flash-hammer's Full Review: Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes for Dream...
Originally released in the arcades, then on the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn, the latter in Japan only, Marvel Vs. Capcom was released worldwide to coincide with the release of Sega's Dreamcast console, and would kick start what would prove to be a beautiful partnership between Capcom and Sega on the little white box.
The game is the third entry into the Streetfighter spin-off games dubbed the 'Vs. Series', due to the fact each game contains that word, and because it pits the characters of one company, in this case Marvel Comics, against Capcom's finest, which for the first time was expanded to include characters from outside of the Streetfighter series. Unlike the previous ports of this game, and the previous home ports of Vs. Series games prior, now Capcom were dealing with the Dreamcast, and all it's 128-Bit power, so now instead of cutting out the Tag-Team action the series was famous for, it could now be included in all it's glory.
The game is a Tag-Team 2D fighter, where the player selects two fighters from the available cast and dukes it out against a friend, or the computer's 2-Man team to try and empty both enemy's health bars, using a variety of punches,kicks,special and super moves. Where this Tag-Team format differs from, say the team mode in other fighters, or SNK's King Of Fighters series, is that at any point during the combat, players can swap between their two fighters, and even combine them in deadly Dual-Super moves. This makes for frantic paced duels with projectiles and character sprites flying all over the screen, and the action would be impossible to keep up with if you were paying anything less than 100% attention.
To further spice things up, the game leans more towards the engine of the Marvel-licensed spin-offs than the staple Streetfighter series, which means the player will also have to prepare for lots of double jumping,dashing and air blocking and projectiling if he is going to survive. As another little improvement, Capcom also included extra helper characters, selected at random, whom the player can call in to perform an attack on the enemy, before jumping right back out of the battlefield. None of these characters can be selected to play with, which is sad, because it's also the only time we will see some of these great characters in the Vs. series, and in some cases will probably be the only time we will see them outwith their respective old games or comics.
Further things taken from the Marvel games over the SF series is how Super Moves are implemented. As Im sure you all know, in Capcom 2D fighter land, Special Moves are performed by either charging the D-Pad in one direction before quickly pressing the opposite in conjunction with an attack button,rolling the D-Pad in a smooth circular motion and pressing an attack button on the last direction(the most famous being the Quarter-Circle Forward Punch, which is the predominant command for a projectile,eg Ryu's Hadouken, in 2D fighters) and the rapid tapping of a button. In the Streetfighter games, a bar appeared in the lower corner of the screen of each character, which filled up as attacks were performed, this was the super bar. In SF games, Super Moves are performed by performing the D-Pad motion of a Special move twice then pressing the attack button. For example, Ryu's Shinkuu Hadouken, or Super Fireball, would be performed ala QCFx2 P. Not in the Marvel Spin-Off games, and for that matter this game. While building up the Super Meter is the same, in these games the Super is performed by pressing all of the attack buttons with the D-Pad motion. For example, in this game, Ryu's Hadouken is the standard QCF P, and his Shinkuu is performed by pressing QCF All 3 Punch buttons.
In an aesthetic note, the Capcom fighter's Specials and Supers have also had to be altered to bring them closer to the same level of power as the Marvel fighters, so now instead of shooting a small ball of chi for a Hadouken, Ryu hurls a ball the size of Captain America's shield, and insted of throwing a large Hadouken for a super, he now fires a beam of blue chi from his hands.
Strangely, Capcom decided to absolutely destroy Chun Li's moveset, removing her Kikouken projectile and her trademark Spinning Bird Kick. Exactly why they chose to render one of their best, and most famous characters, a bit useless I really do not understand.
As you would expect, the actual mechanics of the gameplay are spot on. Capcom has been making 2D fighters long enough to know how to do it well, and MvC doesn't disappoint. While the differences in gameplay between this and the regular Streetfighter games may put some off, it's a unique style of it's own, and has earned the seperate following it now sports. Fights may not feel as tactical or thought-required as say, Streetfighter 3:Third Strike, but they do require a skill unique to those in this game, and this was the days before the next entry into the series where any old button masher could select a disgustingly over-powered character and mash their way to victory.
The game features the regular arcade mode, where you pick two characters for your team and fight your way through several computer controlled teams, before taking on the boss, who for this game is Marvel Comics legendary Onslaught. In his first form, Onslaught is basically just a large fighter, like your characters, except he cannot be knocked down, is twice as powerful, and generally a bit of a pain. Upon defeating this form, he transforms into a giant, at which point you basically fight his Head and his arm, as you do with Apocalypse in the first two Vs. Series games. Personally, I don't quite know what to think of this method of boss character. With characters like Ryu and Morrigan, who have Beam attacks for Super Moves, he is far too easy, however, when playing as Zangief, who's attacks are based around grappling, fighting either form of Onslaught is a nightmare.
