Curated category
Video games developed in Japan
- Metal Gear Solid (1998 video game)Konami released Metal Gear Solid for the PlayStation in 1998. The game directed by Hideo Kojima required players to navigate a nuclear weapons facility…
- Capcom vs. SNK: Millennium Fight 2000Capcom vs. SNK: Millennium Fight 2000 opens its story with two powerful organizations trying to ease political tension through martial arts.
- Tekken X Street FighterTekken X Street Fighter was announced to the world on the 24th of July 2010, at the San Diego Comic-Con, and it never came out.
- Capcom Fighting Collection 2Capcom Fighting Collection 2 arrived in May 2025 as a digital and physical compilation of eight distinct arcade titles. The collection bridges the gap…
- Street Fighter EX3Street Fighter EX3 arrived in Japan on the 4th of March, 2000, not as a follow-up to anything familiar, but as a launch title for an entirely new machine…
- Capcom Fighting CollectionCapcom released a compilation containing ten arcade games in June 2022. The collection features nine fighting titles and one puzzle game originally developed…
- Final Fantasy Legend IIFinal Fantasy Legend II shipped in Japan on the 14th of December 1990, carrying a name that was, in its home country, entirely different: SaGa 2: Hihou…
- Street Fighter CollectionStreet Fighter Collection arrived in 1997 carrying a promise that its title implied: everything you loved about Street Fighter, gathered in one place.
- Capcom Fighting EvolutionCapcom Fighting Evolution arrived in arcades in 2004 carrying a premise that sounded almost too good to be true. Characters from Street Fighter II, Street…
- Street Fighter Alpha 2In February 1996, Capcom unveiled Street Fighter Zero 2 at the AOU show in Tokyo. The arcade cabinet introduced a new system called Custom Combo that…
- Ultra Street Fighter IIUltra Street Fighter II: The Final Challengers arrived on the Nintendo Switch on the 26th of May 2017, resurrecting a fight three decades old.
- Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy OriginStranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin opens not with a hero, but with a man named Jack who wants only one thing: to destroy Chaos.
- Silent Hill: The ArcadeSilent Hill: The Arcade drops six friends from Portland into one of horror's most iconic fog-drenched towns, and almost none of them make it back out in one…
- Suikoden TacticsSuikoden Tactics arrived on the PlayStation 2 in late 2005, and it carried a quiet distinction: it was the first game in the long-running Suikoden series to…
- Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade EditionSuper Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition arrived in Japanese arcades in 2010 with a question hanging over it: was this the final chapter of one of fighting…
- Final Fantasy XII: Revenant WingsSquare Enix announced Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings in September 2006. This announcement marked the beginning of a new chapter for the franchise.
- SNK vs. Capcom: The Match of the MillenniumSNK vs. Capcom: The Match of the Millennium arrived in 1999 as something that fighting game fans had argued about in arcades for years: which company's…
- Final Fantasy XV: Pocket EditionFinal Fantasy XV: Pocket Edition reached three million downloads within its first month on the market. That number turned a stripped-down mobile spinoff into…
- Mitsumete KnightMitsumete Knight, released in 1998 for the PlayStation, buries an odd detail in its story. A bomb threat happens inside a church, a moment the game leaves…
- Dissidia Final FantasyDissidia Final Fantasy arrived on the PlayStation Portable in Japan on the 18th of December 2008, and it brought with it a premise that had never been tried…
- Street Fighter II TurboCapcom released Street Fighter II Turbo: Hyper Fighting in 1992 as an enhancement kit for existing arcade cabinets. This distribution method allowed…
- Dissidia 012 Final FantasyDissidia 012 Final Fantasy arrived on the PlayStation Portable in March 2011 carrying an unusual promise: it was simultaneously a prequel and a remake of the…
- Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred HeroesYoshitaka Murayama directed the original Suikoden games while working at Konami. He left that company in 2002 just before Suikoden III arrived on shelves.
