Capcom reflects on Red Earth, a previously Japan-only game included in Capcom Fighting Collection

blog.playstation.com:

Back in 1996, Red Earth – one of 10 titles in the upcoming Capcom Fighting Collection – first appeared in coin-operated arcade cabinets in Japan. Featuring a fantasy setting and a cast of colorful characters, Red Earth was unique in delivering a single-player RPG-like experience called Quest Mode where players would choose one of four characters and take on a series of bosses. 

After defeating each boss, the player would get experience points to spend on improving their attack, defense, or to gain new moves entirely. During battle, bosses may drop food, which players can use to replenish their health. As common as it was in Japan, this classic game was never officially released outside of arcades until now with Capcom Fighting Collection. In fact, Red Earth was the first game the team decided to include in the collection!

How did this unique take on fighting games come about? Takashi Sado, one of the producers of Red Earth at the time – and still at Capcom – started working on the proposal for Red Earth in the mid-90s. Since fighting games were growing increasingly popular at the time, he followed this trend and initially planned to make Red Earth just a fighting game. However, he was feeling that the skill level between fighting game players was growing where more casual players couldn’t keep up with more top-tier players. In order to bridge this skill gap, his team wondered if they could get creative and compensate for it by changing parameters, equipment, or other facets of the genre.

Also during this time, Sado was drawn to fantasy action games such as the Capcom-developed Magic Sword and The King of Dragons. Both of these beat‘em-up games had character progression systems that powered up the player-controlled