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| PSN: Ishmael26b
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|  "Mugen vs Capcom" , posted Sun 1 Dec 04:49  
I'm messing about with the Marvel/Capcom collection, so I thought I would share my thoughts on the games.
First up: The Punisher
First off, there's a lot to love in the game. The Punisher himself has an absurd number of moves. From dash attacks, to izuna drops to a desperation move where you spin the opponent you are grappling as if you are giving them an airplane ride, there is no shortage of melee attacks. There's also shooting sections, but those are quite bad. The game seems to think the shooting is bad as well, since the gun sections seem perfunctory. Instead, the game wants you to hit people with bags of cement or lances (a strangely common weapon for organized crime goons.)
However, there are things that don't make the game click quite the way it should. You can only play as the Punisher or another character with identical moves. Instead of following the Final Fight template of multiple characters with differing playstyles, this feels like a throwback to Double Dragon. I hope you like the way the Punisher plays, because that's all you're getting. The color scheme in the game is also oddly muted. American comics of the time were garish affairs, and a far cry from the overexposed look of this title. Oddly, the NES Punisher game by LJN does a much better job of capturing the four-color look of Punisher comics at the time. I guess someone at Capcom got the memo, because subsequent Marvel games are much poppier.
Random stuff:  You occasionally have to fight a robot named "Pretty Boy." When you destroy his upper torso, he still lumbers around the screen under the name "Pretty Legs."
The voice clips of the Punisher sound like modulated audio files of someone's pet dog. They are amazing and should be the only method by which the character is allowed to speak. The Punisher shows up in a Marvel movie? I want him to introduce himself by saying "Awwwooowaaaw!"
Will I run out of interest in posting about the rest of the games before I run out of titles in the collection? Who knows, but we will find out.
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| PSN: Ishmael26b
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| "Re(3):Mugen vs Capcom" , posted Mon 9 Dec 22:32
Marvel Super Heroes
What a difference a game makes. In the very short time between CotA and MSH, Capcom figured out how these sort of games should handle. CotA was a game where you could shoot fireballs point-blank into the ground. In contrast, the moves in MSH seem well thought out, fit the characters, and actually work within the context of the game engine. Not everything works perfectly (instead of strategic use of the infinity gems, you tend to gobble them like candy to keep the opponent from having access) but the game is still a hoot. I love playing it to this day.
The presentation and animation is wonderful. It's big and colorful in the best manner of a 1990's comic book/arcade game. The character animation is also sublime. Shuma-Gorath must have been a nightmare to animate, never mind making it so that the creature could be playable.
For some reason, you can shred Captain America's outfit. What a curious easter egg.
Speaking of fan service, Thanos ends up having panty shots in his victory pose. I guess Thanos was popular enough to be the final boss in the game, but it's also obvious he wasn't the face of a giant film franchise. Him tossing bubbles at you during the climatic showdown doesn't fill one with awe.
Hitting someone with Juggernaut's punch is immensely satisfying. You can feel the dopamine flood your system every time his fist meets face.
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| PSN: Ishmael26b
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| "Recycled Sprites vs Capcom" , posted Fri 13 Dec 01:19
quote:
I’ve also long wondered if Marvel actually pushed them to include any characters in particular or if they made some decisions based on who they were seeing a lot in the comics they were looking at at the time.
The roster selection ranged from obvious to obscure, so I too am curious as to which characters made the cut. The difficulty of making a fighting game character also meant that some of the early picks lucked out and got far more representation than they warranted. That chronic loser Omega Red somehow made it into three games!
X-Men vs Street Fighter
I'm not certain I would classify this as a "good" game but I love it anyway. When this chimera of a game came out it felt so strange and slapdash. A bunch of old SF characters were tossed in with bits of CotA into one of those faddishly popular tag team games which were a plague on the industry at the time. When looked at that way, XMvsSF sounds more like a mixed together stew of refrigerated leftovers than a proper game. However, the thing is so goofball it wins me over.
It helps that the presentation is top notch. When Tekken Tag came out a few years later it couldn't be bothered making new character portraits. XMvSF, however, is bustling with new art. The pre and post fight art, the individual endings for each character... it all looks great. It also sells the game as being a cohesive whole. The Marvel sprites were already stylized, but this is the first game where Capcom was able to draw their character art as well. It helps to integrate these two very different types of characters into a tonally consistent game.
The game is also full of new backgrounds. Things like having the oil refinery explode halfway through the fight really sells how much power your characters are tossing about. Sure, some of them don't feel like the appropriate setting for a superhero or street fight, but the fact that XMvSF features the only shopping mall battleground I can think of is surprising.
