Worthy Successor to a game once dominated by being a robot, a guy with lasers and a woman who can conjure up lightning
While the game is in the same reign as Capcom's Behemoth of a fighting Game, Super Street Fighter IV, the game is SO MUCH more accesible in terms of the technical stuff and much more fun in the whole game aspect of the gameplay, but what comes in ease will pay in the way of the game's balance. Because the problem of the previous game was that while the game has the mayhem and craziness of Super Smash bros. it had issues in balance and the whole game was dominated by a few characters making everyone else obselete or not as good to play as. Also there were many exploits one can do to actually dominate a match in one combo, hence ruining the game the creators had in mind.
Marvel vs Capcom 3 is an ambitious game, hoping that with new addition to the game will balance and ultimately be a game that will not be dominated by a few characters and settings, and so far it has shown promise to deliver a balanced and playable game. And while the game allows players to execute combos in a HUGE scale, it actually takes practice and skill to actually execute them, no doubt those who play MvC 2 will have a slight advantage on this.
The game is presented in the same way as Street Fighter IV, in a 3D environment with a 2D gameplay for each character and it does seem to be a trend with most fighting games nowadays and it keeps the game simple without sidestepping confusing players and bringing more simpler tactics, and the game tries to follow SFIV's way of art while retaining the comic feel to it.
Gameplay is almost familiar to those who have played MvC 2 before, in where you have a team of 3 fighters against another team of 3 fighters, and your objective is to knock the other team out before they do so to your team. The game differs so much from other games of the same style like the King of Fighters series because the game pushes forward the emphasis in TEAMWORK by allowing seamless switching of characters and during the fights, you get access to all your teams abilities in way of assists in where your teammates come out for a brief period and do moves that you choose in order to help your fighter in setting up a combo or breaking the enemy's defense.
New to the game is the X-Factor ability, not the meal that KFC has promoted in South east asia, in which the game removes all chip damage, resets your animation for another move, increase both speed and damge of your character. This ability is best used in caution because the potency of this ability is also dependant on how many partners have you lost during the fight meaning you can use the ability when you are losing and want to turn the tables aginst you opponent or finish off an opponent that has been careless throughout the whole fight. But throw this option away once you've used it because you can only use it ONCE in a fight.
While the gameplay has been tuned for balanced and fair gameplay, the games shines through in the sound and music department, because of the game's attention to the LITTLE detail in the dialog of the characters. Such as in pairing up two certain characters that have a history with each other will bring nostalgia, like Iron Man calling Captain America "STEVEN!!!" when switching out and Captain America shouting "TONY!!!" when switching out with Iron Man. Making the two characters face each other in the beginning will incur unique dialog that is refreshing to see once in a while, knowing that attention had been made to give the fans a feeling of warmth.
The music is just oh so beautiful, I dare you to go to the license card menu of the game and not like the theme they present. At this time, some of the game's soundtrack is stuck in my head to the very core because it has been done so well. The themes of the characters are remixes of the themes from previous games and will give the fans a run for their money.
Overall the game is worthy of the series' praise and continues the tradition of beating the snot out of your friends and continues to be mindless and crazy whille retaining a balance that fans have been craving ever since the broken nature of MvC 2.
Cheers,
-Readial