Capcom Arcade Stadium review: Worth every token

Title: Capcom Arcade Stadium
Developer: Capcom
Publishers: Capcom
Platforms: Nintendo Switch (reviewed)
Release Date: February 17, 2021

The recent Nintendo Direct was huge. It featured over 30 announcements, with one of those being Capcom Arcade Stadium for the Nintendo Switch.

Capcom Arcade Stadium is a collection of 32 old-school Capcom arcade games to choose from. Everything from well-known titles like 1942 and Street Fighter II to lesser-known gems like Mega Twins and Section Z. Here’s a quick look at all of the titles available.

Downloading the client itself is free but the games each cost a little bit. 1943 did come with it for free and if you download the game before February 25, you can also get the original Ghosts ‘n Goblins for free as well. The games themselves can be bought individually for $2 each, a 10 pack for $15, or my personal preference, every damn one of them for $40.

Each game comes with a treasure trove of options. You can change what kind of cabinet the game is stored in and as you play, you unlock more cabinet types.

When you actually play the game, you can choose to make the game either full screen or in a virtual arcade format where you’re just playing on the curved screen in front of you. In handheld on the Switch, I liked full screen. But I got a lot of enjoyment on standing close to my TV and playing it in cabinet mode, especially as I can the demo modes playing on the machines nearby.

You can also adjust various settings like picture type, if you want a smoothed out image, the original pixelation or even scanlines and a screen curve. You can adjust the screen to turn it 90 degrees if you want to play 19XX but would rather it play like a side scroller.

Best of all, a lot of these games also come with both the English AND Japanese ROMs, so you can switch back and forth if you prefer one mode over the other. You can even map an extra button or two out if you want to adjust the speed of the game for some of the nastier parts.

If you love the old Capcom arcade games, there’s so much to play here. I do wish there was more to choose from though or at least a hint from Capcom that they’ll be adding more games. Darkstalkers, Black Tiger and the Dungeons & Dragons games are among many that are painfully absent. But beyond longing for the ones I didn’t get, I have plenty of great titles to spend time with.

Plus, they keep you coming back with various high-score tournaments as well. Online high-score boards and timed runs allow you to show off your abilities and rack up more and more overall arcade points which allow you to unlock newer features. So there’s still plenty to do and plenty of reasons to come back.

A copy of this game was provided to App Trigger for the purpose of this review. All scores are ranked out of 10, with .5 increments. Click here to learn more about our Review Policy.