Remember when the Capcom brand used to actually mean something in this industry?
These days Capcom comes off like a bad prescription drug commercial interrupting a game trailer. You’re suckered in with no way out to skip it; the crisis builds with only side effects to ease the pain experienced watching it unfold. In the end you’re left with a controller in your hands and mixed feelings about what the hell you just were forced to witness.
Oh, Capcom. You’ve never meant a hell of a lot to the PC platform until recently. For the most part, Windows was virtually ignored throughout your reign of console terror. A random port was as good as it ever got in your console heyday sans emulators. Now the tables have turned and you’re burning the candle at both platform ends and wondering why you can’t get a hit on either.
Could it be your lazy rebranded rerelease campaigns of vault classics over the last twenty years on every single generation console platform and PC processor chip? Maybe it’s the horrible output of classics people played out, you think? Nah, not you guys. You wouldn’t DARE keep repackaging the same old thing over and over again year after year, now would you?
Oh, Capcom. PC players have been able to catch that window seat down your memory lane of glory years through your worn out complication collection packs since forever. Your taste of Triple A title honey comes over now more like bitter laxatives on titles you’ve drilled in our heads now since their respective releases. We get it. You’re out of ideas and hit the wall.
Could it be lack of quality developers? Or is it unpaid interns lacking in inspiration from paying all their expenses to/in Japan for this awesome experience? Morphing into a one trick pony takes time. Oversaturation of pre-existing titles that alleviates you paying people to create product and justifies your lazy attitudes, not so much.
Whatever it is, come the hell out the vault.
Enough is enough. You can’t get blood from a turnip. News flash: you’ve made all the money you’re ever going to make on 1942, Devil May Cry, Mega Man, Street Fighter, and Resident Evil that is to be had. Quit while you’re ahead and hold your head down in shame.
Quit proudly boasting that your primary development plans are exclusively driven by established and/or existing properties. It’s a bad look, like Valve’s indefinite pre-production on Half-Life 3. There are already a thousand Capcom Special Editions, Reloaded, or Remixed Collection titles running around the mulberry bush.
This craze into “Remastered” editions is not going to win you any popularity contests anytime soon with the hardcore fans of your titles and is about as innovative as The Three Stooges discovering a cure for fibromyalgia.
Oh, Capcom. Nothing that has come out “remastered” has been anything to hold on the pedestal of accomplishments. Not nixing development budgets for new entries into the market so you can sandbox mod something quick, fast, and in a hurry, something the fan community does already for free, should be on the list of priorities, not options. Crate digging the most revered titles during the cartridge era and being lazy with the upgrades won’t get you any VIP street cred with E3 fanboys, either.
Case in point, DuckTales: Remastered. A classic title, a Capcom dream deferred.
There is no plausible explanation that can be given as to why this title and its sequel could NOT have been done on a single entry, considering your bundle pack history. The age of the voice actors and the short span of the game even by NES standards then should have fostered immediate attention in Product and Development to give the greenlight. Yes, the graphics improved but there were no level extras that the mod community couldn’t have done without you, which were already in motion.
Oh, Capcom. The minute you seem like you get it and start actually trying to remaster previously unreleased classics and get your head back in the game, you kick the football Charlie Brown. All the great titles that people have been waiting since childhood for their day in the sun you murder. And for what, more Street Fighter nausea? Hell, we already got Street Fighter X Tekken. Do we really need Tekken X Street Fighter? Enough, already!
What happened to Darkwing Duck: Remastered? Fans were praying to whatever Gods would listen for that one, and mostly in your site forums, and you flat out lied and said it made your vault rip list and it vanished faster than a French New Wave film. Guess it was in the way of the 124,367th Devil May Cry or Resident Evil makeover and subsequent rerelease.
I just LOVE the smell of overkill with a dash of branding on my controller. Don’t you?
Playing with fans’ emotions that truly loved those games, and play them often on emulators, should have NEVER been taken for granted, especially on the PC platform. Take a cue from the mod community as to what should be your focus of interest and which way you need to go. A Capcom Disney collection will get you far greater support in your uninspired quest of laziness than anything else in the cannon. People are far more willing to replay those than any Resident Evil because they are just fun, not critical thinking, intimidating, or scary. Just pure, unadulterated fun.
It’s hard to remember things like this when you’re frozen, hell freezes over, and Capcom remasters it.
