A great fighting game that I enjoyed from the start to now!
When I got it, immediately I went to Simple mode. Laugh and boo now, but again this is someone who only played Super Smash Bros as his only fighting game. SSB's control scheme, if anyone is unaware, consists of pushing the d-pad in one direction and that does a special attack. That's it. Up ,left/right, and down are the only directional inputs you need to pull off a special move. Regular attacks are pretty much the same except in SSB the type of attack you do depends on how hard to tap the d-pad. I know I should be trying out Normal mode so the controls are firmly implanted in my brain but I play games to feel strong and powerful and most important of all, I play games for fun. Unless it's with my friends then I show no mercy. :P
Now if you want to skip this part of the review go ahead. I'm just going to talk about the characters themselves:
Now going into this I knew exactly what characters I was going to choose. I'm a big Capcom fan. I play games like Monster Hunter, Resident Evil, and Mega Man just to name a few. My team is Chris Redfield from Resident Evil, Zero from Mega Man, and Amaterasu from Okami. Now let me talk about some of the characters. There are some that are instantly recognizable like Wolverine, Ryu, Chun-Li, Spider-Man and the Hulk. And then there are the more obscure characters that some people may not have heard of before. Characters like Amaterasu (I love Ammy by the way), Dormammu, and M.O.D.O.K. I'm sure hardcore Marvel and Capcom fans will be able to recognize these characters but not me. They sure used a lot of X-Men characters though. I know the root of the series comes from X-Men vs Street Fighter but there are 7 characters from the X-Men series in this game. That's almost half the Marvel roster! And looking back, I realize just how vulnerable my team is. Aside from Phoenix, Amaterasu and Zero have the least amount of health in the game. Chris is fairly sturdy but I don't last very long in matches.
One of my main problems is that the characters aren't really created equally. I know that in a fighting game, especially 2D fighting games, it's hard to make characters balanced while using their special moves but some characters are just way too strong. Dante, Sentinel (before he was nerfed), and Wolverine are so easy to use and they do so much damage it's unfair. Rarely do I see an online match that doesn't include Dante. But back to the gameplay. MvC 3 is an extremely fast fighter. Compared to the methodical action in 3D fighting games, and slower 2D fighters like Mortal Kombat 9, MvC 3 is very fast. Some of my friends complain that when they watch or play the game, they have no idea what's going on. I would prefer it if it was slowed down a bit but I think the whole point of the VS series is to settle "what if" disputes and to play multiple characters at once to see which team is better.
Arcade mode is a little disappointing though. There's not much of a story in MvC3. Not that they have to make one but it's either make a good one or don't have one at all. All you have to do is beat up 6 teams and then face Galactus who is trying to destroy the Earth. I don't really care about Arcade mode so I just put it on Very Easy and beat up everyone in order to get the endings for all the characters. The online gameplay is ok; there's not a lot of lag but when there is, it really messes you up. The camera doesn't shift or wiggle or do anything to show you that it's lagging. Whenever you do an input it might take a second for the characters to do the action you just inputted. That's the only way you can tell it's lagging. The other major complaint I have is that you can't watch the other people fight if you go into a lobby. Sometimes I want a break and I want to watch other people fight it out. But you can't. All you do is watch the health bars go up and down. That's no fun.
While I seem to have quite a few complaints, I really like the game overall. I know some MvC 2 fans might be disappointed as well as others who are upset about the reduced roster but I found the game to be enjoyable and I still pop it in every once in a while to play.
I'm Sniper-Gamer and I rate Marvel vs Capcom 3 9.5 out of 10.
I hope you found this review useful!