Evo 2011: Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Past, Present, and Future

Who Was There: Marvel vs. Capcom 3 producer Ryota Niitsuma, MvC3 battle director Hidetoshi Ishizawa, translator David Crislip, and special advisor Seth Killian.

What They Talked About: The well-attended panel's focus quickly shifted to an extended QA following technical difficulties playing a trailer for the recently announced Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Niitsuma and company fielded a truckload of questions typically focusing on character balancing or issues with the original MvC3. However, the panel took an intriguing turn when Killian pointed out that Niitsuma and Ishizawa had in their possession the complete list of changes for all the characters in UMvC3.

Niitsuma initially teased the crowd with a few bits of info on changes to Spider-Man and Dr. Doom. Spidey will now have a faster webswing, the ability to cancel out of his web-ball, webswing, and spider's sting attacks with other web-based moves, in addition to the ability to do more damage with his crawler assault special move based on a player's button mashing during the attack.

Dr. Doom's tweaks include additional damage from the photon array attack if a player mashes buttons, midair specials causing knockdowns, and more variations to his jumping attacks. Niitsuma also pointed out that mashing buttons to increase damage during special attacks was something that would apply to all characters. When news of the changes was met with a positive response, Niitsuma decide to drop a metric ton of info to the crowd on changes to the roster. A partial list is included below:

Captain America will gain a double jump.
Viewtiful Joe can dodge incoming attacks with a new move.
X-23 will be able to cancel out other character's air moves with one of her own.
Arthur will have more health.
Iron Man will lose his double jump but gain an air dash to cancel his air moves.
Amaterasu will be able to change weapons in midair.
C. Viper will gain a new, never-before-seen move.
Wesker will speed up when his sunglasses are broken.
Wolverine has a new claw attack similar to Chun Li's lightning kicks.
Chris will be able to cancel out of normal moves that use his gun by using special moves.
She Hulk will gain a new special move.
Shuma Gorath can absorb an opponent's hyper combo gauge by using a standard throw.
Super Skrull's meteor smash can be done in midair.
Storm will gain a new special move.
Spencer will gain a new move that is alluded to in the game's latest trailer.
Zero will be able to cancel moves into his max buster.
Sentinel will have slightly less health.
Thor's midair throw command will have a larger range.
Taskmaster will gain a new special move.
Dante's devil trigger will allow him to triple jump and air dash twice.
Deadpool will be able to cancel out of special moves by warping.
Dormmamu will be able to execute his dark spell and revelation attacks in midair.
Trish's midair max voltage attack will let her follow up with an attack on a downed opponent.
Tron will have the invincibility parameters of her assist move reduced but will now be able to perform her servbot launch three times in a row.
Haggar's crouching hard attack will be able to knock people down.
Hulk will gain a new charge move.
Phoenix will have even less health.
Felicia will be able to perform her delta kick in midair.
Magneto will gain a new special move.
Modok will be able to cancel out of moves in mid-jump by dashing.
Morrigan will gain a new move that allows her to absorb some of an opponent's hyper combo gauge.
Ryu will be powered up some and play very differently, courtesy of new moves.
Hsienko will gain more items to throw during her anki hou attack.
Akuma will have less health.
Chun Li will gain a new move that will be a new version of her spinning bird kick.

Quote: "Please don't try to steal it."--Marvel vs. Capcom 3 producer Ryota Niitsuma, referring to the document containing all the character balancing information.

Takeaway: From the sound of things, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 will be featuring a hefty number of changes that are sure to take its community for a ride on a roller coaster of emotions.