- Hyper Street Fighter IICapcom released Hyper Street Fighter II in 2003 to mark the fifteenth anniversary of the Street Fighter series. The game arrived on PlayStation 2 as a…
- Super Street Fighter II TurboIn April 1994, the arcade cabinet for Super Street Fighter II Turbo began spinning coins in Japan. Game Machine listed it as the second most successful table…
- X-Men vs. Street FighterCapcom released X-Men vs. Street Fighter in September 1996 for the CP System II arcade board. This title marked the company's third fighting game to feature…
- Dissidia Final Fantasy NTDissidia Final Fantasy NT began not on a home console but in a Japanese arcade. At the Japan Amusement Expo trade show in Chiba in February 2015, Square Enix…
- Gensō Suikoden: Tsumugareshi Hyakunen no TokiGensō Suikoden: Tsumugareshi Hyakunen no Toki dropped into Japanese game shops on the 9th of February 2012, and by the end of that first week it had sold…
- Metal Gear Solid: The Twin SnakesMetal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes came together because of a chance meeting in a Nintendo cafeteria in Japan. Denis Dyack, CEO of Silicon Knights, had just…
- SNK vs. Capcom: SVC ChaosSNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos arrived in arcades in 2003 as the dream matchup fans of two rival fighting game giants had been waiting for.
- Final Fantasy IV (2007 video game)Final Fantasy IV (2007 video game) arrived on the Nintendo DS on the 20th of December 2007 in Japan, timed precisely to the Final Fantasy series' 20th…
- Street Fighter Alpha 3Street Fighter Alpha 3 arrived in Japanese arcades during the summer of 1998. It ran on Capcom's CP System II hardware, a board that had powered previous…
- Street Fighter EX2The 1st of July 1998 issue of Game Machine declared Street Fighter EX2 the most-successful arcade game of the month in Japan.
- Street Fighter Alpha AnthologyCompleting every game in Street Fighter Alpha Anthology is the only path to its deepest title: Hyper Street Fighter Alpha.
- Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super HeroesMarvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes arrived in Japanese arcades in February 1998, and within weeks it had done something its predecessors had not: it…
- Suikoden IVSuikoden IV arrives at an unusual place in a beloved series: set roughly 150 years before the events of the original Suikoden, it asks players to forget…
- Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street FighterIn 1997, Capcom released a fighting game that introduced a mechanic players had never seen before. The Variable Assist allowed a player to summon their…
- Capcom Classics CollectionCapcom Classics Collection landed on PlayStation 2 and Xbox in 2005, offering players a vault of arcade history in a single package.
- Silent Hill 3Silent Hill 3 dropped onto PlayStation 2 shelves in May 2003, and from its first moments it placed a 17-year-old girl named Heather Mason in a nightmare she…
- Fighting LayerFighting Layer put its fighters into three dimensions, but it never made the jump from arcade cabinet to living room. Every copy ran on Namco System 12…
- Final Fantasy XIIIFinal Fantasy XIII opens in a place that should not exist: Cocoon, a massive artificial sphere floating above the surface of Gran Pulse, kept aloft by…
- Street Fighter III: 2nd ImpactStreet Fighter III: 2nd Impact landed in arcades in October 1997, and it arrived carrying a quiet distinction that no other game in Capcom's CPS3 library…
- Silent HillsSilent Hills was supposed to be the game that redefined horror. On the 12th of August 2014, a cryptic free download appeared on the PlayStation Store under…
- X-Men: Children of the Atom (video game)X-Men: Children of the Atom arrived in Japanese arcades in December 1994 carrying a technical problem that would shape every decision its makers faced.
- Final Fantasy IV: The After YearsFinal Fantasy IV: The After Years asks a question most sequels are afraid to pose: what happens seventeen years later, when the heroes have grown old and…
- Final Fantasy Mystic QuestFinal Fantasy Mystic Quest arrived in North America in 1992 with a label that few major game publishers would dare to put on a box: it was marketed as a…
- Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade ClassicsIn December 2013, Capcom announced that the digital releases of Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 were to be delisted due to the expiration of their character…
- Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VIICrisis Core: Final Fantasy VII arrived in 2007 with an unusual burden: explaining one of gaming's most beloved tragedies before it happened.
- Metal Gear (video game)Metal Gear arrived on the MSX2 home computer on the 13th of July, 1987, and almost nobody outside Japan noticed at first. It was a game about hiding.
- Final Fantasy Legend IIIFinal Fantasy Legend III arrived in Japanese stores on the 13th of December, 1991, carrying a secret: in Japan it was called SaGa 3: Jikuu no Hasha, a title…