Fighting Force Collection

Written by Joseph Moorer on 2/5/2026 for SWI  

Unlike most of my reviews, I am not going to ask you to sit down and read to a story today. Usually I would, but I need to get right to this. I think this is what happens when someone listens to a far corner of the internet—and I refuse to let anyone think that I'm going to give any sort of sympathy here. I cannot believe that the companies involved with this collection let this happen.

Fighting Force Collection is out for everything, and it is not good. Not for the price point, not for the nostalgia, and not even good for those that love good-bad. Or bad-good? Who knows. I just want to know why this thing exists at all.

Stop reading this if you're a cult fan of the game. If you are already someone that enjoys Fighting Force, you might enjoy this collection. Just don't expect it to offer you anything new beyond a direct port of one mediocre (at best) and one godawful PlayStation 1 game. For those of you who don't know the games contained in this collection, we get Fighting Force 1 and 2.

This is not a remake, or a remaster. There are no further tweaks to the game. There are no retro fixes. No extra buttons. No mini documentaries for historical context. The only quality-of-life upgrade we get is a rewind feature, and even that is a little broken. Since next-to-nothing has been changed about these almost-30-year-old games, I'm left to review the collection itself. And it's bad. Like leaving your car out in the sun on a hot summer day, and you have leather seats. 

Maybe I should talk a little about the games here. The games were originally released in 1997 and 1999, respectively, by Eidos interactive. They were released after the success of Tomb Raider. As you start one of the first 3D beat 'em ups, you are offered four characters to choose from: Hawk, Alana, Smasher, and Mace. Don't even try to differentiate between the four. One is a big guy, one is a fast and quick female, the other is an all-around guy, and the other is an all-around gal. Do they all have different abilities? Sure. They can punch, and kick, and grab, and they can pick up items. They also have a special that costs some HP, as old school beat 'em ups do. You have a run button, and you can hit the punch or kick button to hurl your character into a bad guy and pray that you come into contact with them. All of the characters can do all the things. Fighting Force 1 is a two-player game, but why would you drag someone else into this mess?  

The more destruction you cause to the environment, the more bonus points you get when you complete a level. That means you can destroy cars, vending machines, gates, lights, vans, and sometimes other things. You can also take weapons off the walls and use them, but only for a limited time. The weapons will break or run out of ammo after about four shots. You don't know this until you test this theory out in game while enemies are piling on.

There is a button delay, and that's not fixed, because that would make the game a little easier to digest. There are no combos. You cannot do punch, punch, kick, special. You can do punch, punch, and hope for the best. You can kick people while they're down. If an enemy sneaks past you, or runs up behind you, and the camera doesn't pull away, consider your life chipped away. You're invincible when you grab someone, so use that to your advantage. 

I say all that to say that that the cheaper you are, the better. Be cheap. Pick up the melee weapons and the ranged weapons. Use all the things. Try not to use anything you have to throw, as all characters are very, very incompetent at throwing things at enemies. It's almost like they have to wind up to throw things. They can fight in the streets and get run over by motorcycles, but don't ask them to throw things. It's just a waste of time.

While you can pick up things to get more life or points, sometimes you have to also drink the drink to refill your life. I'm not knocking the game for its difficulty. It was 1997. The goal is to beat the boss and complete the level, and that's the only way to gain continues. Those continues are only to start you over with full health at the beginning of the level. Because this game came out in 1997. You can change the difficulty, but to what end? 

There is a save feature for the game, but only one per run. Which means if you lose, but your game is saved from the previous spot, you can start from the beginning of the level you gained your save file. If you start a game with another character, and you save with the new character, you overwrite the old save. So, if you got further with another character, and you just happen to start over, the only way to save is to overwrite the previous save. This is all negated by the rewind feature now in the game, and that's one of the only features in this new package. 

Now, the new collection does have a rewind feature and a quick load and save feature. This means if you get beat down, you can quick load right back to where you quick saved from with a push of a button. There are also filters in the settings if you want those old school graphics back. There is an upscaling feature that smooths all the jagged edges, but it doesn't change the game at all.

Don't even get me started on Fighting Force 2. It was released for the PlayStation and the Dreamcast, and we have the PlayStation version. This game was always terrible. This is the exact same game, with better loading times. Even the music stops and starts over like it's running off the CD. Why is this a thing? 

You would think that Fighting Force 2 would be close to Die Hard Arcade (Dynamite Deka), or even a 3D Streets of Rage, but it's not. Don't even open Fighting Force 2. Fighting Force 2 is abysmal. You can only choose one character, and it touts the game as more of a sneaking mission, similar to Metal Gear Solid, with the shooting action of Syphon Filter. Except this is neither one of those games. If you skipped it then, skip it now.

If you are thinking of picking up this collection, you're probably thinking that there's more to it. There's not. At all. It's just Fighting Force 1 and 2 with a quick load and save feature, some filters, a slight upscaling, and a rewind feature—for $19.99. Keep that money in your pocket. You will get frustrated.

I have the Switch version, and there's no game share or online play at all, so you can't even drag anyone through. I know what you're thinking. And you're right. I wouldn't have said a word if this game showed up as a PlayStation Plus selection, or even the Nintendo 64 – Nintendo Switch Online service. But trying to sell these games for $20 because a corner of the internet thought it would be a good idea is befuddling. This is a barebones port of the same game I could go pick up at the used game store right down the street from me, and I still wouldn't play it. I'll give a couple points for authenticity, but that's about it.