Marvel VS Capcom 2 Downloadable Review
Recently, one of my favorite fighting games of all time, Marvel VS Capcom 2, has been remade and rereleased as a downloadable title for the Xbox Live Arcade and the Playstation Network. This goes to show you how very advanced our gaming technology has become. What was groundbreaking only one generation ago can now be freely downloaded and redistributed across the internet. Awesome! Now, I was looking forward to a big face lift, somewhat like what Street Fighter 2 HD Remix had, but I have to say I was a bit disappointed. The game is less of a remake, and more like a direct port with some interesting features.
Like most downloadable games, the whole Marvel VS Capcom 2 experience is pretty barebones. Menus are simple still graphics you would expect from say made DVD, and there is no fluff between you and the core fighting game experience. The game is essentially exactly the same as it was several years ago. If you have no friends you can play in single-player arcade mode, or if you are lucky enough to be a social gamer you can play in offline versus mode. Online play has been included, as is the trend with videogames nowadays, but there is an unfortunate latency hit that is all too noticeable. Considering that the game is just as fast paced as ever, that fraction of a second between you imputing your command and your character performing his attack could mean certain death.
If you are patient enough to deal with the latency issues you can either battle with your friends, or work your way to the top of internet leader boards. The online experience is simple but fun, and certainly adds an amount of replay value to the game, but the real meat and potatoes comes through offline lag free versus gameplay. Unlike previous iterations of this game, all secret characters and costumes are unlocked from the get go, so there is nothing impeding you from jumping right into the experience, picking your favorite characters, and beating some face. Thank god, because I still haven’t hoarded enough points to unlock every character on my Dreamcast copy.
There are a couple graphical upgrades, but more are just things indie game developers have designed for emulators. There are graphical software filters that smooth over the pixilated nature of last generation’s graphics, but they only work to a certain extent. You can stretch the stage background to fit a widescreen display, but the actual fighting area doesn’t change size at all, so you end up getting strange graphical glitches if you enable this option. For example, if you have a character that can cling to a wall, he or she will instead be clinging to mid air, because the background extends past where the edge of the screen used to be. In addition graphics that were meant to be used as “come in from off screen” animations (such as Jin riding in on his giant robot’s hand) now become hilarious instances of floating severed limbs and tiny Lego men attacking from out of a pocket dimension. Of course if these slap dash graphical upgrades aren’t your style, you can always set the graphics to classic mode, and play it on an old school screen ratio, with an old school screen resolution. It won’t be as pretty, but at least there won’t be any glitches.
Speaking of glitches, Capcom hasn’t rebalanced or fixed any of the old glitches that plagued this game. Infinite or nearly infinite combos that grieved players early in the game’s history are still present, several teams have ways to totally lock down the playing field, more than one character can combo a full health bar away, and flat out glitches like Juggernaut’s power up haven’t been fixed or addressed in any way. You are, for all intents and purposes, playing the original Marvel VS Capcom 2. Depending on who you are this is either amazing, or downright disappointing.
Marvel VS Capcom 2 was a great game back when it first released and it’s a great game now. Considering that you can now pick up this game at a downloadable price, there is really no reason not to add it to your collection if you are a fighting game buff. The game will bring a smile to the faces of anyone who can appreciate the nostalgia. Just don’t expect any massive revolutions. The game is well worth the price, it just isn’t anything you haven’t seen before.
(25 votes, average: 2.80 out of 4)
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