Well everyone, the next Marvel VS Capcom 3 reveal has come down the pipe, and this time it’s Phoenix and Haggar. Combine this with the recently leaked screenshot of Akuma and the previous reveals of Storm and C. Viper and it’s looking like the final “leaked roster” is the real roster after all. Well, as is the case with every character reveal, our team goes through each reveal trailer frame by frame to try and analyze the tools and moves that have been showcased. So here is our analysis of Phoenix and Haggar for MVSC3.

Let’s start with Phoenix. Now, we have been saying for a while that Phoenix should have been in the Marvel VS series, and our wish has finally be granted. So she has a lot of hype to live up to. Thankfully, she satisfies the hype by appearing to be pretty broken.

She is a medium speed character with decent range and disjointed hitboxes on a few of her moves. She is EXTREMELY mobile, with an eight way air dash, a teleport, and a possible double jump (I can’t actually tell if she double jumps in the middle of one of her air combos but it appears as if she does.) She also has a fly, or something that looks like it. It would be more accurately describe as an “air-stall”. In the middle of her first air-combo of the video, she cancels out of a normal move and goes back to a neutral position without falling. She then has enough time to continue her combo without the opponent recovering from hit-stun. Her teleport has similar functionality. We see her teleport in the middle of a combo, and while it isn’t fast enough to keep the opponent in hit stun, she can use it at short range to deliver a decent back/forth high/low mixup.

Her move list, thus far, seems to be filled with projectiles and movement type moves. In the air, we see her throw a pretty basic fireball, that travels at a decent speed. However, this fireball explodes when it hits someone, and most notably it can hit opponents on the ground, popping them up. We see her use this to combo into one of her supers, which we will get to later. We also see her use this as a combo ender at point blank, which means it has a very short startup.

Her other projectile is a delayed projectile. She puts a phoenix sigil in the air which appears to act as a shield for a limited amount of time. Then the shield turns into a firebird and flies straight forward. There isn’t much else about this move. It appears to be useful in setting up traps, and it can be used in the air, just like her other projectile, but that’s about it.

Her expansion moves seem to change based on what button you press. Her fire dash always seems to go straight forward, but different strengths seem to do different amounts of hits. Early on we see her fire-dash in the air and it only does one hit. We see her do the same later in the video, but soon after we see a version where her whole body becomes cloaked in flames, which cases the move to do multiple hits. It also has different positioning, dashing all the way through the opponent rather than pushing them back.

Her supers are decently useful. Her phoenix inferno super shoots a gigantic firebird that takes up most of the screen. It’s your standard projectile super that’s fast enough to hit off of a combo. It appears as if she flies backward a bit before firing it, much like storm does with her ice-rain super, but the start-up is much quicker and the flight path is much shorter. She also appears to have a super called “mirror shield” which engulfs her in a bubble of flame. It probably has many properties including a hit box, considering Chun-Li advance guards it at one point while out of range of Phoenix’s normals. However, more importantly this move appears to recover your red health really quickly while in the range of an opponent, effectively increasing the size of Phoenix’s health bar.

However, her most broken super is easily her ultimate which requires five super bars to pull off. If Phoenix dies with five super bars stocked, she comes back with full health as Dark Phoenix. The transformation immediately interrupts whatever combo the opponent was doing and flings them across the stage, making this the only burst type mechanic available in the game. As Dark Phoenix she is stronger, faster, has more range, and all of her moves change for the better. Her fireball move now shoots two homing fireballs, and her firebird move is now HUGE! Her fire rushes do a lot of damage and have a much larger hitbox. She is also shown doing one at an upward fourty five degree angle, but this probably isn’t exclusive to Dark Phoenix Mode. With nothing more than her fire-rush and her phoenix inferno super she kills Dante from half life. That’s pretty impressive. The only downside is that her health seems to constantly drain while in Dark Phoenix mode, but not nearly fast enough to make a difference in the middle of a match. Long story short, Dark Phoenix looks broken.

Now, it’s time to look at the only character who might be more broken than Dark Phoenix, Mayor Mike Fuckin’ Haggar. Oh, he’s not stronger or faster than Dark Phoenix, nor does he necessarily have better moves. However, he does have two things that Dark Phoenix doesn’t have. One, he has an awesome Final Fight remix theme of “Turn the Beat Back”, and two, he has his godly mustache! There we have it. Broken.

