At #PAXEast, my kid had a lot of fun at the arcade area. We worked out a handicap system for Street Fighter Alpha 2: they got to take me down to 40% of my health bar at the start of the round, and then it seemed mostly fair. And they had a great time beating up Dad!
This week, I used that as an excuse to order something for my Gamecube collection: Capcom vs. SNK 2 EO. I found the cheapest Ebay listing that included a manual, and it arrived in today's post.
The Gamecube port got poor reviews due to the control scheme. I'll get to that, it's *weird*.
First off, the disc. The listing said "TESTED," but I'll admit I was skeptical when I took it out of the (very good) packaging; the disc was visibly gross, and has lots of scratches and *cracks* around the center hole. Haven't seen that before, at least not in a working disc.
Photos are after I cleaned both sides with a lint-free paper shop cloth and isopropyl alcohol.
Working! Despite the scary physical condition of the disc, my Gamecube has no trouble reading it.
I played a single round for about 30 seconds, then scrambled to find the manual to figure out what on earth was going on with these controls.
This is just wild. Attacks are mapped to the shoulder buttons. Which, on a Gamecube, are *analog,* so light/medium/hard attacks are mapped to *how hard you press the button*.
Someone at Capcom was fondly remembering the original Street Fighter arcade cabinet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_Fighter_(video_game) ), with the pressure sensor pads for attacks, and thought "MY TIME HAS COME AGAIN."
Having tried to wrap my head around this control scheme, I went back into the game and gave it a shot.
It is weird. But it's not bad? I mean, I'm terrible at these games, I bought this cheap just to give it a shot. And I can play the game like this, flailing and button mashing, and having a good time. I got through three rounds of the solo mode and lost to M. Bison, and had fun doing it.
That being said, I'm going to try the Arcade control scheme now, which looks to be a lot more normal.
Ok, Arcade control scheme makes much more sense, it's the standard Nintendo console controls for a Street Fighter game:
A -> Light Kick
B -> Medium Kick
L -> Strong Kick
X -> Light Punch
Y -> Medium Punch
R -> Strong Punch
This is good, because my Gamecube is giving me the error message at startup that it needs a new battery. Off to @iFixit !
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Nintendo+GameCube+Clock+Battery+Replacement/203682
Games That I Missed