Like Capcom Home Arcade, Capcom Retro Station is another expensive equipment with low amount of games, this time with Street Fighter and Megaman games and needless to say, this is like a lame way like that with an expensive gaming machine that doesn't look like a smaller arcade cabinet design along with lower amount of games and the inclusion of NON-ARCADE Megaman games.
Capcom Home Arcade has various arcade games and uses the arcade controller design although it is shaped like a Capcom logo which may seem unusual. The bigger controversy surrounding it was the Final Burn Alpha emulator used in it. That emulator is supposed to be for personal use and the team who worked on it wasn't happy about it. So what happened was that they made a new fork which is like Final Burn Alpha you know of, MINUS the offender who defended the controversial practice, saying that the emulator is licensed. Some updates later, a different emulator replaced the Final Burn Alpha although the price of the machine and the amount of games still make things questionable.
Speaking of questionable, this is a worse story for Capcom Retro Station. It's sort of like a mini-version of playing a console game on TV with the arcade controller. That method of playing has been around ever since the 80s. I happened to play the PC-Engine with the arcade controller in my childhood and that was that back then. I never used the original controller for that console for the games I played. On the Megaman side, it's a questionable choice with a mix of arcade and non-arcade Megaman games. The Street Fighter side is a complete joke like it's comparable to some Street Fighter compilation game on PS1 and Saturn that contains various revisions of Street Fighter II. Super Street Fighter II may seem like a remake to Street Fighter II with better music, voices and altered graphics but it's still Street Fighter II in general, not a different game, no matter how different it looks and sounds. The design is ridiculous like there's no telling who is that machine built for.
The Neo Geo Mini is fine with sufficient amount of games with a design that mimics the original arcade cabinet but the lack of clicky mechanism the arcade stick has may probably put people off. The upcoming Astro City Mini from Sega will have that for sure and the emulation is worked on by M2. But for Capcom Retro Station, who probably wants to buy that? Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection is already the best way to experience the Street Fighter series from Street Fighter 1-3, Alpha series included.
Like the Astro City Mini, Capcom Retro Station is getting a Japanese release sometime next month. Who knows if there will be an overseas release? Even with the western release, the amount of flaws already ruins Capcom Retro Station apart as listed below:
- Questionable choice of games on both sides
- Inclusion of non-arcade Megaman games and the lack of other Street Fighter games in the Street Fighter list
- Strange design
- Expensive price
- Low amount of games
Have five flaws like these listed above and you get one hell of an average machine.
