The Biggest Game Project on this Planet

Marvel vs Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes.

Mario Story is taking slightly longer than expected, so since there is no rule that states I can't play more than one game at once, I decided to move on a bit already and do Marvel vs. Capcom 2, since it can be finished in a half hour anyway.
Up next are a whole bunch of short games, and since I'm pretty much graduated and without a real job at the moment, I have a LOT of time for games for the moment at least, so I might just as well make the most of it and get this project running FAST.

Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is the....I think...fourth, possibly fifth game in what Capcom calls the VS series. Starting with X-men vs. Street Fighter, followed by Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter, and then Marvel vs. Capcom 1, and I might be forgetting one. I think it's the first one to get a really good, that is perfect, conversion from the Arcades.
I fondly remember first spotting this game in a Japanese Arcade, waaaaaay back in, oh, 1999 or something. I was alive already back then? Seems so. Wow, I must be really OLD.
I any case, I instantly loved it SO much that I waited very patiently until it was released on a home console, being the Dreamcast, which was the only machine powerful enough to handle it at the time. So I bought a Dreamcast JUST to be able to play this game, and play it I did, oh yes.

To prevent you from having too much fun and not spending enough money on Capcom products though, Capcom thought it nice to give you only a small selection of the entire cast of 56 (!) characters at the start, and you had to earn the rest by gathering points to buy them.
There were D-points, earned by playing the Dreamcast game itself, which was no problem, but THEN there were N points, which you had to get by taking your Memory Card to the local arcade, jacking it in and playing the machine (100 Yen per credit, please) and V points which required your going ONLINE and playing people across the world.

In other words, you had to spend a GAZILLION Yen to get everything. The fun thing was, by playing you also earned Gametime/Experience, shown in the Secrets Screen, and the higher your experience, the LESS N points you would get in the Arcades. GREAT! Extortionists.
So I basically said "Fuck you, Capcom" and bought a Maximum Savegame off Yahoo Japan for a lousy 1000 Yen or something, saving me a lot of Arcade and Online costs.

I assume that they took this out for the Western version, since Arcades are harder to come by here, and I'm not even sure if the Dreamcast's online capabilities were supported here. A good reason to go for the Western version then.

So you have a Beat-em-up with 56 (!!) characters taken from the Capcom and Marvel universe, HOW COOL IS THAT!? Let me answer that for you: Extremely Cool.
And the fact that this game was handled by Capcom means you also get really pretty background graphics, great gameplay and a FANTASTIC Soundtrack. Really.
Here and there around the Internet you might find people who think the soundtrack sucks. Kill them. KILL THEM NOW, for the Greater Good. They are the weaker race and they should be annihilated to protect the Ubermensch from dying of weak genes.
Anyone who thinks Upbeat Jazz does not suit a game like this simply has no taste and should have his head examined, before it is placed on Internet and newspapers across the world with the message "Do not listen to this guy. He is an idiot"

So with this many character, you need a system that allows you to play as several of them at the same time right? RIGHT. So each side gets to choose 3 characters, which can be readily exchanged at any time, and also your allies can be called for support attacks during battle, or join in on one massive Super Combo Attack which will leave everyone dizzy, not in the least the people playing.
It's wonderfully frantic, incredibly energetic, high-paced, adrenaline-pumping goodness, and definitely THE most action-packed beat-em-up in the history of Video Games. It's completely INSANE.

There are some downsides though.

First of all, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise: The Dreamcast Controller SUXXORZ. Verily, 'tis the suckiest controller to ever suck the face of the earth, in a sucky way. Why? Because it bloody sucks.
Not only is it shaped clumsily but the back buttons are extremely prone to malfunctioning, which is a needlessly complicated way of saying they fucking SUCK.
This game relies HEAVILY on the use of the back buttons for assist attacks, and all to often I found myself bashing the damn things to no avail. Fortunately though, this is a Sega defect, who are now rightfully out of the Hardware business, and this game has also later been released on PS2 and XBox, so I won't hold that against it.

Secondly, enemy difficulty is really unbalanced. It doesn't matter which difficulty you play on, the first couple of battles will always be terribly easy, with characters just standing around not blocking at all, and only in later fights will they become harder, even frustratingly so on some levels. If I say "Storm on Steriods" there shouldn't be a single person on earth who doesn't break down crying.

Thirdly, and this was to be expected in a game with so many characters, there is no personality. No uniqueness. That is, each character of course plays differently, and the whole pack is very well balanced, but there is no individuality in the game itself. Well, I say balanced, but you try and pitch three Kobun (Servbots) against three Sentinels and see who wins. Still, at least Kobun is really small and hard to hit, and Sentinel is almost impossible to miss, which compensates for something.
What I mean is that there are no backgrounds for specific characters, and no individual endings at ALL. In fact, the entire ending is only saved by the great music that plays during the credits (the credits ARE the entire ending), cos otherwise it's completely not worth the bother.

That said, even though I greatly enjoy this game on my own as well, the lack of individuality and enemy AI make this game less interesting on a personal level, but extremely varied and endlessly entertaining if you play with friends.
I love this game to death since it offers a unique kind of gameplay that has not been matched to this day. Its overdose of energy and over the top-ness might not placate everyone, but then, there's no pleasing some people, eh? EH?

The pinnacle of action-packed fighting, this game deserves a 9.2

posted by Ingen! @ 4:55 PM