Compared to what comes later, the gameplay is rudimentary. Much like CotA, you can tell the creators are making this up as they go and hoping for the best. Thankfully, the choices are quaintly charming instead of frustrating.
I had forgotten that after the big showpiece battle against Apocalypse you had to turn on your buddy and beat each other until only one was able to walk out. Thankfully this ruthless twist didn't make it into and further games.
I've said it many times, but my favorite thing about Capcom is their love of sticking people into tubes. XMvSF features tubes as far as the eye can see. It even has people tumble out of them mid-match! Truly a highwater mark for Capcom's tube games.
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| | "Re(1):Recycled Sprites vs Capcom" , posted Fri 13 Dec 04:34
quote:
I'm not certain I would classify this as a "good" game but I love it anyway. When this chimera of a game came out it felt so strange and slapdash. A bunch of old SF characters were tossed in with bits of CotA into one of those faddishly popular tag team games which were a plague on the industry at the time. When looked at that way, XMvsSF sounds more like a mixed together stew of refrigerated leftovers than a proper game. However, the thing is so goofball it wins me over.
To be fair, XMvsSF and Kizuna Encounter were exactly the games that started the tag team trend, weren't they? Sure, there have been tag team fighting games before, but none was particularly popular (in fact, nor was Kizuna Encounter, even though I like how it follows a very different direction than XMvsSF, with the restricted tag zones and the pro-wrestling rule of only one team member having to be defeated for the match to be over - it definitely needed a bigger roster, though).
Despite this game having a considerable amount of recycled sprites, I do like that Capcom cared to at least introduce Gambit, Rogue, Sabretooth and the SFA3 version of Cammy (the latter before they even considered to make a SFA3). This game definitely had an all-star roster (...well, except for Nash, but I guess maybe the developers felt they wouldn't be able to make a SFA3 version of Guile in time).
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
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| PSN: Ishmael26b
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| "Re(2):Recycled Sprites vs Capcom" , posted Sat 14 Dec 01:43
quote:
To be fair, XMvsSF and Kizuna Encounter were exactly the games that started the tag team trend, weren't they? Sure, there have been tag team fighting games before, but none was particularly popular (in fact, nor was Kizuna Encounter, even though I like how it follows a very different direction than XMvsSF, with the restricted tag zones and the pro-wrestling rule of only one team member having to be defeated for the match to be over - it definitely needed a bigger roster, though).
Thanks for the correction, I had completely forgotten that this was the title that helped jump-start the tag craze. Now I retroactively hate the game.
quote:
SFA3 version of Cammy
I like the game again!
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| | "Re(1):Recycled Ideas vs Capcom" , posted Wed 18 Dec 00:22:
Yes, I remember seeing MSHvsSF for the first time and thinking it was basically XMvsSF with a different roster. The fact that it had less female characters than its predecessor also bothered me.
That said, I did like that Sakura and Dan were included, and was intrigued to realize that Sakura's special moves got different properties than they had in SFA2 (like the diagonal Hadouken, or Shououken becoming a rushing attack rather than an anti-air move). Dan's autograph move was probably a sign of the developers experimenting the idea of contrasting Marvel's "seriousness" with Capcom's animesque goofiness (something that would be emphasized in MvC1 and MvC2, and that was sadly lost in MvCI). And then I remember being confused by a picture of Norimaro in a videogame magazine preview (since he was neither a Marvel character nor a Street Fighter one), then being confused when he wasn't in the game.
On Marvel's side, Shuma-Gorath having a different standard color than he had in MSH was odd at first (I didn't know that the green color was the correct one, and still don't know why Capcom colored him purple in MSH), and Omega Red being chosen as the X-Men villain for the game was a weird choice (then again, he was a breakout character in Jim Lee's era, so it makes some sense).
EDIT: Oh, and one thing I disliked in this game is that it took away the special “flashing screens” that you’d get in XMvsSF by finishing the match with a Hyper Combo and that would change depending on the side your character represented (the SF characters had that yellow/orange flash from SFA2, while the XM characters had a blue/purple flash with a big “X” in the center). That differentiation between the two sides of the roster was a nice touch, but it never returned…
(unless we count the MUGEN game adaptation of Avengers vs X-Men, but it wasn’t made by Capcom)
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
[this message was edited by Just a Person on Thu 19 Dec 22:05] |
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| "Capcom vs Capcom" , posted Sun 29 Dec 07:11
Marvel vs Capcom
The penultimate game in this collection, this feels like the one in which Capcom figured it out.
