plasma Sword, Power Stone, Power Stone 2, and Project Justice

(Credit: Capcom/PCMag)

Plasma Sword: Nightmare of Bilstein is a fascinating 3D fighting game that initially gave me Soul Blade vibes. After spending some time with the weapons-based fighter, it is abundantly apparent that Plasma Sword is a different beast entirely. Movement and fighting occur on a 2D plane, but you can sidestep to evade attacks and reposition like in Soul Calibur or Tekken.

It also features a prominent power-up system with entirely unorthodox mechanics compared with most fighters. Some characters, like Hayato, receive a beefy sword enhancement that increases their attack range and power. Others are much wackier. Kaede forces a foe into a whack-a-mole mini-game that tasks you with hitting the correct button prompts while the opposition attempts to evade with prompts of their own. The movement is impressively responsive and snappy, and the designs, though dated compared with modern graphical fidelity, look great thanks to the art style and flashy effects. I just wish its predecessor, Star Gladiator, was included in the bundle.

Power Stone is an energetic 3D fighting game that walks the line between fighting game and party game. Unlike its sequel, it's a strictly one-versus-one affair. You choose from 10 playable characters, select a stage, and smack down your opponent with punches, kicks, and whatever hazards and weapons the game spawns on the map. The camera is pulled in a bit closer than in the sequel, which makes the action feel tighter and less hectic than the four-player shenanigans introduced in Power Stone 2.

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed fighting and learning each character’s combos in this game. Despite being smaller, Power Stone feels more focused than its sequel, which leaned more heavily into its party game elements.

Power Stone 2 is just as fun and addictive as I remember on the Dreamcast. The 3D stages are easy to maneuver once you come to grips with the isometric perspective, and the many pick-ups and weapons make it wonderful chaotic. My main criticism is its withdrawn camera, which is set too far away from the action in most stages.

(Credit: Capcom/PCMag)

Project Justice is another headliner game in this collection. This iconic, tag-based 3D fighting game is the sequel to Rival Schools, which isn't included in this collection. Project Justice has a larger roster, three versus three tag matches (compared with Rival Schools' two versus two bouts), and team-up moves for wild special attacks.

Thanks to the game's high school theme, Project Justice has a wonderful sense of humor, so expect to get stomped by delinquents, bludgeoned by baseball players, or beaned with volleyballs as you duke it out with students and faculty. It also has a meaty story mode with branching plots, giving you a great single-player experience.

It's also the most strictly two-dimensional of the 3D fighting games in the collection, playing much more like a traditional 2D fighter despite the polygonal models and environments.

Required Specs and Performance

To play Capcom Fighting Collection 2 on a PC, you need a rig with at least a Windows 10 operating system, an AMD FX-8300 or Intel Core i5-4460 CPU, an AMD Radeon R9 290x or Nvidia GeForce GTX 760 GPU, 4GB of RAM, and 4GB of storage. The recommended system requirements include anything better than an AMD FX-8300 or Intel Core i5-4460 CPU, AMD Radeon RX 480 or Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 GPU, and the aforementioned RAM and storage.

My test PC, outfitted with an AMD Ryzen 5 3600 processor, Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 GPU, and 16GB of RAM, ran Capcom Fighting Collection 2 at 60 frames per second. I experienced no crashing, frame drops, or stuttering in my tests.

Capcom Fighting Collection 2 supports keyboard, mouse, and gamepad controls. It's Steam Deck verified and runs smoothly. 

Good Netcode, No Crossplay

The collection has great online multiplayer fighting. You can enter ranked matches to test your mettle against the best players worldwide, or simply enjoy casual matches. I played these games casually online and noticed no issues thanks to the smooth rollback netcode.

The only real disappointment is the lack of cross-platform play. If you want to play with friends, the crew must decide on the preferred platform. This is a bummer because Capcom's recent releases, such as Monster Hunter Wilds and Street Fighter 6, feature crossplay.