MARVEL vs CAPCOM
REVIEW

This is the third in the series of Capcom's 'versus' series, the first two being, X-men vs Streetfighter and Marvel vs Streetfighter. I loaded the game up, hoping for the best. The intro was fine, with all of the characters in memory and no fuss. I pressed start, and was greeted with the selection screen. Here, you can choose from Arcade, Versus, Training, Survival, Cross Fever and Options. I chose the Arcade mode. Immediately, the character select screen appeared, with all character's standing animations in memory! I chose Ryu and Captain Commando, and was randomly selected a third 'helper'. The computer chose it's fighters, and then showed the versus screen. I braced myself for the loading time. Before I had time to think, the game came up, ready to play! NO LOADING TIME!!! I then began to play. All of the animation, insanity and fast action has been recreated perfectly! No slowdown, even when all 6 fighters are on screen at once! Once the first bout was over, I skipped all the following victory and versus screens, and the game then immediately came onto the next fight! IT DIDN'T STOP TO LOAD!!! Crazy!!

15 characters are initially selectable, all coming from various Capcom games, and Marvel comics. Some of the Capcom fighters are brilliant, like Captain Commando, MegaMan, Strider and Ryu, who now has the ability to change his fighting style to that of Ken or Akuma in mid-fight, complete with different specials and supers! I have never been a fan of Marvel characters, but some are worth a mention. Incredible Hulk is amazingly animated, as is Venom. Spiderman is just as combo-crazy as before! You are now assigned a third 'helper' character. This sprite is called on, by pressing both medium buttons together. There are over 20 to choose from, each being a good combo opener. These too, are from various Capcom games and Marvel comics. Here, we have, Arthur, from Ghouls and Ghosts, The Forgotten Hero, from Forgotten Worlds and the huge Juggernaut, from Marvel. These can only be used a number of times, so skill is required as to when to use them. All fighters have the over the top special and super moves, and are easy to pull off. Pure mental gaming fun! There are 2 final bosses, but I won't spoil it for you. They are very hard, though! The only extra feature I got for completion of the game, was the ability to choose the same character twice. There may be more, if the Survival mode is finished.

What you get for your money, is basically, the arcade game. The Survival, Training and Cross Fever modes are new to the Dreamcast version. Survival pits you against a series of teams, and you must beat them all with one continue, and your energy replenished only a small amount after victories. Same as all other Survival modes in fighting games. Training lets you beat the hell out of the computer, at varying intelligences, with constantly full energy and super bars. Cross Fever, I still have yet to try, but is basically a 3 or 4 player mode!! Two teams of two people fight against one another, tagging between. It is possible to get all characters on screen at once, but I cannot comment on this yet! In the options menu, you can change the difficulty, speed, buttons and other usual aspects of the game. The only problem I have with the game, is the joypad. It is quite hard to pull off some of the moves with the D-pad and the trigger buttons can be awkward sometimes. It just takes a little getting used to. The Arcade stick is perfect, though. Also, through a composite connection (3 phonos), the picture is pretty poor. This is a fault of composite, but I am really picky when it comes to picture quality. S-Video and RGB are superb. If you have never seen S-Video or RGB, you will probably not know the difference.

Well, the Dreamcast can do 2D games perfectly! It has no problems recreating possibly the most insane 2D arcade fighter, ever! Streetfighter Zero 3, which is also available, is perfect. The game, like other good fighting games, has a near infinite life-span, as in 2 player mode, it's unrivalled. If you like Street Fighter, or indeed, fighting games, then this is for you. If you are one of those gamers who ignores a 2D game, then get it, and see why hand drawn artwork is better than angular polygons!

Screenshots (click to enlarge)

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