Also included is a Survival mode, where you have to see how many teams yours can take on with One bar of health each, and the multiplayer modes,Versus and Cross Fever. Versus is the bog standard way of playing a fighter at home in 2-Player. Pick a Team, your opponent picks a team, you fight, rinse and repeat until you grow bored. What Marvel Vs. Capcom does to distance itself from 2D fighters with short-shelf lives, is Cross Fever Mode. As I have pointed out, instead of being One-On-One combat, MvC is actually 2-on-2, just only one fighter from each team fighting at a time. That means 4 Characters, and Capcom decided that this also means 4-Players. This is an awesome mode that really does add an extra lifespan in itself to the game, if you can gather 4 fight-fans around the Dreamcast for some rapid-fire tag-battling action. What's all the more remarkable, is that this mode predates the one in Tecmo's Dead or Alive 2 by a little while, and is sadly the only 2D fighter to feature such a wonderful option. The only thing that hinders it is that the game doesn't have a particularly large selection of fighters to choose from.
Speaking of the cast, it comprises of 15 Fighters from accross the Marvel universe and Capcom's gaming history. That's not to mention the vast amount of helper characters, and one hidden fighter, although there are more hidden 'fighters', they are just pallette swaps.
On the Capcom side of things, we have the Streetfighter series representatives in the form of Ryu,Chun Li and Zangief,Morrigan from Darkstalkers,Strider Hiryu from the Strider series,Megaman, as well as the hidden character Roll, from the Megaman games,Captain Commando,who appeared in a self titled game in the arcades which was ported to the SNES and the shock character that is Jin Saotome from a Japan only release named Cyberbots, although he also appeared in the Dreamcast game Tech Romancer, although that may have come later. In terms of helper characters, we see such greats as Arthur from Ghouls 'N Ghosts,The Unknown Soldier and more Cyberbots characters.
On the Marvel side, we have the expected Spiderman,Wolverine,Incredible Hulk and Captain America, as well as Wolvie's fellow X-Man Gambit,Spiderman's nemesis Venom and Iron Man is replaced by his buddy War Machine. In terms of helpers, the Marvel Universe contributes such legends as Magneto,US Agent,Iceman,Colossus and, in his only gaming appearance,the mighty Thor.
You may read on the internet that you can unlock Carnage and Lilith, but the truth is, they are the aformentioned pallette swaps of Morrigan and Venom, and can't be classed as any more hidden characters than Gold War Machine or Orange Hulk. The difference between these and the regular versions, are usually to do with damage inflicted or recieved, and only the 'Lilith' has any real difference to the naked eye, in the form of her projectile sprite.
The character selection is ok, but let us be honest, it could have been better. Zangief simply doesn't suit this sort of game, and I would rather have seen someone like Guile take his place. Exactly where they dredged up Jin from I will never know, Im sure the majority of gamers would rather Capcom have put in a real legend of the company such as Mike Haggar from Final Fight than someone who piloted a robot in a game nobody outside of Japan even played. The marvel side isn't much better, they could have done better than Gambit, he should have been a helper and Thor a playable character. Why you would opt to put in War Machine over Iron Man is beyond me, and this is an issue I will get back to later.
But with that said, the selection does have it's share of gems to it. The addition of Venom was a great shout by Capcom, as was digging up Captain Commando and Strider for the game.
The 'hidden characters' proved to be a farce, I can't understand why Capcom bothered, instead of just throwing in the proper sprite for Lilith and either coming up with new characters, or using ones from previous games instead of these wastes of space. Am I the only person who would rather have seen Omega Red than an Orange Hulk? for god's sake, they could have at least been sensible and made the grey hulk the alternate version.
While it may not sound it, Im on the whole not all that disappointed with the character selection for MvC, while it could have been better, it also could have been so much worse.
Graphically, the game is pretty good. The sprites are, for the most part sharp, well animated and pleasant to look at. The exception being Morrigan, who is actually the exact same sprite from Darkstalkers, so naturally looks aged in comparison to the others. The sprites have been made less pixelated than in their previous outings, for the sprites which have appeared in older games, which is the majority, and the new ones are crisp as you would expect. All the fighters have the anime look of the Alpha series of Streetfighter games, and in general are good to watch.
