Marvel vs. Capcom 2 makes a lasting and memorable impression.
Marvel VS. Capcom is a syncretism of both worlds, shedding the fat to become the leanest cut of fighting franchise history since the second Street Fighter game. Fans of either universe will instantly recognize a number of the characters and not only be satisfied with the look of these characters, but also the way they fight. The plot is paper thin, and involves Ruby Heart pulling the best fighters to her ship to fight the evil monster Abyss. I didn’t find this in the instruction manual nor does the game tell you, I had to look on wikipedia, so don’t expect intricate plots or character specific endings. What you should prepare for is some of the best fighting since the first Marvel VS. Capcom game, with numerous additions to keep the franchise fresh.
The gameplay is similar to most tag team fighting games. You choose three characters to fight with, and then take them into battle against another three characters. The player with the most health left when time runs out or fighters left standing wins. After that things start to get hectic, with hyper combos, team hyper combos, team counters, switchbacks, and regular combos with enough complication to give you an overwhelming sense of accomplishment after pulling them off. The amount of depth in this fighting game has yet to find an equal.
The game has 56 characters to choose from, 28 from the Marvel and 28 from the Capcom sides. Initially your character selection is rather meager, but as you fight more and earn points, you can start unlocking characters, stages, galleries, and character art. The pace at which points are accumulated is rather lethargic, and slows the process rather substantially, but overall the sense of accomplishment after unlocking all the hidden items is satisfying.
The characters are well designed and for the most part well balanced. As far as their mythos goes, the characters fight about as close to what you would expect; Wolverine uses his claws, Cyclops fights with his optic blasts, and Ryu still uses his Houdoukens and Hurricaine kicks to deliver the pain. Some characters feel a bit odd though, with Jill Valentine from the Resident Evil series summoning zombies and dogs to attack her opponent. Regardless of the curious nature of these characters, the amount of care put into their aesthetic as well as functional qualities is breathtaking.
Marvel VS. Capcom 2 has a number of qualities that distinguish it from the average fighting game, aside from the obvious. As you take hits and give them, a hyper combo bar fills, and when it becomes full you can start pulling off some amazing and painful combos. There’s a tight strategy to the combos, as you can pull in your teammates to continue the combo if you have enough hyper left, so there is a great deal of strategy used in its application. Also available to the player are support options, which send a teammate out to help the player. The type of support can be specified to the character, and a number of different options are available for each character, further tailoring gameplay to the player’s liking. New in this version is the switchback abilty, which allows the player to knockout an opponents character, forcing them to bring another one back out. This can be useful if you wish to take out a weak character before he regenerates health, but this can only be done at the cost of a hyper bar.
Though the game still runs on sprites, the animation for the characters as well as the background are superb. It doesn’t feel like a cheap cop out considering the number of 3d entries in the fighting genre, and Capcom does an excellent job with what it has.
The sound in the game is acceptable, the only downside being an incredibly annoying announcer telling you that “man, he almost had a heart attack” after that last match. Announcer aside, the smacks, punches, kicks, grabs, and smack downs are all amusing to listen too, and the music isn’t too shabby either.
Overall, the real problem with this game is the lack of online support. Though it was originally planned to ship with Xbox live support, it was yanked for whatever reason, diminishing the amount of replay value it could have had. Though disappointing, the omission of online play doesn’t taint the package too dramatically. In addition however, the single player options are limited to story mode, of which there is no story as you take three characters through 7 fights to get to the final boss, or score attack, in which you do the exact same thing. Aside from training mode, by yourself you really don’t have many options with which to take your Marvel and Capcom characters out into the battle arena, which is incredibly disappointing.
Though these problems may sound like deal breakers, the overall quality of the fighting actually overcomes these hurdles, and delivers the goods to the fighting fans that crave them. If you’re in the mood for a great fighting game, or are a fan of either universe, do yourself a favor and pick this one up.