There was once a time when websites felt like absolute magic. In the nascent days of the world wide web (The Information Superhighway!), web design felt so much more playful, using the limited resources of the time to take us on journeys of overly noisy animated text, shamelessly repetitive and intrusive background textures, and a plethora of colours. Just check out some of the stuff on the still-going site for the 1996 version of Space Jam, and you'll see what I mean.
Now, to celebrate the company's 40th anniversary, Capcom has created a website that, in all its beauty and confusing navigation, takes me back to those halcyon days.
Naturally, Capcom Town is crisper and more vibrant than any 90s website could've dreamed of, giving us an isometric overview of a gorgeously hand-crafted town representing Capcom's best franchises and most iconic characters. Look closely, and you'll see Jill Valentine being chased by Nemesis through the streets, a giant mech Akuma, and even lesser known characters like Amaterasu from beautiful painterly platformer Okami and that bearded knight dude from Ghosts 'n Goblins hanging around in there.
RELATED: 10 Best Fighting Games Ever Made Ranked
From here, you click through to different areas dedicated to different games, uncovering little tidbits like old Resident Evil art, digital Capcom-themed merch you can download for free, or even a 'Retro Games' corner where you can play Mega Man, Mega Man 2, Final Fight, and Street Fighter 2. I was pretty impressed to find that my Xbox controller instantly worked with Mega Man, and duly spent 10 minutes trying to get past the 2nd bit of the first level, where the annoying trap-door escalator things bested me (also, I don't think my muscle memory's adaptable enough these days to go back to pressing the right-side face button for 'jump' and the bottom one for 'fire.' You may as well ask me to play with my feet.
The whole thing is the most celebratory gaming site I've ever seen, condensing Capcom's rich heritage into a theme park of digital delightys, and throwing in a few playable freebies to boot. It's even made the CEO and COO pages somewhat fun, presenting the journeys of Capcom's two top dogs in a kind of board game format. Its whole vibe of making everything from old games to corporate spiel fun and accessible tickles my nostalgia bone for when the internet was all about presenting things in this 'dumb, fun' way.
I'm not sure how long the Capcom Town website will stick around for, but considering the effort that's clearly gone into it, I'd hope a good long while. There are also certain aspects of the site design (like being able to search for playable retro games by platform, even though there are hardly any games in the library as yet) that suggest to me we may yet see more playable content being added to it at some point. The OG Street Fighter? Mega Man X? Dragon's Dogma 2, playable for free straight through your browser? Who knows!?
It really puts into perspective what an awesome little universe Capcome have created over their 40 years, and I'd love to see other publishers do the same. Where's the website for Nintendo Land, or Sega City, or Sonyville? It's time for the other big boys to step up.
NEXT: Avowed's Graphics Weren't The Real Problem With That Trailer