Capcom Home Arcade review: the DF Retro verdict

The Capcom Home Arcade is an absolute delight. It delivers almost all of what you might hope for, but there are some genuine surprises on top of that. Yes, the unit does an admirable job of replicating the classic coin-operated experience on a range of genuinely great games, but the biggest takeaway is how it actually introduced me to less prolific - but no less enjoyable - titles from a golden age of arcade history. Even though the line-up contains just 16 games in all, there's actually a palpable sense of discovery here and I came away from the product even more impressed by Capcom's arcade heritage.

In terms of those all-important first impressions, the Capcom Home Arcade makes quite an impact. In the age of the retro mini-console, publisher Koch Media goes large by constructing an arcade-style base unit, using high quality Sanwa arcade parts to deliver a genuine, authentic feel to the controls. It's rugged but precise, but most importantly feels just like an arcade controller should. Mounting it all within a jumbo-sized Capcom logo is a little ostentatious but nothing is lost in quality of the crucial interface - it feels great. Crucially, it's also secure too. The underside of the unit uses a soft-touch rubberised plastic that somehow manages to keep the unit firmly planted to the surface during play.

Connections are limited, with an HDMI output on the rear alongside a micro-USB for power and a mysterious EXT input - a USB port with undefined capabilities. Rounding it off is the power button. If you're thinking that the EXT input is used for firmware updates, this is actually carried out by an internal WiFi chip, which leads me on to the only genuine issue I had with the review unit: it wouldn't connect to any network, meaning I couldn't update the system software. I was lucky in that it turns out that I already had the latest firmware, but it did mean that other cute functions - like uploading high scores to a global database - didn't work for me.

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