The full list of changes for all 8 games can be found here

Capcom fighting game fans had something to look forward to on Tuesday morning, as the company announced the second compilation of old-school fighting games bundled together in Capcom Fighting Collection 2. The collection includes eight different titles with debut dates ranging from 1998 to 2004, but with a few changes.

Most of these changes (all listed below for convenience) appear to be designed to speed up the gameplay experience or make hidden characters playable from the start, but some involve visual changes and one of them involves their complete removal.

The main protagonist of the Darkstalkers series, Demitri Maximoff, appears as a playable character in Capcom Fighting Evolution in 2004. Demitri’s most famous move is called Midnight Bliss and sees the vampire grabbing his opponent, shouting “Come on, baby” and temporarily transforming him into another version of himself.

Each character has a different transformation (some even have rare secondary transformations), and while some of these are fun Easter Egg references aimed at deep cuts from a particular character’s backstory, most of them transform characters into scantily clad women. Demitri finishes the attack by then whipping out his cape in front of his opponent as the screen goes dark, quick hit sound effects play, and their health bar depletes.

It’s been a full 20 years since Fighting Evolution came out, and sensibilities have certainly changed since then. While we don’t yet know what will be going away, the line “Removed some character transformations from Demitris Midnight Bliss” is listed among the changes for Fighting Evolution.

Midnight Bliss has appeared in a handful of games and, aside from Namco x Capcom where it didn’t cause any transformations, it was always a somewhat bold move; all of the transformation animations feature women and most are clearly sexualized. One has to wonder which visual elements Capcom considers to be out of date, but there are a few that stand out for various reasons.

Guile shows the most skin as he becomes a woman in an American flag bikini, but we’d be a little surprised if this ended up on the cutting room floor. Ryu’s transformation, however, is a different story as he turns into the young Indian girl from Street Fighter 2: The Animated Film.

Capcom might see it as a potential problem when a character jumps back and forth between races and skin colors, and they don’t want to do that anymore in 2024, so this could be one of the visual elements that will be removed. The other potentially problematic transformation is that of Urien, who turns into a young girl dressed for the Fukuoka Oiyama race.

The race in question is a rite of passage for Japanese men in Fukuoka and is the culmination of the annual Hakata Gion Yamakasa festival. Participants wear shimekomi fundoshi (traditional Japanese underwear) and mizu happi (short jacket), which are somewhat revealing.

The problem might be that the Oiyama race is only open to men, boys, and young girls, not women. This implies that the character Urien is playing is very young, which could be seen as problematic given everything that Midnight Bliss entails.

We’ll have to wait for the release of Capcom Fighting Collection 2 in 2025 before we can confirm which Midnight Bliss animations have been removed, but you can check them all out in Xenomic’s video directly below. We’ve also included all of the changes listed for all eight titles in Fighting Collection 2 for you to check out.

Capcom vs. SNK: Millennium Fight 2000 Pro (2001)
• Some visual elements of the stage have been changed.
• Stage music can now be changed in the EX settings.
• Choose from the game’s original music or nostalgic tracks from other arcade titles from Capcom and SNK.

Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium 2001 (2001)
• You can now switch between versions of the game via the EX settings. Select “Original” to play the arcade version, or select “EO Version” to play the EO version of Capcom vs. SNK 2. Note: Canceling a roll into a move does not grant invincibility in the EO version. Note: EO-ism and GC-ism cannot be used.
• Evil Ryu, Orochi Iori, Shin Akuma, and Ultimate Rugal are now playable. Accessible via Game Settings > EX Settings > Hidden Characters.
• EX settings include the “Same Character Selection” option. When this option is enabled, two or more identical characters can be on the same team.

Capcom Fighting Evolution (2004)
• Removed some character transformations from Demitris Midnight Bliss.
• Shin Akuma and Pyron are now playable and can be accessed via Game Settings > EX Settings > Hidden Characters.

Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper Part (2001)
• The English version was created based on the data from the Japanese version.
• Some visual elements of the stage have been changed.
• Shin Akuma and Final M. Bison are now playable and can be accessed via Game Settings > EX Settings > Hidden Characters.

Powerstone (1999)
• The appearance of certain characters during their endings has been changed.
• Kraken and Valgas are now playable and can be accessed via Game Settings > EX Settings > Hidden Characters.

Powerstone 2 (2000)
• Pride and Mel are now playable and can be accessed via Game Settings > EX Settings > Hidden Characters.

Project Justice (2000)
• Changed certain visual elements throughout the story.
• Pre-made edit characters can now be used in matches. They can be accessed via Game Settings > EX Settings > Edit Characters. Note: Edit characters cannot be created in-game.

Plasma Sword: Bilstein’s Nightmare (1998)
• Changed certain visual elements throughout the story.
• The appearance of certain levels has been changed.
• Kaede and Rai-on are now playable and can be accessed via Game Settings > EX Settings > Hidden Characters.