Product description
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Imagine the battle: Spider-Man vs. Mega Man... Incredible! Or,
who would stand victorious in Strider vs. Captain America?
Amazing! Now Capcom brings this #1 smash arcade fantasy fighter
to the Sega Dreamcast! Experience the world's most insane battles
between your favorite legenedary Capcom characters and Super
Heroes of the Marvel Universe.
.com
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Who would win in a fight: the Incredible Hulk or Wolverine? What
if Street Fighter's Ryu teamed up with Hulk, and Chun Li had
Wolverine's back? Speculate no more as Marvel pits its comic book
heroes against Capcom's video game stars in Marvel vs. Capcom.
All your favorite Marvel characters are available, each one a
joy to play. The Hulk is huge, powerful, and slow, while
Spider-Man leaps and web-slings around the arena, attacking with
outrageous handsprings, flips, and lunging punches. Capcom's
familiar Street Fighter heroes, as well as a few other heroes
such as Mega Man, round out the character selection. Some of the
lesser-known characters from both franchises make special
appearances. It's pretty funny when Arthur from the old game
Ghosts N' Goblins jumps onscreen to throw lances at Captain
America. Each of the battles is a two-on-two tag-team match.
Players can swap characters in the middle of a fight, and clever
players quickly discover how to launch devastating double-team
attacks on the nent. Up to four people can play.
If Marvel vs. Capcom has a fault, it's super speed. The action
is fast--really fast--and can quickly overwhelm a player who is
used to the feint-and-strike gameplay of more sophisticated 3-D
fighting games. In fact, gamer novices may be able to beat video
game veterans by resorting to the old "randomly mash every button
as fast as you can" trick. Aside from this, the game is a triumph
in 2-D fighting. --Mike Fehlauer
Pros:
* Great cast of characters
* Tests superiority of superheroes
* Devastating tag-team moves
* Faithful hero animations
Cons:* ed fighting space
* Difficult, hyper-speed gameplay
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Review
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OK, let's bypass the intro to this review and make one thing
perfectly clear. The gameplay score in this review is based on
playing the game with Sega's arcade-style joystick, which is sold
by Agetec here in the States. If this joystick didn't exist, and
the only option was the standard Dreamcast controller, it's
likely the gameplay would have gotten a lower score.
Marvel vs. Capcom is the latest incarnation of Capcom's Street
Fighter vs. series. But here, instead of limiting the characters
to X-Men or Street Fighters, Capcom has taken characters from all
over the Marvel and Capcom universes. Marvel is represented by
new additions like Venom and Onslaught, as well as fighting-game
veterans like Spider-Man, Captain America, and Wolverine.
Capcom's lineup includes Street Fighters Ryu, Chun Li, and
Zangief, but also include non-fighting game characters like
Captain Commando, Strider Hiryu, and Mega Man. The result is an
ultimate (albeit a bit condensed) lineup of fighters from all
over the place. This cross section of comic book heroes and
video-game characters gives the game a truly new and diverse
feel, even if the gameplay hasn't changed too much since the last
Capcom vs. fighting game, Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter.
The matches are still fought in typical tag-team fashion. You can
swap between your two fighters at any time, letting one hop out
and regain a little life. There are also team-up attacks, where
both fighters hop out and do a super move together, resulting in
big damage if the attack connects. New to Marvel vs. Capcom are
helper attacks. After picking your two fighters, you're given a
random helper character, whom you can call out for a quick attack
a few times during the match with a quick press of both medium
attack buttons. The helper characters are also taken from various
places in the worlds of Marvel and Capcom. Some of the more
notable characters include Marvel characters like Jubilee,
Cyclops, and Colossus, while Capcom's helpers include Arthur from
Ghosts N' Goblins, the Unknown Soldier from Forgotten Worlds, and
Devilot of Cyberbots and Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo fame.
There is also a new team-up attack, which behaves a bit like
Street Fighter Alpha 2's custom combos. When you execute the
attack (which takes all three levels of your super meter), your
backup character hops out, and you control both your characters
at the same time. You have an infinite super meter while you're
double teaming your nent, so you can simply start the frenzy,
then bust off supers as fast as you possibly can. There are also
little differences in some of the returning characters. For
instance, Ken and Akuma aren't in the game. Instead, you pick Ryu
and change into a Ken or Akuma "mode," which changes the color of
Ryu's suit and gives him all the moves of the character he's
emulating. Similarly, Zangief can change into a robot version of
himself, which can breathe fire, yet can't block.
The game has all the modes you've come to expect from a Capcom
fighter, including the standard arcade, versus, survival, and
training modes. However, there's one mode that really sticks out
as being innovative in a "hey, why didn't they think of that
sooner" sort of way. The cross-fever mode is a four-player mode
that lets players one and three fight against players two and
four. So when you tag out to your other fighter, your teammate
takes control of the fight. This also comes into play during the
custom combo-style attack, because each character is controlled
by a different person.
Graphically, Marvel vs. Capcom looks terrific and once and for
all proves that the Dreamcast can definitely do justice to 2D
games. Even when all four characters are onscreen, filling the
arena with projectiles while the background goes crazy, the game
doesn't slow down a bit. The utter lack of load times (save for a
short load before fighting Onslaught's second form) keeps the
game moving along at a nice, brisk pace. The soundtrack, which
comprises music from all sorts of different Capcom games (the
Strider theme song, Mega Man music, and so on) is unmatched. The
game's sound effects are also crystal clear and extremely well
done. The copious use of stereo separation helps make the audio
perfect.
While I wouldn't call Marvel vs. Capcom the most balanced
fighting game in the world, it makes up for its shortcomings by
simply being a whole lot of fun. After pumping out inferior vs.
games for a few years now, Capcom has finally gotten it right.
Marvel vs. Capcom is everything you'd expect from an
over-the-top, ultra-flashy fighter, and then some. But do
yourself a favor and pick up a few joysticks instead of punishing
yourself with the inferior standard pad. The joysticks are
definitely worth the extra money, and really give you the feeling
of having the arcade machine in your home. --Jeff Gerstmann
--Copyright ©1999 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction
in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written
permission of GameSpot is prohibited. GameSpot and the GameSpot
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