Lets Go Crazy (Marvel vs Capcom (DC))

Name: Guile176

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Product:	Marvel vs Capcom (DC)
Date:	25/04/05 (527 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great Capcom quality graphics

Disadvantages: Color swapped sprites, Poor control on a reg DC pad

Capcom's now famous crossover Vs series began in
about 1996 with the release of X-Men Vs Street
Fighter. After that came Marvel Super Heroes Vs
Street Fighter which didn't seem to go over too
well with fans of the first game. It was more or
less an expansion game which changed the character
roster around abit and recolored the backgrounds.
Next up came the game im reviewing now which is
Marvel Vs Capcom.

Unlike MSH Vs SF, Capcom took a little more time
and effort on this one. No longer do we have
pallet swapped backgrounds but we now have all new
ones. As usual the character roster has been
messed around with as well. New to the scene are
the likes of Mega Man, Jin Saotome, Captain
Commando, Morrigan, Strider, Gambit, Venom and War
Machine. War Machine unfortunately is little more
then Iron Man from Marvel Super Heroes with a new
paint job and some slightly different looking
moves.

One interesting thing about the character line up
is that ultra popular Ken and Akuma are not in the
game. Instead, Ryu has a super move which gives him
the moves of either of these characters. If you
change him red then he will then take on all of
Ken's moves and black means he's got all of
Akuma's.

As far as hidden characters go, you wont really
find very much. Like the last Vs game their all
pallet swaps with the exception of Roll who pretty
much plays like Mega Man. You get swaps like a
golden War Machine, a gray Hulk and Zangief and a
Red Venom who is supposed to be Carnage from the
comics. Only difference in the characters from the
originals besides their color is some different
character attributes. Red Venom is quicker but
takes more damage, gray Zangief is even slow and
can walk through attacks but he also cannot block.
Why couldn't Capcom add some actual hidden
characters? They could have spent a few more
months in development but no they didn't. Guess
Capcom was a little hard up for cash so they
rushed this game out to market just like the last
Vs title.

Play mechanics still remain pretty much the same
with its tag team matches. Each player gets 2
characters to fight as and gets 1 random assist
character. During the fight you can call an assist
character in to perform an attack. Each assist
character does a different type of attack. Thor
will come in and shoot lightning from his hammer,
Cyclops will shoot out an optic blast. There are
tons of different assist characters from various
Capcom games and Marvel Comics. Unfortunately
that's all they do is assist. You cannot choose
them as part of your regular team. This is pretty
lame since Capcom already had all the animation
and sounds for most of these characters since they
were used in previous game done in the same
graphic style.

Playmodes here are pretty limited. You get your
standard 1 and 2 player modes along with a
training and survival mode. Then there's Cross
Fever mode which allows 4 players to take part in
a single match. If you have 4 controls and four
people around then you`ll want to check this mode
out. Other then that the only other thing is the
Onslaught mode. In the Onslaught mode you assume
the role of the games final boss which fills most
of the screen. Its a fairly cool mode to mess
around with but you`ll probably tire of it after
playing once or twice.

Graphics 8: Graphics in Marvel Vs Capcom are
typical Capcom. Characters are animated extremely
fluidly and everything runs very quickly without a
hint of slowdown. While the character animation is
still smoother then 90% of the 2D fighters out
there it still pales in comparison to Capcom's own
Street Fighter 3 titles. But still with all this
action going on onscreen one cant help but be
impressed by the total lack of slowdown.

One downside of the graphics is that the
backgrounds are a little on the bland side of
things. Their much better then the backgrounds in
the previous 2 Vs games but pale in comparison to
other Capcom title like Street Fighter 3, Street
Fighter Alpha 2 and Cyberbots. This is just my
opinion though. One final thing on the backgrounds
I thought I should mention is the pictures on back
of the case. There's one which shows Akuma
throwing an air fireball and Wolverine jumping up
at him. This is not a picture from this game at
all. Its actually from MSH Vs SF from either the
Japanese Sega Saturn or arcade. Akuma is not in
this game at all and neither is that background
and they also have their Japanese names. So don't
waste your time trying to unlock Vega (Japanese
name for M.Bison) or Gouki (Japanese name for
Akuma) because you`ll be very disappointed.


Sound 7: This soundtrack sounds exactly like the
music from all the other previous Vs titles or
Mega Man games. Its kind of an anime sounding
guitar rock. What the heck happened to Capcom's
sound team after the Street Fighter 2 team? Were
they part of the team that split to SNK after the
SF 2 was complete? Overall no real stand out songs
here except for maybe Roll`s theme which features
some Japanese vocals.

In the voice and sound effect dept everything
sounds great. Nothing at all really new from
Capcom`s Marvel or Street Fighter titles but it
gets the job done well and I guess this is one
area Capcom don't really need to touch.


Control 8: If you plan on using the original
Dreamcast control for this one then your going to
be in for an awful time. The standard DC pad was
never meant to play this game. Moves will not come
out when you need them and combos are best left
alone. Playing with one brings my rating down to a
4.

I ended up picking up a Mad Catz pad for this one.
Its a little bigger then the standard DC pad but
it makes the playing experience much easier. Plus
it has a 6 button alignment which the standard pad
lacks. This pads not for everyone though but for
me I wont touch this game without it.

Another control you may want to use is the
standard Sega Saturn control pad (not the first
lame American model either). This can be used with
the use of a special adapter which you can find
from several different places on the web such as
"levelsix.com" . You are of course going to need
the Saturn pad as well which you may be able to
find at a flea market or off Ebay. Anyone who has
ever seriously been into 2D fighters knows that
this Saturn pad has no equal for 2D fighting
games. I personally don't own one of these
adapters but a friend of mines does and i've used
it and it works perfectly. Using this brings the
control rating up to a perfect 10.


Overall I would highly recommend Marvel Vs Capcom
to anyone who love 2D fighting games or the
previous Vs titles. However, if you already own
Marvel Vs Capcom 2 on the DC or another console,
you may want to think twice about grabbing this one
since part 2 is better in every way.


Guile176/Phantasystar77

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