Curated playlist

Arcade video games

Capcom vs. SNK: Millennium Fight 2000Leon S. Kennedy and Mega Man were meant to be playable in Capcom vs. SNK. Both were cut to keep a fighting-game roster.
Capcom Fighting EvolutionCapcom Fighting Evolution was built from a cancelled 3D fighting game. It salvaged Capcom Fighting All-Stars.
Street Fighter Alpha 2Street Fighter Alpha 2 was Japan's top arcade game of 1996. It arrived less than a year after the first Alpha.
Silent Hill: The ArcadeSilent Hill: The Arcade turns the horror series into a light-gun shooter. Players blast through the fog on a fixed rail.
Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade EditionIn April 2012, Capcom said Arcade Edition would be the last Street Fighter IV. Ultra Street Fighter IV arrived in 2014.
Street Fighter: The Movie (arcade game)Street Fighter: The Movie was an arcade game based on a film based on a game. Critics widely panned the 1995 release.
Street Fighter II TurboStreet Fighter II Turbo reached arcades in 1992 as an upgrade kit.
Hyper Street Fighter IIHyper Street Fighter II, released by Capcom in 2003 for the PlayStation 2, contains only 17 unique characters. Yet those fighters appear in 65 different versions, each one carried over from an earlier arcade game. That number turns a…
Super Street Fighter II TurboIn Japan, no arcade game earned more in 1994 than Super Street Fighter II Turbo. Capcom built it for arcade cabinets as the fifth installment in the Street Fighter II sub-series, following Super Street Fighter II from 1993. Oddly, it did…
X-Men vs. Street FighterX-Men vs. Street Fighter gave each player two fighters instead of one. Capcom's 1996 arcade game used a tag system.
Dissidia Final Fantasy NTDissidia Final Fantasy NT began in a Japanese arcade, not on a home console.
SNK vs. Capcom: SVC ChaosTwo fighters born in SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos later joined other games. Violent Ken and Serious Mr. Karate outlived it.
Street Fighter Alpha 3Thirty-nine fighters. That is how large the playable cast of Street Fighter Alpha 3 grew on its biggest portable edition. The game itself began in 1998 as a Capcom arcade title. It was the third and final installment of the Street Fighter…
Street Fighter EX2Street Fighter EX2 let players chain basic and special moves into Excel Combos.
Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super HeroesMarvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes let Mega Man fight Marvel heroes. It was a first for the series.
Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street FighterMarvel kept a comedian's fighter out of Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter abroad for over two decades.
Fighting LayerFighting Layer let fighters step sideways, which Street Fighter EX never allowed.
Street Fighter III: 2nd ImpactStreet Fighter III: 2nd Impact was the only Capcom CPS3 game with a widescreen feature.
X-Men: Children of the Atom (video game)Capcom's X-Men arcade game hides Akuma because its Marvel contract required a Street Fighter character.
Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1985 video game)The Empire Strikes Back arcade game was sold as an upgrade kit, which limited its reach.
Street Fighter II: Champion EditionStreet Fighter II: Champion Edition let players become the bosses. The four final opponents became playable in 1992.
Super Gem Fighter Mini MixIn Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix, Ken searches for a woman to have tea with.
Capcom vs. SNK 2Capcom vs. SNK 2 may be the first game with online play between rival consoles. This worked only in Japan.
Mortal Kombat (1992 video game)Mortal Kombat, the 1992 arcade fighting game from Midway, spent six months of its development without a name. Co-creator Ed Boon later said that nobody could come up with a name "nobody didn't hate." The rejected candidates included…
Street Fighter AlphaStreet Fighter Alpha was built for two different arcade boards at once. Capcom had leftover stocks of both.
Super Mario Bros.Super Mario Bros., Nintendo's 1985 platform game, had only about 20 bytes of cartridge space left once its music was added. Shigeru Miyamoto spent them on a small crown. The crown appears beside the life counter, and only for players who…
Arcade video gameArcade video games trace back to pinball tables without flippers. Some places banned pinball into the 1970s.
Star Wars (1983 video game)In June 1985, Flavio Tozzi, Dave Roberts and Mike Ohren took turns at one Star Wars arcade machine for five days, two hours and 26 minutes. They did it all on a single credit. Their combined score reached 1,000,000,012 points, and Computer…
Street Fighter IIIStreet Fighter III stayed hand-drawn while rivals moved to 3D. Capcom built a new arcade board for its 2D art.
Street Fighter III: 3rd StrikeStreet Fighter III: 3rd Strike sold modestly in 1999, yet IGN later named it the greatest fighting game ever made.
Super Street Fighter IISuper Street Fighter II let eight players compete in one tournament across four linked arcade cabinets.
Tekken 3Tekken 3, a fighting game from Namco, sold more than one million copies in Japan on the day it reached the PlayStation. Few games begin their life at home with a number like that. Behind it lies a story that starts in the arcade, runs…
Pac-ManPac-Man was first called Puck Man, until executives feared vandals would change the P to an F.
Street Fighter IIStreet Fighter II's combos began as a bug that the team chose to keep. It appeared in the car-smashing bonus stage.
Fighting EX LayerFighting EX Layer began as an April Fools' Day 2017 video of an unnamed prototype. Fans liked it.
Final Fight (video game)Final Fight, Capcom's arcade brawler, began as Street Fighter '89. Operators said the name was misleading.
Space InvadersSpace Invaders sped up as aliens vanished by accident, and its designer kept the quirk.
Dead or Alive (franchise)A programmer's bet with his bosses launched the Dead or Alive fighting games.
Street Fighter 6Street Fighter 6 sold more than one million units within five days of going on sale. Capcom both developed and published the 2023 fighting game, and it counts as the seventh main entry in the Street Fighter franchise. That early number…
TetrisTetris holds a strange record among video games. It has appeared on at least 70 platforms, more than any other game. Guinness World Records also counts roughly 220 official versions, each with its own music and images. The puzzle was…
PongPong, the arcade game Atari launched in 1972, once stopped working in a bar for a nearly comic reason. The owner reported technical trouble, and engineer Allan Alcorn came to repair the prototype he had built. He opened the cabinet…