The one complaint I have that is major is War Machine. In his victory portrait, War Machine appears exactly as I knew him from the comics I read as a child. However, the actual sprite used in gameplay is simply the older Iron Man sprite recoloured. No, just no. His moves are identical and everything, this is the ultimate in laziness on Capcom's part, and you have to wonder why they would highlight how lazy they are by even bothering to put in War Machine instead of just using Iron Man.
The backgrounds are all well detailed, and full of interesting things to distract you from your fight, including other characters clanging around in the stages, eg Raptor from Darkstalkers playing his guitar on stage in a bar where you fight, or Dr.Willy from Megaman in another arena. The game also scores points here for using arena's that aren't just generic fighting dens, and are actual locales from comics or games. While there is the required desert and post-apocalypse future, although that may be Strider's, there is also Spiderman's Daily Bugle roof, the bath house that was E.Honda's stage in Streetfighter 2 and a robot factory from Megaman amongst the stages, making for a real pleaser for fans of the characters.
The sound is also good. The fighter's battle cries are clear, if in Japanese, and the sound effects fitting. I can still hear the noise of Strider's sword slicing. The music is also an awesome choice on Capcom's part, as the Capcom characters fight to remixed versions of songs from their older games, although for some reason, instead of fighting to his unique them from SF2,like Chun Li and Zangief do, Ryu instead fights to a remix of the Streetfighter title screen theme.
To be honest, I couldn't tell you where the Marvel character's music comes from, although I think some of them may hail from Capcom's previous fighting games featuring them.
Where the game's real weakness comes in is in the form of controls. Like most Capcom fighters, it uses Six-Buttons. Light,Medium and Heavy Punch and Light,Medium and Heavy Kick. Swapping Team Members is performed by pressing Heavy Punch and Heavy Kick at the same time, Calling in a helper by pressing Medium Punch Kick in unison, and Team Supers by performing a QCF Heavy Punch Kick.
The Dreamcast controller only has 4 face buttons, meaning that you will have to set 2 of these to the shoulder buttons, a control scheme that simply won't hack it for those who want to be able to play the game as it should be done. An arcade stick is an absolute must, especially seeing as the game forces you to use the Dreamcast D-Pad, which is lethal to fingers. While I own the beautiful Sega stick, this leads to even more problems than just needing an arcade stick. Cross-Fever mode is where a lot of the game's play will come from, meaning that to get the greatest experience out of it, you will be required to have 4 Arcade sticks, and at the RRP of those things at the time, this was far too expensive. While a laugh can still be had with the regular controllers in Cross Fever mode, if you want to seriously play the game, an Arcade stick really is a must.
On the whole, while I may seem to have said a lot of negative things about the game, Marvel Vs. Capcom is definitely an enjoyable title, that fans of 2D fighters will lap up, and by all rights a wonderful port to the Dreamcast, with minimal loading times and arcade perfect gameplay,graphics and sound.
Capcom even went the distance for putting in an extra mode that is actually useful in the form of the Cross-Fever mode, and the only real problem isn't really due to this game itself, but the Dreamcast's controller, which isn't Capcom's fault by any stretch of the imagination.
If nothing else, having a game like Marvel Vs. Capcom as a launch title was a real signal of intent from Sega and Capcom, as they teamed up, along with SNK, and Sega themselves, to ensure that the Dreamcast was the console all fight fans needed, and while Marvel Vs. Capcom may not immediately spring to mind as one of the best Dreamcast fighters, on any other console it would be a must own for genre fans, and to be honest, I feel they should all go for it on DC. It may not have as wide a character selection as it's sequel, or the graphics of Capcom Vs. SNK or any of the SF3 games, but it's still a highly enjoyable 2D fighter, especially on multiplayer, and I feel it is of a high enough quality to warrant 4 Stars from me. To further add to it's qualities, due to the death of the Dreamcast, it can now probably be picked up for peanuts in terms of price, and you would be pushed to find a better fighter on any of the 3 current 'living' consoles.
On other aspect which I forgot to mention about the game that was awesome, was the nice little touches given to the characters in terms of what they say upon winning fights. For example, the Hulk says his infamous "don't make me angry...", and Venom drops a more subtle nod to the fans with "we want to eat your brain" a reference to a talking Toy Biz action figure in the early 90s which earned cult statues due to how out of character,over the top and generally hilarious it was.
It's little touches like these that helped escalate the game above being just another entry into the series.
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