Our review of Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics, developed by Capcom. Available now for PS4 (reviewed), Switch, and Windows.
WHAT IS IT?
An unexpected – but wholly welcome – re-release of some of the greatest fighting games of all time, including arguably the greatest. (You know which one I mean.)
IS IT GOOD?
It’s the best thing since Sega City @ Playdium.
WHO SHOULD PLAY IT?
Jean-Claude Van Damme, Kylie Minogue, Hugh Jackman, Tom Holland…
THE CHRONICLES OF BATTLE WILL NOW UNFOLD
In 2012, Capcom lost the Marvel licence. In 2012, Marvel released the blockbuster movie The Avengers, raking in $1.52 billion at the box office. These things are not unrelated.
When Marvel parted ways with Capcom, it represented the end of an extraordinary era. From 1996’s X-Men vs. Street Fighter – a mainstay of arcades everywhere – to 2011’s Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, the collaboration between legendary game publisher and legendary comic book publisher represented an unparalleled pairing of pop cultural forces. So when Marvel shoved Capcom aside – subsequently delisting the entire library of Capcom-published Marvel games from online storefronts – it was a shocking move, and a bad look for a company high on its own Cinematic Universe success. Thanks to the MCU, Marvel became convinced it could go it alone, self-publishing Marvel games under the banner of new corporate overlord Disney Interactive.
Disney/Marvel’s temerity didn’t last long: in 2016, Disney Interactive shut down, and in 2017 Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite brought the series back, albeit in a watered down, transparently corporate-mandated form. Not only did Infinite jettison the three-on-three formula of its predecessors, corporate synergy meant that franchise stalwarts like Wolverine and Magneto were out, while MCU stars like Hawkeye and Black Widow were in. Fans loathed it, critics slammed it; Infinite died a quiet, embarrassing death.
It’s been seven years since Infinite, and the only noteworthy Marvel fighting game to come out in that time is the truly deplorable mobile gacha title Marvel Contest of Champions. While we still wait for a proper Marvel vs. Capcom 4 – let’s just pretend Infinite never happened – Marvel and Capcom have seen fit to tide us over with the latest, and perhaps greatest, fighting game collection to date: Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics.
WHO WILL SURVIVE
Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics is exactly what it says on the box. A lightly remastered, HDTV-friendly repackage of Capcom-published Marvel games originally released in arcades, it includes 1998’s Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes, 2000’s Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes, the two MvC predecessors X-Men vs. Street Fighter (1996) and Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter (1997), as well as 1994’s X-Men: Children of the Atom (which featured Street Fighter‘s Akuma as a secret character) and 1995’s Marvel Super Heroes (with a cameo from Anita, of Capcom’s Darkstalkers). The Capcom-published The Punisher side-scroller from 1993 is also included, more as a curio than anything else.
Punisher aside, these games are all, by one measure or another, classics. I have fond memories of playing the early Marvel/Street Fighter titles in arcades – typically losing handily – and I once spent my friend Jeff’s entire birthday party playing the original Marvel vs. Capcom on Jeff’s Dreamcast. I’m less familiar with the Children of the Atom and Super Heroes fighters, but picking them up today it’s easy to understand their popularity.
It’s worth taking the time to watch each game’s opening credits and “attract mode” – the idle mode programmed into all arcade cabinets, showing off gameplay and flashy graphics in a bid to get attract new players to spend their hard-earned quarters – to get a feel for what it was like back in grimy 1990s arcades. Also be sure to spend some time in the virtual museum, containing extensive concept art, tribute art, and the complete soundtrack for each game. “I Wanna Take You For a Ride” indeed.
THE BATTLE FOR SURVIVAL BEGINS
Let’s be honest here, the reason we’re even talking about this collection is because of one game: Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes. The undisputed king of the crossover (sorry, Kingdom Hearts), MvC 2 represents, for many players, the pinnacle of the fighting game genre writ large.
MvC 2 is a masterpiece. With its roster of 56(!) playable characters – none of whom are palette swaps as you might expect – MvC 2 offers something for everyone. For the casuals (like me), there’s an incredible range of iconic characters to fool around with, alongside quite a few lesser-known figures who turn out to be gloriously entertaining to fight with. For the more serious player, MvC 2 offers an, if not exactly balanced roster, a multitude of playstyles to experiment with.
Back when I played – and played, and played – MvC 2 on my PS2, my go-to team consisted of Spider-Man, X-Men’s Gambit, and Capcom’s Strider. But I had other favourites too: Psylocke, Thanos, Venom, War Machine on the Marvel side; Ryu, Mega Man, and Resident Evil‘s zombie-summoning Jill Valentine on the Capcom side. New and returning players will each have their own favourite configurations. Luckily, all characters, including hidden characters, are unlocked here by default. (And that includes the fabled gold border on each MvC 2 character, allowing you to make a team of three clones – Hulk/Hulk/Hulk – if you like.)
It’s not just the roster that makes MvC 2 special. The three-on-three match-style is brilliant, allowing players to not only swap between favourite characters on the fly, but to combine moves in exciting ways. With a tap of a button, Ryu can summon Spider-Man to shoot a web trapping the opposing Iron Man. With a fully charged EX-meter, Thanos, Akuma, and an honest-to-goodness X-Men Sentinel can team up to unleash a devastating screen-filling attack. The mix-and-match possibilities are endless, aided by an accessible, highly responsive control scheme that’s easy to pick up and play. I have seen more than one MvC 2 novice devastate an experienced player with the tried-and-true method of button-mashing. It’s great.
GET READY TO KEEP UP
Not everything about this Collection works.
Ultra-purists will be thrilled that these are the Arcade versions of each game, though everyone else will – like me – be disappointed by the fact that, because these are the Arcade versions, your gameplay options are limited.
In particular, you can’t set up human-vs-human fights directly – the game treats an opposing player as a “new challenger” who just dropped in a quarter – and the default controls are neither the same, nor as accessible as, the original home console ports. (Though you can customize your control scheme freely.) The addictive point-collecting metagame of MvC 2 is also missing: on the original PS2 version, each game you won, each bonus challenge you completed, awarded points with which to unlock characters, costumes, concept art, and the like. Since those things are all unlocked by default here, that whole meta-challenge is missing.
The Collection also does a poor job of telling you how to access secret characters, even though they’re unlocked from the start. (I had to google how to access Akuma in Children of the Atom.) Some settings – like turning on “boot mode”, whatever that is – are poorly explained or unexplained. In lieu of the point-collecting challenge mentioned above, the Collection awards “badges” for completing certain tasks, from the straightforward – “complete Marvel vs. Capcom” – to the more technical – “pull off a snapback”, defeat all enemies without switching characters, and so on. This is fun, but the badges aren’t nearly as interesting as what’s already found in the museum.
On the plus side, all games are equipped with online multiplayer – yes, even the side-scrolling beat ’em up The Punisher – and by all accounts online is working as well as fellow Capcom fighter Street Fighter 6. Happily, the MvC Collection also contains a host of fine-tuning options for each game, whether it’s modifying the difficulty (our suggestion: dial it way down from the quarter-devouring challenge of the original arcade cabinets), changing the number of rounds per fight, or layering on different visual overlays to mimic a CRT screen. You can even horribly stretch the original 4:3 visuals to fit your widescreen TV, rendering everything squat and ugly. (Please don’t do this.)
We’re still long overdue for a proper MvC sequel – make it happen, corporate overlords! – but this is one heck of a collection to keep us busy. Berserker barrage!
***
Final score: 9/10 shuma-goraths.
Visit the official website for Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics here.
