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This article was published on October 18, 2019

Capcom wants to revive dead titles. Gamers have some suggestions


Capcom wants to revive dead titles. Gamers have some suggestions

Capcom might be looking to revive some of the older franchises it hasn’t touched in a while. Gamers are happy to give them ideas because they’re nothing if not wildly nostagic — even if some of these franchises have gone decades without signs of life.

The company’s annual report describes Capcom’s success with recent franchise entries like Devil May Cry 5, Resident Evil 2 Remake, and Monster Hunter World. One of its strategies for maintaining this prosperity is to “awaken dormant intellectual properties,” which kind of makes them sound like eldritch gods.

Gamers wasted no time giving them ideas. I don’t think I’ve seen this level of nostalgia for Capcom titles in… ever. But now that it seems likely the company will be gauging public interests in its long-dead titles, many are coming forward to praise their old favorites. This brings back memories of the 2017 Activision earnings call when company execs professed shock at just how many gamers were eager for the re-release of Crash Bandicoot — the moment when I realized that it’s the gamers with long memories, not avaricious publisher, who won’t allow any decent game to die no matter how old it is.

The top contender, by my count, seems to be Dino Crisis. The last game in this series was released in 2003 — 16 years ago — and yet gamers want to see it return. And I can see why: the original game made dinosaurs scary in the same way that Resident Evil did for zombies. I can see a modern remake using the same atmospheric techniques as the Resident Evil 2 remake. I could really use a game in which the mindless, ravenous enemy hordes aren’t zombies, for once.

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Another popular choice is Darkstalkers, a 2D fighting game series. While Capcom has always thrown its weight behind its tentpole fighting series, Street Fighter, this series was fairly well-received at the time. It’s remained popular enough that Capcom included at least two Darkstalkers characters in each entry of its Marvel vs Capcom series, including MvC: Infinite, the most recent game released in 2017. That’s probably why the series has remained in the public conscience despite the last main entry in the series coming out on the original PlayStation in 1998.

Personally, I kind of want to see the return of God Hand, the last hurrah of Clover Studios. It’s a completely bonkers beat-em-up in which a dude beats up a fat disco Elvis, five short Power Rangers, and a gorilla luchador in order to defeat Satan — and even that’s not doing it justice. Think of it as the more insane brother of Dead Rising, only directed by Shinji Mikami, the same person who gave us Resident Evil, Dino Crisis, and The Evil Within. Like I said… bonkers.

Other contenders include Breath of Fire (my boyfriend, a longtime BoF fan, gave me the biggest shit-eating grin when I mentioned this), Mega Man Legends, Viewtiful Joe, and probably a lot more the comments will remind me of.

Also, this may be unrelated, but Hideki Kamiya, (former Capcom designer and the man behind Bayonetta and Devil May Cry) just teased the return of another Capcom IP. Specifically, he appeared in a video on Twitter with designer Ikumi Nakamura and said “Okami is going to be back.” Capcom, which owns the rights to the deliriously beautiful action game, was tagged in the tweet. Whether this is a promise or a plea from the original developer is anyone’s guess.

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