(AfroGamers.com) Capcom is best known for Street Fighter, Resident Evil, Dead Rising, Monster Hunter, and Mega Man–despite the company not giving it the same love as the first four. You can use any of these titles and call Capcom “The House That X Built.” As a result, it focuses on developing games with these four-and-a-half franchises while publishing others. However, Capcom has several other franchises wilting on the vine that it could update or publish that would technically be new in this gaming generation.
Here are four such franchises.
- Star Gladiator (Debut: 1996, Last Game: 1998): Star Gladiator was Capcom’s first go at the 3D fighting game which was just popping off Tekken and Virtua Fighter. If you’ve never played Star Gladiator but have played Soul Edge then think that but in space. There are aliens fighting, space samurai, and robots…somewhat similar to Tekken which has some of everything in its roster.
Star Gladiator never reached the heights of Street Fighter or even Darkstalkers in popularity but there’s a small cult following for it. Enough to develop a third game? Not unless Capcom wanted to dig deep into its vaults and bring back something super old as new again.
- Dino Crisis (Debut: 1999, Last Game: 2003): The simplest way to describe Dino Crisis is Resident Evil with dinosaurs–Jurassic Evil. Its identical in almost every way to Resident Evil from the look, the atmosphere of fear and survival, the gameplay (with that weird way of moving around), and even the same team.
There’s even a shadowy organization responsible for there being dinosaurs. Yes! S.O.R.T is basically Umbrella up here messing around with bioengineering and unleashing monsters that shouldn’t exist. Brilliant.
The thing that killed any future for this franchise was probably deciding to put it on Xbox instead of Xbox and PlayStation 2 or just
PlayStation 2. Those sales matter and Xbox just wasn’t hitting it out the park like the PS2 was or in the way it would with Xbox 360. Another thing was that the franchise moved to outer space hundreds of years into the future. Why? Who knows.
On one hand, dinosaurs being alive and in a facility is frightening enough. I’m guessing Capcom wanted to up the dial on the danger factor and ended snapping the dial off completely by throwing them all in space.
- Rival Schools (Debut: 1997, Last Game: 2000): I’m not the biggest fighting game person. I personally, I like my RPGs and strategy games. Put a few business simulations in the mix or an open-world action game. That’s more my pace. It’s been that way for years–until I got a friend’s Dreamcast and played Rival Schools.
This title was basically Capcom’s answer to Tekken, Soul Edge, and other 3D fighting games of the late 1990s. Mind you, Capcom didn’t even have to answer Namco. It’s the company that gave us the fighting game genre. It would be like Nintendo answering Sega’s taunts when it was the company that saved the U.S. console industry with Super Mario Bros. It’s unnecessary.
Capcom did it anyway and we got this cult-classic. It’s a really solid 3D fighter with some great characters and a fun, easy to follow to storyline. I mean it should be easy to follow, there’s only three games in the franchise. Which is unfortunate because this was a great game that probably would’ve found a place on the fighting game circuit.
- Final Fight (Debut: 1989, Last Game: 2006): Final Fight is one of those franchises you could possibly put up there with the Capcom’s big five since its in the same company as Streets of Rage, River City Ransom, Double Dragon, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as the furious five of beat ‘em ups. No, Battletoads isn’t allow and neither is Rival Turf–and I love Rival Turf.
It also shares company with Mega Man in that Capcom acknowledges it and will release a sequel here and there–Final Fight just gets remixes–but it will come after fans voicing displeasure. Capcom has smoothed this over by including Final Fight characters in the Street Fighter series, which is cool but at the same time: make another Final Fight.
To a degree, 2005’s Beat Down: Fists of Vengeance was FF in spirit but it was lacking something. Capcom did release one other Final Fight game in 2006 but it was similar to Beat Down and was probably supposed to be a sequel. Who knows.
Those are my three franchises Capcom should get bring back. I’m sure there will be some “Where’s Ghouls n’ Ghosts?” Was never a fan but there’s definitely a fanbase for that atrociously difficult game.
Staff Writer; M. Swift
This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.