First, the final boss is now only a giant set-piece. The battles against Apocalypse were different than a regular fighting game, but they were a spectacle. Having to follow up an epic battle against a giant by beating up your buddy or dealing with the hassle of Borg Gouki was anti-climactic. Now, you bang on the vulnerable parts of the big thing until you win, which is much more satisfying. It's those little things that make MvC1 such an engaging game. Having plenty of new stages instead of the recycled rooms of MSHvSF also gives you the feeling you aren't playing a quick sequel, but a new game altogether.
But what really makes the game click is the new characters. While it's great that there are six new characters, what makes them interesting is that they feel like they were actually built for this engine. In many ways, the Vs characters up until now had been built somewhat juiced-up SF fighters. Either it was Ryu throwing big fireballs or Cyclops throwing big fireballs, but the result was that a lot of the time characters felt like they were being stretched out to fit the expanded game mechanics. MvC1 feels like the first time characters are being designed to fit in the game engine. Captain Commando can call assists as part of his moveset! Strider Hiryu can do whatever the hell he wants! Venom feels like Omega Red except designed properly so he doesn't suck! This is the game where the Vs series came into its own.
Random Thoughts:
Any game featuring Strider is automatically great, especially when it ends with him riding off on his whale. He did it far better than Musashi.
Thanks to this series, Jin is now known as a screaming, naked, wild man. Considering Cyberbots was an odd game (and not in a good way) this legacy for him is preferable.
Morrigan must give the ratings board headaches, and she's no exception here. Her Eternal Slumber is strange, tacky and I must try and hit every incoming opponent with it in every match.
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| | "Re(1):Cyberbots vs Ishmael" , posted Sun 29 Dec 11:04:
quote:
Considering Cyberbots was an odd game (and not in a good way)
I cannot tolerate this Cyberbots slander!
If you revisit Cyberbots today, you'll find that it is a pretty brilliantly made fighting game for the purpose of immediately picking up and playing. When I was little, what I loved about the game was that I could shoot cool beams and things with just the press of a button in cool robots. Now that I've spent many years playing fighting games, what is truly brilliant about the game is the boost gauge!
One of the things which GG Strive realized a lot of new players struggle with is fluently dashing: it's not that double-tapping forwards or backwards is hard, it's that doing an instant air dash or an immediate backdash is hard. So they just made a dedicated button for it, and that makes this really important element of the game immediately usable by new players without ruining what makes the game skillful.
The boost gauge is an even more radical idea: the idea of freely cancelling actions into movement, and having powerful movement options all with just the press of a button! And you can control the direction by just tilting the stick! And it is limited by having a gauge that refills!
Suddenly, you gain access to movement that makes you feel powerful and which makes the character you are in control of feel powerful, even if you have only played the game for a few minutes!
This is INCREDIBLY GREAT.
There are simple combos in the game that you can access just by pressing a few buttons. With such powerful movement and one button projectiles, you can quickly gain access to a zoning and counter-zoning gameplay that isn't just "will I jump over the hadoken".
Cyberbots is a beautiful and brilliant game, and when people say that they wish fighting games were "more accessible", THIS IS THE GAME THAT THEY SHOULD BE TRYING!!! When people say that zoning is boring and difficult for beginners to deal with, THIS IS THE GAME THAT THOUGHT ABOUT THAT!!! When people are tired of seeing the same martial arts stereotypes, THIS IS THE GAME WHICH HAS NOTHING BUT COOL ROBOTS!!!
This game's tiny roster of pilots covers an incredible breadth of tastes. Do you monstrous guys? Bratty princesses? Hot-blooded warriors? Cool professional ladies? Beardy old men? Literally Avdol from Jojo's bizarre adventure? It has you covered.
Cyberbots is one of the most radical rethinkings of how a 2D fighting game could play that Capcom has ever done. It's up there with Tasofro's radical rethinkings of what 2D fighting games could be like. IT ISN'T EVEN A JANKY UGLY INDIE GAME! It's gorgeous!
go reflect on your words and deeds
[this message was edited by Spoon on Sun 29 Dec 11:05] |
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| "Old Age of Heroes" , posted Thu 9 Jan 00:35
Finally, I'm at the end of this collection of reviews of a collection of games. But what a game to end it on! There are many fighting games out there, and MvC2 is certainly one of them. But what kind of game are we talking about?
