Preview: Capcom's Fighting Game Crossovers Will Take You for a Ride in 2024

Capcom has always been one for a crossover battle, but the stars have now aligned in such a way that Capcom fighting games are crossover-central for the rest of 2024. We just had the re-release of SNK vs Capcom: SVC Chaos, and now SNK poster boy Terry Bogard is making his way over to the Street Fighter 6 roster in September (with Fatal Fury alumni Mai Shiranui coming next year). We went hands-on with Terry Bogard at Gamescom, and he’s shaping up to inject some life into Street Fighter 6’s sometimes underwhelming DLC offerings.

We were sold on Terry’s inclusion from the moment the reveal trailer dropped, but before even booting into a match, his appearance in the game sparks joy. Capcom has included so many nods to SNK within Terry’s presentation. His character select screen animation has him playing on a Neo Geo MVS machine, Andy and Joe appear to cheer him on during his walkout if you fight on the new Pao Pao Cafe 6 stage, and his intro cutscene even changes up based on whether you’re using his Fatal Fury or Garou: Mark of the Wolves costume. We're also treated to a brand new rendition of Terry's classic banger, Kurikinton, from the Capcom sound team.

However, from what we could see, there’s no special animation when fighting Ken, meaning their Capcom vs SNK rivalry is dormant – at least in this mode. We weren’t able to check out Terry in World Tour or Arcade mode, so we’re sure there’s even more SNK reverence to go around.

As for the man himself, he plays like a dream. All of his moves are included from both his Fatal Fury and Garou movesets, and he’s a fast-paced, hard-hitting brawler. Terry’s strength so far lies in his ridiculous amounts of target combos (which is where the Power Dunk resides). Plus, for those of you who are too scrubby to pull off SNK’s pretzel motions (just like the person writing this), thankfully Capcom has given Terry standard quarter circle and dragon punch motions.

The other major facet of Terry's moveset is the variations on his special and super moves. A quarter-circle-forward punch is how you throw out the Power Wave, but – depending on the button you press – you can throw out a Round Wave instead. Meanwhile, his Power Geyser super allows you to throw out a second and third blast by spending some drive gauge and a second super meter respectively. Capcom has done a great job making Terry feel wholly unique when coming over to Street Fighter.

We only had about 30 minutes of an hour-long session to check out the hungry wolf, but he’s likely to become a new main once he launches in September. And he’s probably going to become a pain in the ass online if our attempts to fight a level 7 CPU Terry as Zangief are any indication.

However, the other half-hour of our session was dedicated to another classic fighting game crossover. We went hands-on with Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics for the remaining time. We had access to five of the seven included games (The Punisher and Marvel Super Heroes were unavailable).

Those of you who played 2022’s Capcom Fighting Collection will know almost exactly what to expect from this release: a neat little collection of titles with some options retrofitted into the arcade roms, such as training, hitboxes, and a quick save feature. However, those of you who have played any of these games will know of the copious amount of flashing on the screen. Mercifully, that is one of the options available to toggle off, which will thankfully make these games accessible to people with sensitivity to flashing lights. Plus, you’re finally able to play as Cyber Akuma in Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter, which finally grants access to the daftest character re-design in the Street Fighter series.

There’s also a bunch of options for those hardcore Capcom nerds (like us). There’s an in-depth museum mode that we sadly weren’t able to access, but – based on Capcom Fighting Collection – it’s sure to be a good one. However, even the game options have some nice extras. You can toggle on the arcade boot menus when opening a game and even look at the arcade marquee cards from the pause menu. Plus you can select the English or Japanese versions at your leisure, and yes, Norimaro is still in this collection.

First off, we jumped into Marvel vs Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes, our favourite (and the best) game in the collection, and it sure feels like that game. This feeling continued, as – from what we played – we couldn’t notice anything weird about any of the versions included. For a series that’s been dormant for so long, even a half-assed collection that simply gave us access to arcade-perfect versions of these classics would have sufficed, but thankfully Capcom seems to be cooking up yet another great fighting game collection. Let's just hope it leads to a proper Marvel vs Capcom 4 down the line.

How are you feeling about Terry Bogard in Street Fighter 6 and another upcoming classic fighting collection? Share your thoughts in the comments below.