MANY COMPANIES HAVE MADE THEIR MARK IN THE ARCADE, BUT FEW HAVE BEEN SO INTEGRAL TO GAMING’S OLDEST SCENE AS CAPCOM. JOIN US AS WE DISCUSS A LEGACY OF SUBLIME SHOOTERS, BOISTEROUS BEAT-’EM-UPS AND OF COURSE, VERSUS FIGHTING GAMES

  WORDS BY NICK THORPE & MARTYN CARROLL

Here’s a mental exercise for you: picture your favourite arcade, any time from the late Eighties onwards. Think about the games in it. How long did it take before a Capcom game crossed your mind? We can’t imagine it was long – the company was a dominant force during the heyday of the coin-ops. You could have imagined 1942 neatly tucked into a seaside arcade, Final Fight at the swimming pool, Strider hiding in the corner of the local pub or even Capcom Vs SNK freshly installed in a gigantic projection screen cabinet. Then of course there’s Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, a game so popular that it can be said to have single-handedly revitalised the Nineties arcade scene. When you think about arcades, it’s impossible to ignore Capcom.

Capcom’s roots go back to a company called IRM Corporation, a company that was set up to develop and sell electronic gaming machines, founded in 1979 by Kenzo Tsujimoto. As a seasoned Osaka-based entrepreneur, Tsujimoto was experienced in the field as he was also the chairman of Irem Corporation, another amusement machine manufacturer that had just entered the videogames market. However, Irem was acquired in 1980 by electronics manufacturer Nanao, and within a couple of years Tsujimoto was out of favour with the new owners. In 1981, IRM became Sanbi and Japan Capsule Computer was established, providing the two words that would give Capcom its name in 1983. Capcom’s early products were mechanical games, Little League and Fever Chance, but by December of that year it had opened the Acty 24 video arcade and in May of 1984 it released its first videogame, Vulgus. This shoot-’em-up would find distribution in North America via another Osaka-based arcade company, SNK.

Before the end of 1984, Capcom would release three more games. Pirate Ship Higemaru and SonSon were both fun games, but it was the December release of 1942 that really showed the way for the company’s early years. Like Vulgus, 1942 was a vertically scrolling shoot-’em-up, but this time the theme was World War II. YouTuber and shoot-’em-up enthusiast Gmintyfresh remembers it as the first Capcom game he ever saw. “I was blown away after my first play by the difference between this and the previous shooters I had played like Space Invaders and Galaga, there was something special about the varied gameplay, fully fledged power-up system, and beautiful bold sprites which drew me in.”

» [Arcade] Vulgus showed early signs of Capcom’s key qualities, including attractive art and shoot-’em-up prowess.

Game designer Alex Trowers first encountered the game at a pub in Hambledon, and quickly became a fan. “Nowadays, I can look at it with a more designcentric critical eye and one of the things that stands out is the fact that it’s not about muscle memory,” he tells us. “There are certain patterns, sure, but they’re always modulated by your positioning so it’s never the same game twice. Also the limitation of three player shots can be gamed – getting close to a target to increase your fire rate and damage output – increasing the skill ceiling.” This depth ensured that the game had plenty of staying power in Japan, and stuck around the top ten in Game Machine magazine’s ranking of Japan’s best performing tabletop arcade games for over nine months in 1985. At the end of that year, the Famicom version of 1942 would launch Capcom into the home gaming market, where it would often extend the life of its arcade hits.