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"Round 4 of the Vs series is here!"

“BLODIA PUNCH!!!!!” –Jin

That is exactly one of the best ways to describe Marvel vs. Capcom 2. It is a tremendous punch by Capcom, and once again Capcom does not disappoint in round 4 of the “Versus Series”. It now adds to the craziness that the other versus games had by making the tag team feature 3 vs. 3. Just when you thought 2 men teams was a lot; Capcom whips out 3 men teams. Marvel vs. Capcom 2 takes on a new look. Thanks to Sega’s Naomi Board, Capcom decided to utilize it in a 2D fighting game. The result? Backgrounds that are done in 3D while the fighters remain composed of 2D sprites. Cheers to Capcom for coming up with this idea. This is only the first 2D fighting game to use the Naomi Board. the upcoming Guilty Gear X will use it as well. Hopefully Capcom will produce more games by using the Naomi Board. Now let us get down to business here.

Marvel vs. Capcom 2 unleashes 56 characters from the Capcom and Marvel universes. Which makes for 28 for Capcom, and 28 for Marvel. All of the characters in this game have appeared in the following Capcom games; X-Men Children of the Atom, Marvel Super Heroes, X-Men vs. Street Fighter, Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter, and Marvel Super Heroes vs. Capcom. However even by using all of the characters from these games did not stop Capcom from adding MORE!!!!! Capcom took the liberty of adding newcomers such as Hayato from Star Gladiator, probably the most badass X-Men character Cable, Tron Bonne from the latest installation of the Rockman/Megaman series “The Misadventures of Tron Bonne”, as well as others. One slight catch here, you start out with 24 characters and must earn points through a system that Capcom has setup. When you play on the Dreamcast itself, you earn “D” points. If you play a friend online, you earn “N” points. Then when you play against people in the arcades, you earn “A” points. This system was setup more in mind for those who live in Japan. Not people who live in other countries. However no need to fear, if you have a Nexus VMU which plugs into the PC or you have the American Dreamcast and have the ability to go online with it, you can go to http://www.gamefaqs.com where CJayC was kind enough to hack the save file so everything is unlocked and download that file. With this file, there is no problem with experiencing the game to its fullest. If you are living under some rock and have no idea who is in this game, go and look at the FAQs for the game so you can see who is in it.

This size cast allows for so many different team combinations to be made up. Literally, there are over a thousand possible combinations. One thing that gets me about the cast is that Capcom used the Street Fighter Zero versions of Ryu and Ken. They definitely look a lot younger than they currently do in Street Fighter 3, which makes no sense in my eyes. I would have thought Capcom would have put in the latest versions of everyone. Oh well.

The graphics in this game are well done. The backgrounds are absolutely gorgeous. They vary from a pirate ship, to a mountain range. The mountain range has a beautiful sunset in the background. It’s easy to become distracted by the backgrounds when you first play the game due to how beautiful they are. There are also alternate backgrounds for some of the levels. Take the mountain range background, there is an alternate version of it where instead of a sunset, the battle takes place during the daytime against a blue sky instead. The Naomi Board adds nice graphical effects to special moves now so they look very flashy. The super moves take advantage of it as well; they look wonderful with all the lighting effects during the moves. The triple team supers are no slouch either. The screen becomes FILLED with all sorts of colors and explosions that it makes it kind of easy to have no idea what the heck is going on. The only problem I have with the graphics is the fact that the 2D sprite-based characters look slightly out of place on the 3D backgrounds. Also, the characters seem to be a bit more pixilated than the previous versus game characters looked.

As far as the sound goes, I have no problem with it. It is fast paced music which best suits the mood of the game. I’ve heard people complaining about the jazz and whatever that was used for the soundtrack…and well, who cares? It sounds great. Let me put it to those people this way, would you like to have the Final Fantasy soundtracks in here? How about listening to the Final Fantasy 8 opening theme when you’re in the middle of opening a can of 100% pure Whoop-ass on Gouki, Cable, and Juggernaut? While the music is not the best I’ve heard in a game, it is very upbeat and funky. Capcom did a good job on the music, that’s all I ask for.

Now, what is a Capcom game without good control? It sure as heck would not be a Capcom game in that case. No need to fear though, Marvel vs. Capcom 2 once again shows just how good Capcom is when it comes to having good control in their games. The control feels smooth and fluid. Doing the special moves seems extremely easy, and the thing is, they dumped the “Easy Mode” for this game. Doing super moves is as plain as day, most of the characters have the same button combinations for their supers. Most of the moves consist of down to forward and the 2 punch buttons, or kick buttons. Or it is the same, and just down to back. There are only several moves that do not use that format; most mentionable would be Gouki’s Raging Demon. The triple team super is even easier than I had originally expected. All you do is tap the 2 triggers on the Dreamcast controller and there you have it. Honestly, I don’t know how much easier the control could be for this game. It was done just right for this type of game.

Now while most of the stuff about this game is positive, I’ll just touch up on the negative aspects. Capcom seemed to do just about everything right except one important thing…why does the game difficulty feel considerably easy on the level 8 difficulty? I thought it was just I, but when I talked to a friend of mine who also has the game, he complained about the same thing. Capcom usually is no slouch when it comes to challenging fighting games. Go check out Street Fighter III: World Impact if you want a good challenge. Another small thing that bugs me is the pixilated characters. None of the other versus games had this problem. This really was unnecessary in my opinion. But it is not a big deal. One final thing, while it was a nifty idea to have to unlock the characters by gaining points for 3 select categories, I just wish Capcom wouldn’t make it a requirement that you must go to an arcade or go on the network in order to gain points. Not much wrong with this game as far as I can see.

Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is a game that you really should not be without as long as you can play imports. I’ve had the game for a few weeks now, and I still am not tired with it. The replay value is tremendous with all the different combinations for teams you can have. For the first 2D fighter that uses the Naomi Board, it is simply stunning. The pictures do not do the actual game justice. To really see just how nice the graphics are, you have to see the game in action. The positive aspects of the game by far outweigh the negative aspects. Another superb job by Capcom, which does not disappoint!

FINAL RATING: 9 OUT OF 10

-Dangerous K

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 05/03/00, Updated 05/03/00