Marvel Vs Capcom Fighting Game Collection: Arcade Classics
Once more, taking you for a ride
My teenage years were roughly 1998-2004 I was in what a lot of people consider one of the golden times of video games, pick a year in there and some sort of major groundbreaking game or event in the hobby that happened in that era. This was also in some ways the twilight of the arcades as consoles and PCs were getting better and better. Still, there was a draw to arcades, and one of them is a passion of mine: Fighting games.
This was also the era of the comic book cartoon, or rather nearing the end of it, where it was a period before the superhero boom of today. For a lot of then teenagers, the early 90’s were dominated by a few cartoons and one of them was X-Men, for a lot of us a gateway drug to comic books or the characters in general. In 1994. Capcom got the license to create games on the merry mutants which at the time aided a then declining Marvel Comics. That little spark created a series of games that many of us revere to this day in fighting games: Marvel Vs. Capcom, but the thing is getting to the first entry in the series did not happen till 1998, but the structure was already in place and those games retroactively became part of what we are going to be looking at today in the Marvel Vs Capcom Fighting Game Collection: Arcade Classics (surprisingly not with a “turbo” or “super” suffex nor an “Accent Core” or “XX” or “Shift” though maybe some 2s…)
The Stats:
Bought: Physical Edition at Target
Paid: 46.00
Platform: PS4 (Played on a PS5)
Played:
TL:DR A great collection for fans who want to have a copy and also for newer fans to be able to play these for the first time.
A note on preservation
Before we get too much into this review, I want to stop and talk about preserving the past in gaming and also some advice for those who have or intend to buy the copy only digital. While I think it is good there are digital copies I worry in the future when it comes to having access that could be a problem. A lot of the games in this collection have not been released on consoles since their original releases back in the 90s. So the fact we now finally have access to an affordable (for now) version of these games for me, is a huge deal. Given the holder of Marvel, properties are the house of the mouse, and they are known to alter or edit things or even deny access to some of its history. If you want to play these games in the future I strongly recommend buying a copy physical for the PlayStation 4 (or even the announced Xbox release.) I understand the convenience and even the FOMO of digital because yeah I have wanted to play these games for years. But I feel a physical copy in the long run is a better choice than digital because even owning some items on a digital platform in recent times has not been enough to keep them in circulation and also you will not be compensated in some of those situations.
So again, and for the last time in this review, if you have the ability or the means to enjoy a physical copy. I strongly recommend getting one, they seem to be in plentiful stock right now, and the price while a biit high can be negated with discounts and when items go on sale. Thank you for reading this part and I hope the reasoning makes sense.
And now a physical edition exclusive!
Before we get further, I really want to talk about the art of this game and how it just looks great...
Seriously, if someone at Capcom is handing out physical copies of this cover art as a picture let me know who must be harmed to acquire one as I’ll proudly display this shit.
Also, if you got a physical copy of the game you get a mini-comic book with emphasis on mini, seriously I’ve included one I had of my own lying around for scale…
So yeah, let it be known you get “goodies” when you buy a physical copy, though seriously I mean it who must I talk to in order to get a picture of the cover art?
Alright, enough of that crap man how are the actual games?
Okay, okay sorry I got sidetracked the collection includes seven games (well 14 if we wanna count the Japanese copies included in this) from the OG beat’em up The Punisher up to Marvel Vs Capcom 2. While it doesn’t sound like a lot, remember the character list in Marvel Vs Capcom 2 exceeded fifty! So it’s kind of hard to follow that up with number 3 when it is….well short of that number. So while we get the beat’em up that preceded these games as mentioned, I kind of wish also they included some of the other Marvel games that were done for the SNES like Mutant Apocalypse or War of the Gems if they were gonna include The Punisher of all things. It would been a better-rounded package from a historical perspective. But look I get X-men Vs Street Fighter, so at this point, I’ll just take what I can get.
A fun thing to do is to play these games in order as you can see the series slowly moving towards the pinnacle that was part 2. Playing X-Men is slow and feels very much like an older variant of Street Fighter 2, you notice a much faster pace of gaming when you go over to Marvel Super Heroes including the Avengers stables, and even back then the final boss level showing off characters that were back then classified as Easter Eggs helps to make the beating of Thanos more satisfying. It’s at this point the moment of the creation of the Reese’s of Fighting games was stumbled upon. You took my X-Men and put it with your Street Fighter! Thus the tag team insanity of the Vs. series was born.
A fun little aside, you also in these games aside from Magneto mainly get the OG voice cast of the X-men cartoon. Along with some members of the cast who passed on before the 97 reboot. Right now, that may not seem like a lot, but back then it was kind of mind-blowing when you realized Rouge sounded like Rouge, and Wolverine growled like Wolverine. Hell I think even Iron Man sounded like Iron Man from the 90’s cartoon (well both of them, cause it was the same guy.) Not all the VAs from cartoons are there (no 90’s spidey boo!) But, a sizable amount remains.
The gameplay is frenetic as ever, in all the right ways when you hit the Vs games proper, when you arrive at the first MVC other changes add-in and then when you get to MVC 2 the introduction of a 3-man team becomes mind-blowing along with how you can have your partners help on tag ins leads to some interesting and potent variants. Every game is in some way unique to itself and all builds well you also see some of the ideas that moved the genre at the time forward being tested out in these games. Also, yes if for some reason you want to be abused by people spamming the cheapest characters possible online there is online play, but I don’t think it is a major thing for me as they were not designed for use with online as games are today. Much like other retro releases they carry the scars of their time on them for better or worse.
So, what else is here then?
Along with the games you get access to an archive of concept art and other notes even the marquee designs from the arcade cabinets from both the USA and Japan. There was a clear attempt to archive and preserve as much as possible of the games in this collection. You can also play the Japanese versions as I mentioned earlier if it’s a thing you feel the need to do. You get your standard options to optimize the game for modern TVs and boarders, that accent the screen, I kind of wished for some more boarders but nothing is perfect, something to unlock even would maybe have driven people to keep playing the games as everything in all the games is already unlocked out of the gate. The fighting game collections from Capcom have gone the extra mile and it’s great to see that care being put into something like this.
I’m guessing I should get this right.
I stated earlier that many of these games have not seen re-release since they were ported to consoles in the 90s. I even said in the podcast that if Capcom would just release these I’d be happy. Well, a few days later they announced it on a Nintendo Direct of all places. I also get to have my cake and eat too later this year when they release another collection with CAPCOM VS SNFREAKINGK! Along with some other games that I am sure are good or interesting that will be collecting dust in the collection.
I again stress the urge to get a physical copy, but even if you get digital you should if nothing else for historical curiosity try this collection out, you may find this to be a good gateway to 2d fighting games or see some old-school stuff. The games will speak for themselves as it’s why I did not really go too deep into reviewing them. This collection is strongly recommended.
-The Chaos Director