Marvel Vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics review – old age of heroes --[Reported by Umva mag]

From X-Men: Children Of The Atom to Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, every one of Capcom’s superhero crossover fighters have been remastered with modern online options.

Much has been made about the great run of games Capcom has enjoyed over the last five years. It kicked into top gear with Resident Evil 2 and the subsequent other remakes, leading into Devil May Cry 5, Monster Hunter Rise, Street Fighter 6, and seems set to continue with next year’s Monster Hunter Wilds. It’s an impressive record, but as far back as 2019 Capcom has been making promises about using the opportunity to revive old franchises – but so far they never have.

They’ve certainly remastered a number of older games that we never expected to see again, from Ghost Trick to Mega Man Battle Network, but unless you count Dragon’s Dogma 2 they’ve not really revived anything. That is admittedly a trickier prospect with Marvel Vs. Capcom, since it requires an expensive licence to make work, but in the meantime we’ll happily accept this lovingly crafted compilation.

This contains every arcade-based Marvel game Capcom has ever made (funnily enough, they did produce a coin-op called Avengers in 1987, but it has nothing to do with either Marvel or Emma Peel). That means this omits their surprisingly lacklustre SNES action platformers and does not include anything after Marvel Vs. Capcom 2. That’s seven games in total, all but one of which is a 2D one-on-one fighter, and they’re all varying degrees of fantastic.

Taking the games in chronological order, the first is the odd-one-out of the collection: scrolling beat ‘em-up The Punisher, from 1993. We vaguely remember seeing this one in arcades, back in the day, but the Marvel character most known for using guns seems an odd choice for a beat ‘em-up, especially pairing him up with the pre-Samuel L. Jackson version of Nick Fury.

He does use a gun, but he only pulls it out if other enemies are using theirs, which seems more like the Predator than the Punisher. Even so, this is a fun example of the genre and a great little bonus for the compilation.

It’s a shame it hasn’t got an online mode like the other games, but it still has its own museum section and a great CRT filter, that makes the screen look like a 90s TV monitor. We’re very happy to see that instead of the ugly smoothing options that are usually the default in these kind of compilations – although the option does exist if you want it.

As fun as it is, The Punisher looks and plays like a Final Fight spin-off, and with their next arcade game Capcom decided to go a completely different route, with one-on-one fighter X-Men: Children Of The Atom. This isn’t just Street Fighter 2 with different graphics, as it plays at a noticeably faster pace and has an emphasis on longer combos than normal for a Capcom fighter; a tradition that was continued with all the subsequent Marvel games.

Needless to say, the pixel art is fantastic, including some multi-part, destructible stages, and if it wasn’t for the fact that the PlayStation version wasn’t very good, with horrendous load times, we feel it would’ve been a lot more famous than it is today. It did start the ball rolling though and led into Marvel Super Heroes, which we have very fond memories of playing on the Sega Saturn – when it felt like an overlooked gem even at the time.

Speaking of which, the main gameplay gimmick revolves around the Infinity Gems, which are dropped whenever you cause enough damage or because of things like getting the first hit in. The games provide various buffs, depending on which gem it is, but can also alter your special moves or provide unique effects depending on the character.

One of the great things about Capcom’s Marvel games is the artwork and the way they embrace the characters’ original, sillier designs (even in the newer Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, Hawkeye still has his goofy purple hat with the ‘H’ on it). We’re sure it’s just nostalgia talking, but for us this has always been our favourite look for many of the Marvel characters and we miss it when other games insist on taking things more seriously.

The next game was X-Men Vs. Street Fighter, in 1996, which is the first ever Capcom crossover fighter, as well as being essentially the first Marvel Vs. Capcom game. It doesn’t change much from the previous games, but it does revolve around two-person tag matches, where you can switch characters whenever you want – just like the later games.

After that was Marvel Super Heroes Vs. Street Fighter, which in our experience is the least well known of the series. By 1997, when the coin-op version was first released, the arcade scene was already dead in the West and the PlayStation port didn’t arrive in Europe until 2000, so the game went largely unnoticed by mainstream gamers. (Remember, this was eight years before the release of the first Marvel Cinematic Universe film.)

Nevertheless, it continued the evolution of the series, with the new Variable Assist move allowing you to call in your tag team partner to be a part of your combo, before they retreat back to the sidelines.

After that, finally, you get to Marvel Vs. Capcom: Clash Of Super Heroes in 1997, which arrived on the Dreamcast just a year later. Again, the heavily compromised PlayStation version limited its mainstream acceptance, but it includes 15 playable characters; most of the Marvel ones are recycled from the previous games but for the first time the Capcom roster includes more than just Street Fighter.

Brand new fighting game avatars were created for the likes of Mega Man and Strider Hiryu, as the series began to turn into a celebration of Capcom’s entire gaming heritage. This includes 20 assist characters that involve much more obscure franchises, with references to everything from Ghosts ‘N Goblins to Forgotten Worlds.

What is the Dreamcast?

The Dreamcast was the final video game console to be released by Sega, following the Mega Drive and the Saturn. It launched in November 1998 in Japan, and a year later in the rest of the world, but was a financial flop, with Sega discontinuing it in March 2001, following the launch of the PlayStation 2 a year earlier. As a result, Sega gave up manufacturing consoles and became a third party publisher.

Despite its commerical failure, the Dreamcast is very well regarded by fans, with a number of influential exclusives, including Shenmue, Phantasy Star Online, Crazy Taxi, and Jet Set Radio. It was also highly innovative in terms of online features, being the first console to come with a modem as standard, which allowed for nascent online features.

All of this brings us to Marvel Vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes, which was released almost simultaneously on the Dreamcast in 2000. Essentially Capcom’s last big budget sprite-based fighter, it’s a hell of a way to go out, with 56 playable characters and some wonderfully eclectic choices on both the Marvel and Capcom sides.

In terms of showcasing obscure characters, Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 manages to outdo its predecessor by just straight-up inventing new fighters – if you were wondering where cactus-person Amingo and pirate Ruby Heart came from.

Super Smash Bros. on the N64 had been released the previous year but Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 was equally responsible for popularising the idea of a crossover fighter and represents Capcom at their most confident and irreverent.

The action is still similar to the previous games but has time for a number of small innovations, with a three-person (or robot or whatever) tag team and a return to the Variable Assist concept, except now with the option to choose the type of move (healing, air, ranged, etc.) they perform when you call them in.

By the time Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 arrived, the Dreamcast only a had year left in it, but a steady stream of re-releases over the years has kept the memory of the game alive and created a growing hunger for new entries. Whether Capcom feels that’s worth the risk, given how much the Marvel licence must cost, we don’t know but they’ve certainly put a lot of effort into this compilation.

The presentation is great and the options include everything you could hope for, with rollback online netcode, full museum features for each game (that you don’t have to unlock), and a multitude of control and display options to suit your preferences. There’re proper training modes for each of the games and even save states, if you’re having trouble with the bosses in arcade mode.

We can only hope that next year’s Capcom Fighting Collection 2 has just as much love lavished upon it, as it contains both Power Stone games, which we’re desperately hoping have aged as well as Marvel Vs. Capcom 2. Of course, we’d prefer new entries in both franchises, but these Marvel games are still great fun, with a cheesy charm that is as appealing now as it ever was.

Formats: PlayStation 4 (reviewed), Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC
Price: £39.99
Publisher: Capcom
Developer: Capcom
Release Date: 12th September 2024 (Xbox in 2005)
Age Rating: 16

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