Capcom Fighting All Stars, the fighting game that never was. A reprint from 1UP / Capcom-Unity.

Since I've been on a fighting game kick I've decided to keep things rolling along by looking at a game that never got published. The title was Capcom Fighting All Stars: Code Holder (CFAS).

The 2003 title was an early exercise by Capcom in trying the crossover experience with the 3D fighting game featuring their own cast. The game tested poorly while it was being developed and the producer left Capcom to pursue other projects. The game served as an example of the errors with early 3D fighting game attempts from Capcom. As I had mentioned on previous blogs, the 3D figures could appear stiff and robotic, especially when they were programmed by studios that had more experience in 2D. Characters from early SNK and Capcom 3D fighters appeared boxy and lacked the fluidity of characters from Sega or Namco 3D titles. Despite not being well know there was actually a lot of information and material regarding CFAS. First off the cast was made up of Capcom veteran fighting game characters.

There were representatives of the major fighting games including Alex from Street Fighter III, Ryu from every numbered SF game and Chun-Li from SF II.

Charlie Nash from SF Alpha / Zero was in as were Rival School heroes Batsu and Akira.

Mike Haggar and Poison from the Final Fight series appeared because the game was set in Metro City. Strider was added to fill the cool character quota.

The title was interesting for a number of reasons. This was the first 3D fighting game featuring Street Fighter characters that was not produced by ARIKA. It would be five years after this title was cancelled before SF IV would be published.

The game was also interesting because the game was heavily integrated into a dramatic story, featuring three new characters that Capcom had meant to be the next generation of fighting game archetypes.

The three new characters were stylistically more like the designs that would have been used in a King of Fighters game rather than a SF title. There was D.D. whose code was Ogre, Rook (Luke) whose code was Fallen Angel and the blonde girl Ingrid whose code was Isis. Each of the three new characters was assigned a code that worked itself into the plot.

There was a villain nicknamed Death. The only known art of the figure is actually a silhouette of a man with long hair and a long coat on the information pamphlet sent out to arcade owners. 2022 EDIT: In 2017 Capcom dug up some rare art, and actually gave us a look at the boss.

This Death character had planted an explosive device somewhere in Metro City dubbed the Laughter Bomb. Players had less than a day to find and defuse the bomb with the help of the code holders. The plot was very esoteric, again, not unlike something that would have been used in a KOF game.

The designers went overboard with the details. Every code holder had their own iconography and logos including Death. Why these were important was beyond me. None of the classic Capcom characters were given icons as well.

The designers even made the Player-2 costumes very distinct. They did this for all of the characters in the game, not solely the code holders.

Some of the costume choices and colors made sense, but Strider without his trademark red mask? That was sacrilegious! I was surprised that the owners of the design signed off on this.

The game did seem to have a faster pace than earlier 3D titles.

Capcom did develop a new control element for the game. Dubbed the "Dramatic Counter" it was a way for players to engage in a sort of live parry.

The parry system allowed players to block strikes once they had been initiated in SF III. The dramatic counter was different in that players could use the joystick to dodge and attack and then respond with a strike without losing health. Dodging attacks was nothing new in a fighting game however the dramatic counter allowed players that were fast enough to counter, dodge and counter a long string of attacks. In the preview footage a fight between Ryu and D.D. was shown to have seven consecutive Dramatic Counters, then dubbed "Dramatic Combo" because neither player could easily get an attack in.

Whether the mechanic was intuitive, worked with the control scheme improved or ruined the feel of the game was unknown. In the heat of a battle only top-level players could hope to make use of the mechanic, not unlike those that became adept at parrying in SF III.

The next item that the game exploited were new supers and unblockable attacks, something that was carried over into SF IV. Ryu's "Fist of the Wind" for example appeared in CFAS first.

This move was inspired originally in the Ryu Final manga.

The game was eventually scrapped by Capcom. From its ashes Yoshinori Ono was tagged to put together Capcom Fighting Jam. A sprite-based title featuring more cameos than Fighting All-Stars.

As you may know Yoshinori was coming off of a cancelled War of the Grail when this project was assigned to him. After which he went on to push for the creation of Street Fighter IV. So if you ever wonder why SF IV looks or plays a certain way, just remember that the road leading up to it was paved with two cancelled arcade fighters and one sub-par fighter.

What was more interesting than a cancelled 3D fighting game by Capcom would be one developed by Sammy which was cancelled about a year later, it paralleled CFAS in a few ways. The next blog will explore this game. If you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!