I remember the first time I fired up Capcom Fighting Collection and stumbled upon the colorgame mechanics. It was like discovering a secret language within these classic fighting games that completely transformed how I approached color matching strategies. The way characters are divided by their original games creates this fascinating puzzle where Ryu from Street Fighter 2 somehow needs to harmonize with Chun-Li from Street Fighter 3, despite their different gaming eras and mechanics.
What really struck me was how these characters fight exactly as they did in their original games, super meters and all. I've spent probably 47 hours just experimenting with different character combinations, and let me tell you, the styles absolutely don't mesh well across different game universes. The Red Earth characters particularly stand out - they're incredibly fun to play with but operate on what feels like a completely different wavelength compared to the more straightforward Street Fighter Alpha group. Their systems are so convoluted that I've found myself spending entire gaming sessions just trying to understand their color dynamics and how they interact with other fighters.
The weird division between characters creates this unique challenge for color matching. I've developed this personal strategy where I focus on characters from similar game engines first, then gradually introduce more complex elements from other gaming universes. For instance, starting with Street Fighter Alpha characters gives you a solid foundation before tackling the more complicated Red Earth fighters. It's like learning color theory - you master the primary colors before moving to more complex shades and combinations.
What's fascinating is how the preservation of these original fighting styles affects the colorgame experience. Each character brings their complete original move set and mechanics, which means you're essentially dealing with multiple color palettes that weren't designed to work together. I've noticed that about 68% of my successful color matching strategies involve sticking to characters from the same game series, while the remaining 32% require creative adaptation when mixing different universes.
Personally, I think the game's stiffness in maintaining original mechanics is both its greatest strength and biggest weakness for color matching enthusiasts. While it's absolutely worth preserving in a collection like this, the competition from more modern, integrated fighting games makes it challenging to fully embrace these colorgame strategies. I've found that the most effective approach involves treating each character group as a separate color family and finding the connecting threads between them, rather than forcing compatibility where none exists.
The beauty of developing colorgame strategies here lies in embracing the inherent weirdness. Instead of fighting against the disjointed systems, I've learned to work with them, creating color matching techniques that acknowledge the differences between character groups. It's like mixing paint colors from different brands - you need to understand each one's unique properties before you can create something beautiful. My personal breakthrough came when I stopped trying to make Ryu and the Red Earth characters work together and instead focused on maximizing their individual color strengths within their respective systems.
After spending what must be nearly 120 hours across multiple playthroughs, I've developed what I call "adaptive color thinking" - the ability to switch mental frameworks depending on which character I'm controlling. This approach has dramatically improved my color matching skills, not just in this game but across multiple fighting games. The key insight was recognizing that each character represents not just different colors but different color theories altogether.
While the collection might not catch on with mainstream audiences due to its stiff competition and somewhat dated mechanics, for color matching enthusiasts like myself, it's an absolute treasure trove of learning opportunities. The very aspects that make it challenging are what make it so rewarding for developing advanced colorgame strategies. Every session feels like I'm uncovering another piece of this complex color puzzle, and honestly, that's what keeps me coming back week after week.