In all seriousness though, Mike Haggar looks like a faster version of Zangief. Yes please! He starts the trailer by attacking with a launching throw, which sends Super Skrull into the air for a five hit air combo that takes off about a quarter of his life. Awesome! Haggar’s attacks are slow, but they hit like a truck, and I don’t mean just in terms of damage. Each hit causes a greater than usual amount of hit-stop, causing the action to freeze for a split second on each impact. If anything this allows the Haggar player a tiny bit more time to think about their combos.

Haggar is also more mobile than Zangief, which is just what a grappling character needs. He seems to have some sort of gut-punch combo special, that moves him forward while hammer fisting the opponent. Hehe … hammer fisting. Anyway, the special easily moves Haggar an entire screen’s length, and it seems to be able to combo into his normal launcher, a rising uppercut. He also has Zangief’s spinning lariat (which Zangief actually got from Haggar … but I digress) which not only has invincibility to projectiles, but also normal moves. In the video, he uses it to attack through Wolverine’s berserker barrage. He also has some sort of move that causes him to bring out a pipe and bash it over your head, but I can’t tell if that’s a special move or just some sort of normal move. Either way, his normals have tons of range, and the pipe gives him a disjointed hitbox, which keeps him out of harm’s way. In fact, it makes him one of the first grapplers ever with a disjointed hitbox.

His other specials are a variety of throws which do dumps of damage. He has a standard pile driver which we see him using on Thor out of block stun after a whiffed move. Against air opponents he has his back drop, which grabs them out of the air and brings them back to the ground. In the air (and possible on the ground) he also has a giant swing move which doesn’t appear to travel like his back drop move does, but still does a lot of damage. It also appears to put the opponent directly under you, in order to set him up for OTGs. We know that he has a relaunch he can use in this situation because previously in the combo he used his standard launcher on Captain America after slamming him down with a lead pipe.

All three of his supers were showcased in the video, and they all look decently useful. His body slam super sends out a shockwave that hits everything on the ground at once. It does a decent chunk of damage, and can hit grounded opponents after a combo. In the trailer we see him use it after a hammer fist air combo and take off half of Deadpool’s life.

His other striking super is his gut punch super which just looks awesome! He runs forward with a gut punch and if it hits, he proceeds to gut punch you thirty times before finally finishing with a powerful hammer fist. More specifically, his gut punch super has a weird hitbox. In fact, the hitbox for his fist extends slightly further than his actual fist does. We see him hit She-Hulk in the trailer without his fist ever actually contacting her.

Finally, we have his throw super, which is a variation on the ultimate atomic buster. Haggar starts with a backdrop, and then giant swings his opponent into the air before jumping up to deliver a spinning pile driver. While in X-factor, the move kills Dr. Doom from half health before Haggar even gets through the giant swing. Most likely, it could very nearly take off a full health bar.

So, now for our final take on both character. First of all, we think that Phoenix is going to be a real contender. We haven’t seen any of her assists yet, but she has a very solid tool set that works well on the ground, in the air, at range, or close up. Her Dark Phoenix super is really going to clinch the deal though. It’s kind of like getting a whole extra character that is far more powerful than any of your previous characters. Think about it this way. Say the match comes down to you and your opponent, last character versus last character, and you manage to kill Phoenix, only to have her come back. What chance do you have? It’s not really that hard to get maximum special bar in this game, so I have a feeling that many players will save Jean Grey for last specifically for Dark Phoenix in order to cause some massive upsets.

Haggar on the other hand is a character that we really want to be good, but we aren’t sure if he is or not. As much as we ranted about his damage, his pile driver seemed as if it couldn’t be comboed into, and it didn’t do anywhere near as much damage as his gut punch or air combos. Successful grappler characters need to do about as much damage with a throw as other characters can do with full combos, and Haggar can’t outside of his supers. That being said, his strikes are pretty good. His hitboxes are very deceiving and his combos do tons of damage. It’s possible that people will just ignore Haggar’s throws and use him as a slow beat down character, but we fear that he will be overshadowed by some of the more combo happy rush down characters, and the wonkier characters such as Arthur and Modok. Still, this is Haggar we are talking about. We might just play him for his mustache

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