Hello Shoryuken! This is my first proper thread here and until now I’ve just been lurking, posting replies every few days. Since I’m new, I’d like to apologize in advance if there’s a dedicated “Street Fighter General” forum that I didn’t notice. If it’s possible to move threads here to a more appropriate location, then that would be nice. I was thinking of posting it in one of the SF4 forums, but since the collection has much more than just that game, I felt that none of the dedicated game forums were appropriate, so I’m posting this here. Anyway…
Just this Tuesday was the release of the (AWESOME) Street Fighter 25th Anniversary Collectors Set for about $150. I’m sure that most of you have heard of it by now, but if you haven’t then I’ll just link you to this Amazon product listing, as well as this video:
[media=youtube]6gCIDPp9tHM[/media]
Not only that, but the PS3 version also includes several digital bonuses as well, including every Street Fighter Alpha for PS1 and even the PSP version, Alpha 3 MAX. I got it with release date shipping and I’ve been playing with it non-stop for these past few days, so I’d like to share my impressions with you all. Here we go:
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The art book is fantastic. It’s rather short and it’s nothing you can’t get online, but there’s this very personal feel that it has that you can’t get with a computer screen. The art is all fan-made and ranges from absolutely gorgeous to generally hilarious. My favorite one, though, has to be a picture of Chun-Li making a 25th Anniversary cake, utilizing her “lightning eggs”, “spinning bird mix”, and “kikoven”. Teehee.
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The 11 CDs are surprisingly comprehensive. It includes SF1, SSF2T, SFA3, SF3TS, SSF4AE, and SFXT soundtracks on the first 9 discs with the last two being some great fan remixes. I’ve only listened to the first remix disc so far, but from what I’ve heard, it ranges from brilliant to “eh okay”. The brilliant parts definitely outshine some of the worse songs on the disc, however, and I’m very glad to own it. The first track and the 8-bit “Juri’s Theme” remix in particular are my favorites. The other soundtracks are also surprisingly comprehensive, but in the case of SSF4, they had to cut out a few of the songs in order to fit all of the characters and most of the stages in, but it’s nothing that would be terribly missed.
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The included Blu-ray discs are great, but not totally exceptional. My favorite thing about them has to be just how much content fits on one disc; on the second disc, for example, you get both Street Fighter IV animations as well as the entire American “Street Fighter” TV series (YES! YES!). The fact that they fit all of that on one Blu-ray really shows both how great the format is and how much Capcom cared about keeping things tidy in this collection. The first disc includes the SF2 animated movie as well as a documentary. I thought that the documentary would be about the history of Street Fighter more than the community, but it ended up being something rather unique. It was about how Street Fighter is important in the lives of its hardcore fans as well as the other way around. It had collectors, pro players, tourney organizers, and even Seth Killian give interviews about Street Fighter. One of the interviewees even found the love of his life through cosplay, which I thought was adorable.
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Games games games! The big part of the box! I already had SSF4AE (my favorite in the series so far) and SSF2THD, so the only new games I got were SFXT, SF3TSO, and the various Alpha games. To be completely honest, I have never played any of these games before, so I had no idea what to expect. After trying SFA3 MAX on my PSP for a little bit, I do quite like it. It feels a lot like SF2 but with more “bang” to it, if that makes sense. SF3, though, I’m honestly rather alienated by. I can see why so many people call it the game that kinda stopped the series’ momentum. It’s not bad at all and I really do like it, but the skill cap is, indeed, very high It’s well-made for sure and it has some very interesting mechanics (I especially love parrying) but the requirements to actually be good at the game, relative to SF2/4, are a little too high for my tastes at the moment.
As for SFXT, I’m actually obsessed with it now. It won’t be replacing SSF4AE as my favorite any time soon, but it has nearly everything that I loved about it and then some. Since the package includes all of the bonus characters and costumes for every game, I couldn’t help but not be upset about Capcom “nickel-and-dime-ing” the players of this game, what with charging for so much that is already finished on the disc. Characters that I loved in SF4 get even more combo potential in SFXT, the Tekken characters are very, very interesting and well-done, the gems in the game are actually very well-balanced to the point where I don’t even notice them at all while playing, trials are (almost) as great as they were in SSF4 (making it very easy to learn a new character’s strengths and combos), and the atmosphere is, while very brown, absolutely chaotic. I really hope that this game gets more players because it’s very underrated IMO.
- The Ryu light-up statue is pretty neat as a decoration. It even has the SF 25th Anniversary logo underneath him, which is a nice touch. When it lights up it looks especially neat, though it won’t win any awards. As for his belt, I really don’t know what to do with it. It’s cool for cosplaying, for sure, but it looks like it’d be a better decoration.
Anyway, I absolutely think that this was worth the money I paid for it. Even though I’m relatively new to the competitive Street Fighter scene, I think this is an absolutely invaluable box set for someone who is a fan and wants to get as much of the series as they can in one grab. This is especially great for tourney operators as well! Being able to pick out the definitive version of nearly any game in the series on a whim (“definitive” meaning the best one you can get on a console) makes competitive play much easier to organize, for sure. I’m planning on organizing a SFxT doubles tourney soon at a local monthly gaming event, which I’m now able to do easily thanks to both the included game and the DLC!
So, did anyone else pick up the set? What did you think of it?
PS: Just in case anyone’s curious, my current SFXT team is Juri and Alisa. Alisa doesn’t even feel like she belongs in Tekken, to be honest; she’s absolutely crazy and I love her. Her swap costume is just Juri’s outfit, so I can have two differently-performing Juris on my team at once! 