Marvel vs Capcom

At $15 per download Marvel vs. Capcom 2 might seem like a scam but considering that the physical version of the game stopped being produced long ago and copies go for more than $60 online then it looks like something of a steal. I finally took the plunge a week ago and, thankfully, the game has lived up to expectations.

Of course it has to be expected that it holds up, after all its less than 10 years old and it still has long lines of players at the arcades. Unlike every other older fighting game this one does not suffer from slowness or small non-detailed characters, the game is fun, fast paced, has a huge and varied roster of characters and contains special moves that are as easy to pull off as they are extravagant. The artwork is some of the best Capcom has pulled off in a game, each character was drawn in the game's style, they mercifully completely avoided using stock artwork.

Onto the 360 version. As I mentioned in a very early post on this blog, they smoothed out the pixels and made the game widescreen. This is really brilliantly seen while playing on an HDTV as the characters and the backgrounds pop off the screen. Everything from the kitschy soundtrack to the fighting system remains the same so it really is like getting home from school and turning on the Dreamcast.

Not all is the same as the original version, besides the technical improvements Capcom has also added a list of achievements which, though minimal, are still rather fun: win 100 online matches (impossible I'd say) beat the game (with no losses) with an all Avengers, Street Fighter, Darkstalkers, or X-Men team and so on. This is a great way to learn many characters but they certainly missed a few potential team ups: a Mega-Man team, Marvel villains, a what the fuck is that? team.

The download also comes with every character unlocked from the start. On the one hand I'm happy that I don't have to wait until I get enough points to play as Servbot but on the other I remember that unlocking characters was half the fun on the Dreamcast version. I understand they did this in order to get more parity in the Live matches but I'd still like to think that I'm playing towards something, especially since the ability to select a three Iron Man or three Cable team defeats the purpose.

The unlocked mega roster also creates a problem when playing simple arcade mode. It seems that the CPU only works with a select number of characters so opponent teams always seem to be the same. This leads to some characters apparently disappearing from the roster, so much so that when playing Vs the other day I was taken back at the sight of the Silver Samurai or Thanos, I even found myself asking who the fuck is Spiral?

But these issues are minimal and, more importantly, do not detract from the gameplay. This is still the most fun melee fighter out there and at $15 it is very accesible. Yes, other fighters have surpassed Mvc in terms or art, gameplay and so on but those either suffer from being too expensive, too inaccesible or too limited. The fact that Marvel is now out of the fighter business is disheartening, especially since DC doesn't get it, hopefully sales of this game will persuade them to come back. For now its best to keep enjoying this game and keep hoping for a new installment or perhaps fantasize about a Marvel vs Capcom vs DC vs SNK.