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Review: Marvel vs. Capcom 2 |
The title of this, the Capcom game of the moment, seems a bit over-commercialised to me. Each of the previous VS. games had their own title and their own theme. For the fourth in the series, instead of creating a new theme, they’ve gone for a pure sequel. And who can blame them? In terms of popularity - the original MvC was a huge success - the biggest game Capcom had made for ages and their desire to cash in on that success is understandable, if not a little cowardly.
Versus games have always been looked down on by many fighting fans for several reasons, but I’m going to try and be impartial here, and discuss the game itself, not the fact that ten million twelve year-olds mash with Wolverine.
Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 continues the evolution of the Versus game that began with Marvel Superheroes vs. Streetfighter - and takes it one step further. This progression has led to some radical alterations in the fighting system. For a start there’s the much-talked about change in button layout. Gone is the traditional three-punch, three-kick control system, and in is a two-punch, two-kick, two assist button layout. You pick three characters now instead of two, and can call either one of them in at any time, and with infinite supply. Because they’re actual players, it’s possible to damage the assistants as they come in. There’s something extremely funny about waiting for your opponent to call a helper then launching a three-cancel Hyper combo on the pair of them.
The attack buttons are now configured as weak punch and kick and fierce punch and kick. The “missing” medium attacks can be accessed in combos by double-pressing the weak buttons. It’s a change, but it doesn’t take long to get used to - I was using it instinctively after two hours.
Super-cancelling has also been added - it’s now possible to cancel from special to super, and also super to different character super. While some of these can be incredibly damaging (I worked out one with Captain America, Cyclops and Ryu that takes 90% of one life bar) - it’s important to remember you’re effectively playing with 300% energy. I love doing this - it’s one of the high points of the game, to combo into super, then cancel into another super and then into another super is just so insanely spectacular and ludicrously damaging - it’s an obscene display of untold gratuity. The super bar now goes up to five levels to accommodate the extra attack opportunities.
The scoring system has changed to reflect this. It’s possible to score a million points from one combo, and final scores rocket up into the hundreds of millions.
It’s still a Versus game - there are still launchers and air combos, chains and spectacular hyper combos. The “Duo” attack from the first MvC has gone, though it is possible to initiate three characters Hyper combos simultaneously.
MvC2 is the first “2D” fighting game from Capcom to use Sega’s NAOMI arcade board. They’ve used it before in PowerStone 1 and 2 and Spawn, which is good news for us - as they’re not “flying blind” as it were, and the results are quite spectacular. The backgrounds are rendered in high-res 3D, while the sprites are overlaid on top of them. The quality of these levels is astounding - with incredible detail levels and effects such as transparent fog and lighting effects. It has to be said that the actual stages designs themselves are fairly bland - there are no “Marvel” or “Capcom” character themed levels anymore just generic “ice” and “desert” locales. They’re still nice though.
The Dreamcast conversion seems to have no problem with the backgrounds or the actual sprites themselves. There’s practically no loading between fights, and it can handle up to six characters at once on-screen impressively well.
One of my big problems with the graphics is the highly-evident lack of re-touching. Because the sprites come from a wide assortment of games spanning a period of at least six years - there’s a notable difference in quality and resolution and many of them subsequently look out of place next to others.
Take Iceman for example - he comes from the original X-Men: Children Of The Atom game, which was made around 1996. He comes complete with low-resolution artwork - win poses with, frankly appalling black outlines, and one single Hyper Combo. He’s basically been ripped from COTA and dumped straight in here with nothing added.
I understand that with a total of fifty-six characters, sometimes you’ll wish to cut corners here and there - but the fact that so little in the way of enhancements has been made to these characters - it seems like a waste. I was looking forward to seeing what new moves, animations and Hyper combos Omega Red had — and I was bitterly disappointed.
But things aren’t all bad - because there are a few new characters for us to play with. On the Marvel side, we welcome Cable (sort of shoto) and Marrow (weird woman with crazy bone extensions), for Capcom there’s Hayato (star of Star Gladiator), Jill Valentine from Resident Evil one and three, Son-Son (uh…ape-woman), Tron (girl in mech), Amingo (Cactus thing) and Ruby Heart (pirate woman). Why there are only two new Marvel characters and six Capcom ones - I don’t know. I also don’t know who the heck four of the Capcom characters are. If anyone does know, and can let me know, I’d appreciate it greatly.
I have to specially mention Jill Valentine. She appears dressed in her RE1 garb, and her moves consist mainly of heavy ordnance, plus the ability to summon zombies, dogs, crows and even the Tyrant from the end of RE1. She’s awesome!