There are parts of this game I really love. All the art created for the game looks wonderful. The soundtrack is equal parts soothing and energetic. Even the select screen, with its gigantic Katamari ball of characters, makes me smile.
There are other parts I really can't stand. The mixture of 2D sprites and 3D backgrounds are of the time, but that doesn't excuse the look. Not quite the elegance of well made 2D art, not the full realization of new technology, it's the awkward teenage phase of fighting games. Going through these games has been like going through photos of a child growing into an adult, and now we've hit the point where they get a questionable haircut. But I digress.
Really, the entire game isn't easy on the eyes. The extravagant animation of previous Marvel games has been so scaled back that I feel like I'm playing an ArcSys game. Combine that with garishly colored characters constantly hopping back and forth on the screen and it's a headache waiting to happen. I can't imagine anyone is playing in the hopes of seeing a fleet of chunky Sentinel drone sprites fly past a weird looking clown head.
But it's the way the game plays that makes it such an interesting title. The 3v3 team aspect and the ability to effortlessly call in assists makes MvC2 feel completely different from the versus games up to this point. It's no longer a teaming of individual characters, now it's a team that has to act in harmony. It's not the culmination of what this collection has been, it's a different game altogether.
This realization helps explain why MvC2 developed a cult following in different spots of the world. Sure, MvC2 is not designed to be played at a high level and the fans of the game had to contort the game in almost Smash Bros. ways to make it competitive but those were actions borne out of necessity. I used to find the preoccupation with MvC2 odd, but now I understand that MvC2 was unique and that there wasn't anything else like it on the market for a long, long time.
That's enough of that! I'm not sure I'll discuss the next Capcom collection is quite such a way, since it's a hodgepodge of games and not a progression of game ideas like the Marvel games turned out to be. That said, I'm sure I'm going to feel the need to punch down and pick on Star Gladiator 2 so who knows?
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| | "Re(1):Old Age of Heroes" , posted Fri 10 Jan 23:03
It's interesting that while MvC2 recycled lots of sprites, the developers still managed to include eight brand-new characters (Ruby, SonSon, Amingo, Cable, Marrow, Hayato, Jill, and Tron Bonne + Servbot; I'll count Tron and Servbot as part of the same set).
They also made the weird decision of having Chun-Li as a secret, unlockable character (possibly the only Capcom crossover game where she isn't available by default) - and considering how weak she is in MvC2, I suspect most players weren't really eager to unlock her.
And another interesting point is that this game actually had a "main team" (at least for Capcom's side), with Ruby Heart, SonSon and Amingo. Even though I suspect very few players (maybe only me, in fact) actually used these three characters together.
Anyway, I love your observation about the new system making players have to build a team considering not each character's individual strengths, but how they could work together as a team with their assists and Hyper Combos (either with them performing their Hyper Combos at the same time or with that system allowing to link one character's Hyper Combo into their partner's). I'd say that, had MvC2 not been released before Capcom vs SNK, this system would be great for CvS, combining KoF's team aspects with Capcom's tag mechanics. Alas, it was not meant to be.
Maybe I'm this person right in front of you... nah probably not though.
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| | "Re(2):Old Age of Heroes" , posted Wed 15 Jan 03:55
quote:
It's interesting that while MvC2 recycled lots of sprites, the developers still managed to include eight brand-new characters (Ruby, SonSon, Amingo, Cable, Marrow, Hayato, Jill, and Tron Bonne + Servbot; I'll count Tron and Servbot as part of the same set).
They also made the weird decision of having Chun-Li as a secret, unlockable character (possibly the only Capcom crossover game where she isn't available by default) - and considering how weak she is in MvC2, I suspect most players weren't really eager to unlock her.
And another interesting point is that this game actually had a "main team" (at least for Capcom's side), with Ruby Heart, SonSon and Amingo. Even though I suspect very few players (maybe only me, in fact) actually used these three characters together.
Anyway, I love your observation about the new system making players have to build a team considering not each character's individual strengths, but how they could work together as a team with their assists and Hyper Combos (either with them performing their Hyper Combos at the same time or with that system allowing to link one character's Hyper Combo into their partner's). I'd say that, had MvC2 not been released before Capcom vs SNK, this system would be great for CvS, combining KoF's team aspects with Capcom's tag mechanics. Alas, it was not meant to be.
I do think that the MvC2 tag and assist mechanics specifically work well in the high flying environment of the VS series, what with strong universal air blocking and other such systems. CvS trying to be more like regular street fighter might have suffocated beneath the might of assists and DHC, though KOF 99/00/01 gamely tried to make assists work.
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