Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics— Marvelous

Playing Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics feels surreal. For so long, the various fighting games by Capcom featuring Marvel characters have been in copyright limbo. They’re some of the most well respected fighting games out there, but fans had to rely on their original copies to play them. That is, if you had a copy as the secondhand market has exploded in recent years with copies of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 easily going for over $100. After the recent Capcom Fighting Collections and the #FreeMvC fan campaign, we finally have that classic game and more readily available, and with online play to boot.

This Fighting Collection is styled just like Capcom Fighting Collection, with stylish menus containing a variety of options. You can play offline for the arcade and training modes, or go online in the games of your choosing to get your head handed to you by Justin Wong. (You cannot escape the master. He will find you. And he will destroy you.) There are also in-game achievements and a museum with artwork from the included games, the collection itself, and the soundtracks. Just like the previous fighting collection, Marvel vs. Capcom is a treat for fighting games, and the MvC2 art in particular is a treat to see in its full glory.

As for the games themselves, the collection includes the following games: X-Men: Children of the Atom; Marvel Super Heroes; X-Men Vs. Street Fighter; Marvel Super Heroes Vs. Street Fighter; Marvel Vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes; Marvel Vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes; and The Punisher. While The Punisher is the odd man out here, being a beat-em-up rather than a 2D fighting game, this is a great selection. Not only are all of the games great in their own right, it’s very cool to see the evolution from Children of the Atom all the way up to MvC2. Capcom slowly evolved this particular brand of fighting game through these titles, from 1 v. 1 matches all the way up to 3 v. 3.

Each game can be customized to your liking, including difficulty settings, secret character unlocks, attack power, timer speed, whether to play with “coins” or not, the option to show the boot display, and reducing the intensity of certain flashing effects. In game, you can also change controller bindings, the background wallpaper, the size of the display, the volume of music and sound effects, and select from a range of filters. These filters are actually some of the best I’ve seen at recreating the effects of a CRT, and I usually left the default filter on as it has both scanlines and the pixel smoothing/bleed effect that these games were intended to be seen with. It’s not quite perfect, but I hope other retro compilations take note.

In this pause menu, you can also view the move list for the character you’re controlling along with, one of my favorite additions, the Marquee Card that would tell you how to play on the Arcade Cabinet. This isn’t at all something I would have thought to be missing, but I’m incredibly glad it’s here as it’s both handy and helping to preserve the original arcade experience. I do find these scans to be a bit blurry, but it’s possible that this is the best we have since preservation wasn’t exactly a priority back then.

I played through the arcade mode of each title, and while I expected MvC2 to be my favorite I think I actually gravitated more towards MvC1. The sequel’s focus on teams of three comes with each character having a smaller moveset and matches going on a bit too long with six health bars coming into play. I certainly love the massive roster MvC2 has, however, and I’ll immediately love any fighting game that lets me play as my favorite fighting game character, Felicia. Some characters I enjoyed in previous games didn’t survive through every title, such as Psylocke, but I was able to find someone I liked to play in every title.

Marvel vs. Capcom is simply an absolute blast no matter what game you choose. It’s easy to see why these titles are so beloved by the fighting game community. They’re fun, expressive, and gorgeous. Now, where’s Marvel vs. Capcom 4?

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