Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes - Review

Added August 11th, 2003 by EminaZ

Introduction:

The latest of Capcom’s vs. series. First to début on the long-ill Dreamcast on 6/23/2000, Marvel vs. Capcom 2 proved that 2D fighting games are long from dead. Fighting fans from over the world played this game religiously in the Arcades. This game was truly a work of art on the Dreamcast. Although Marvel vs. Capcom 2 takes all what is good from its predecessors, is that still good after almost 3 years?

Gameplay:

On of the more complex 2D fighting games. Although complexity doesn’t always equal greatness in videogames, it sure works that way in this case. This game is a fast and crazy fighting game, you will be destroyed by a skilled opponent in a mater of seconds if you were to challenge one with out having a clue of what you must do and how to work the game.

You start the game with a handful of playable character and another handful of hidden characters. To unlock these characters, you could either play the arcade mode and win some points over and over again, or you could fight with a friend or train to earn points. These points could later be used to buy new characters, stages, customs, and artwork; which is exclusive to the Xbox and PS2 version.

Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is a 3-on-3 tag-team fighting game. This mean that you have to pick three characters that go against three characters. Each character you pick has three assists. Each assist is different and can be used in the game to help you out. There are millions of combinations of characters and assists that you could have.

There are very few modes you could play: Time Attack, Arcade, Versus, and a few more. Ultimately, though, you will find yourself playing either Arcade or Versus. There are an unimpressive collection of stages that you could play in, none of which are destroyable like the ones X-Men vs. Street fighter or Marvel vs. Capcom 2. With this instalment, each player could hold up to 5 supers, and can perform one after another with each of their characters, or you could bring all your characters for the ultimate super.

The lack of online play is also a major blow to this 3 year old game. The characters are no where near balanced in strength.

Graphics:

What could one say about the graphics of this game? The graphics themselves scream for an update. The characters are very pixilated and not polished. Characters have no true shadow’s, and their shadow seem to be under them even at night time.

Capcom have decided to make the backgrounds 3D for this game while keeping the character in 2D. Which works great, the backgrounds are probably the more impressive graphic visuals in this game, although not impressive at all. When executing a super, the background will change into a super annoying, repetitive animation that you will stop paying attention to. The sparks (when a character hits a character) are nice, but perhaps too big.

Overall, the graphics are very outdated.

Audio:

Capcom should have learned to remove the ugly vocals in this game, apparently they didn’t though. Although the sound effects gets the job done, although it can get a bit annoying too, the music just degraded this game more then it needs to be degraded.

For some reason, Capcom made the background music to be funky 80’s music with a lot of vocals that make you so irritated you just stop playing the game some times. Capcom should have considered custom soundtracks if they had nothing better then 80’s music for the game.

Controls:

The game controls very nicely. You could configure the controls if you aren’t happy with the default one Capcom has put in. You use your assist by pressing either of the triggers. To make using supers a bit easier, Capcom allowed the black and white button to be LP+HP and LK+HK, respectively. To tag in another of you characters, you press either A+X or B+Y depending on which character you want to bring in. You could high jump by pressing down and then up in a quick motion.

The controls are nice, and although the seem complex, a skilled fighter will have no problem here.

Replay:

With of all its flaws, you will find yourself playing this game a bit more then it deserves for some reason. It’s probably because you want to show off at your local arcade. You will spend most of the replay time in the training mode tweaking your team, and trying new assists and characters.

Summary:

With of all its flaws, and the lack of online play this game is a must for fighting fan who never played this game before, but the many that have probably already got tired of it. This version is identical to the PS2 version that has been out months before this version, for some reason. If gamers are drooling for a fighting game with a bit more replay value, I recommend Capcom vs. Snk 2 and Dead or Alive 3.