Breakers Collection Review: Struggling To Stand Out

These rereleases keep getting weirder and weirder. We seem to live in an era where every game ever made needs to be re-released. While from a preservationist standpoint, I love to see it, I do sometimes find myself wondering about the business case for bringing these games back. Breakers Collection is a recent example that has left me scratching my head. Most players will have never heard of Breakers and its sort of sequel Breakers Revenge, a pair of fighting games released in the late 90s for the Neo Geo, which never saw wide release outside of the arcades. Few were calling for them to come back. Yet here they are, as another fighting game collection for modern systems.

Players unfamiliar with these games may be put off by the name Breakers Collection as well. While the name isn’t technically untrue, it does feel a bit misleading. Are two games a collection? I suppose, but only barely, and the case gets worse when taking into account that Breakers Revenge, the supposed second game in this series, is barely a new game at all. Still, the most important question is how much fun can be had with these titles.

Fun To Be Had

The short answer is some. Breakers and Breakers Revenge are solid enough fighting games, clearly heavily inspired by the Street Fighter Alpha series, bringing a different feel than any other Neo Geo fighting game of the same period. Whether we’re talking about pacing, feel, or even visual style, it’s clear that the team as Visco were big fans of Capcom’s fighting games at the time, and they managed to create a game that, at least on a basic level, feels good. The roster is small, with eight characters available in the first game and two new ones added for the second title, but that’s rather normal for a new fighting game series, especially in that era. The biggest issue the game faces, though, is that we’re no longer in that era, and while this might have felt like a unique option on the Neo Geo in the late 90s, it isn’t one on modern consoles in 2023.

A cast of colorful characters feels very 90s, and the global nature of the cast again can’t help but remind me of Street Fighter. Whether we’re talking about Pielle, the French swordsman, Alison III, the undead Egyptian who is a clear Dhalsim knockoff, Condor, the giant Native American, or any of the rest of this cast, they’re all distinctive, but there are few winners here in terms of design. No one really stands out. The cast is filled with stereotypes that were common for the time and would be forgivable if they were at least interesting, but they mostly range from fine to ugly.

New Content To Enjoy

If this were a straight port, there would be a startling lack of content, but to give credit where it’s due, the QUByte Interactive team has added some extras. On top of the basic arcade and versus modes the game has always had, they’ve added training and team battle modes. Training is basic but works, and is welcome if Breakers Collection is going to have any longevity. Team Battle mode lets you play versus or arcade modes with a team of three characters. While you aren’t able to freely switch characters out like some team modes, picking the right team and hoping to get through your opponent’s group of three is rewarding, even if it feels a bit tacked on. It’s more than you’d expect from the average port.

There’s also online play, which promises crossplay and rollback netcode, definite musts for a modern fighting game. I can’t speak to the quality of it, though, as they weren’t working during this testing period, with all attempts to get online telling me that I needed to update my game to a version which isn’t currently available. It does seem promising, though, that the developers are implementing these options for a small game, but execution will determine whether there’s any chance of a community developing around these games.

Barely A Collection

Ultimately though, my major concerns are that this is barely a collection and is a hard sell even at the discounted price it’s releasing at. Breakers is a solid enough fighting game from its era, but Breakers Revenge is not a true sequel, despite what one of the producers of the game says in a text interview included in this collection. It adds only two additional characters, one of them being the boss from the first game. The other is poorly balanced, and even the first game doesn’t have a particularly well-balanced cast. The backgrounds are slightly updated but mostly look worse than they did in the first game. Some balance changes have happened between versions, but the most noticeable one is that the AI is now more likely to abuse cheap moves. I actually prefer the first game slightly to Revenge, but those who enjoy the new characters may feel the opposite. They’re ultimately not different enough that I expect most players will have a strong preference one way or the other.

Outside of the games themselves, there’s not much to keep you busy either. That interview I mentioned is slightly interesting, and available in multiple languages, but the producer they’ve interviewed, Tetsuo Akiyama, was more involved with the financing than the creation of the game. While he brings an interesting perspective, by his own admission, he only knows so much about the actual creation of the game, and it shows. Outside of that, there’s a basic sound test, and a gallery of official images, along with some very horny fan art. It’s pretty bare bones, ultimately.

Conclusion

That’s really the case with the entire Breakers Collection, though. It’s bare bones because there’s not a lot to the Breakers games. They’re mostly fine-fighting games with some balance issues, which stood out on the Neo Geo in the 90s but struggle to do so in 2023 on modern platforms. The new content helps but isn’t enough to make a collection which is barely a collection appealing. I’m glad to see them get a home release because I’m for keeping all games accessible, but they’re not titles I expect to return to regularly, and I expect most fighting game fans will feel the same.

Final Verdict: 2.5/5

Available on: PS5 (Reviewed), PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Switch, PC; Publisher: QUByte Interactive ; Developer: QUByte Interactive; Players: 2; Released: January 12th, 2023; ESRB: E10+ for Everyone 10+; MSRP: $19.99

Full disclosure: This review is based on a copy of Breakers Collection provided by the publisher.