The vast remainder of the characters come from past Streetfighter and X-Men/Marvel games. Some, such as Guile, are new to the Vs series, and have had the appropriate power and ability enhancements.
Others have been toned down, or have had their abilities altered slightly to balance them out better.
The music is another area that has had a major makeover. It’s now really a matter of taste. I personally like it, a lot of people don’t. Once thing you can’t accuse MvC2 of is being aurally generic. The musical accompaniment to the game can loosely be described as “80’s lounge jazz” - not — you might think, the ideal accompaniment to a fast and frenetic fighting game. But I love the atmosphere it creates - tacky elevator jazz muzak is really the perfect companion to a fighting game full of cheesy superheroes and 80’s platform game stars. Quite a few of the tracks have female vocals, which only serve to enhance the wonderfully fake and plasticky atmosphere.
I love the Bee-Gee’s-esque opening of the “fog-shrouded shore-line” stage - it really is the ultimate in funky tunes.
Special mention also goes to the player select screen music - in which a woman sings “I wanna take you for a ride!” over and over again. It’s great! Only Waku Waku 7 comes close to it in terms of hilariously catchy select tunes.
The announcer comes from the same stable as the Alpha 3 one - again a matter of taste. If you find some guy beginning the round with the inspiring words “Get Ready To Kick Butt!” funny - you’ll be happy enough…if not…be prepared to invest in some earplugs, because there’s a lot of him.
Furthering the tradition of “bigger and better” - the final boss, Abyss, apparently one of the sons of Apocalypse (lol…just imagine “Dad, can I borrow the car?” “You fool!” “Game is over!”) has to be defeated in three separate stages. His three incarnations mean nothing to me - I have no prior knowledge of the Marvel story he comes from, so can offer no information as to whether he’s accurately drawn at all. I can say fighting him is a very entertaining experience, and the cheesy music and backgrounds are replaced with a much darker and more atmospheric tone as befits such a world-saving battle.
But there’s something not right about Abyss. I know he’s obscure and acknowledge that very few people know who he is — but what is he? At least Apocalypse and Onslaught had recognisable forms…what exactly is Abyss? A suit of armour? A little green man? A big red dog? What? The official story doesn’t help in the least - and I kind of feel a bit puzzled as to why exactly everyone is fighting him. It’s true that the story elements of the previous Vs. games were weak, as it was pretty much accepted they were intended prinmarily as two-player games (”Versus” games…geddit?…duh) - but here the plot is almost non-existent. There are no character endings either - which means the one-player experience is ultimately a pointless and unrewarding one.
Dreamcast-only modes help extend the lifespan of the game. Fighting earns points, and points can be spent on new characters, new colours and new backgrounds. In Japan it’s possible to transfer the data between the arcade and DC version via the VMU unit - allowing more characters to be unlocked. For those of us who have imported the title - this is somewhat of a problem, though hacked VMU save files are readily available.
There was another complaint I had - the fact that seeing as you have three characters and thus three life bars - the fights tended to drag on for a little too long, despite the huge multi-character Hyper combos. But fortunately for Dreamcast owners - there is a way around this - and by increasing the “DAMAGE” setting in the options mode (I find 3/4 is perfect for me), fights last a length that feels “right” to me. It’s a shame arcade owners don’t have this feature…. (heh heh:)
I also find the controls are a bit too loose for my liking. I’ve never been in love with the idea of “combo anything into anything” that the previous Vs games have gone by, and this one is made even worse with the addition of super-cancelling. It’s pretty hard *not* to hit your opponent, especially with some of the moves filling up the whole screen - I just would prefer a bit more precision and accuracy.
But the thing that bugs me the most are all the missed opportunities. There are so many things that could have been done that would improve this title immensely.
If they’d have added character endings and a proper story for one.
I’d have liked to see specific teams ala KOF implemented. And choosing a team (say Strider, Hayato and Jin…the sword wielding maniac team) would mean special intro animations and win poses. There is also so much scope for specific character vs. character intro animations missed. And think how good it would have been if all the old characters were cleaned up and given new moves and animations frames….
I personally would have been happy to wait another six months for this release if all the above things were implemented. I can’t say if it was rushed out or not - I don’t work for Capcom…and there’s no real point wondering what if and what could have been. So I’ll end now.
It’s probably been said a thousand times before, but if you liked the previous Vs. games, you’ll have a great time here. It’s really MvC² — pretty much everything is bigger, louder, faster and brighter. Subtlety flies out the window here, with realism and caution following right behind it.
I really enjoy it…but can’t help feeling a lot more could have been done given more time and effort. I know recycling and re-using are the watchwords of the crossover games - but there’s so much that falls just short of greatness. So close….
