Back in the 90s, everyone had their dream matchups: Batman vs Superman, Spiderman vs Ironman, and so on. Following the boom of X-Men and its fighting game debut, gamers around the world asked the question, could Cyclops beat Ryu in a scrap? Well, Capcom was happy to answer that question in a string of some of the most well-loved titles in their and Marvel’s history. So grab your comics, get some money, and train those wrists, Capcom is going to take you for a ride with MARVEL vs. CAPCOM Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics!
This is the latest compilation by Capcom following the success of the Street Fighter 50th Anniversary Collection, Capcom Beat Em Up Collection, and Capcom Fighting Collection 1. This time, the theme is the video games of Marvel’s iconic comic franchises.
The titles in the collection are as follows:
- The Punisher
- 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
That’s a whole lot of Marvel and Capcom with the games spanning from 1993 to 2000, the majority of which haven’t seen re-releases outside of their console debuts at the time. Fortunately, Capcom has broken open the cabinets and given us gamers a lofty treat with this complete set of Capcom-developed pugilistic punch-ups in beautiful arcade quality.
The Punisher (1993)
Starting the package is The Punisher (1993). This scrolling beat-’em-up features Frank Castle and the original Nick Fury in a beat-’em-up brawl. You use their feet, fists, guns, and grenades to clear the streets of The Kingpin’s criminal grasp. The game clocks in at around an hour, and is set across 6 stages.
You have your standard multiple-hit combo, aerial attacks, weapons of the melee variety, and screen-clearing grenades. Unlike most other titles in the genre, there are sections where you’ll use Frank and/or Nick’s trusty handgun to take on legions of the Kingpin’s goons.
The Punisher (1993) has some absolutely beautiful sprite work especially when you factor in the year this game was from. The character models are large and detailed, featuring some iconic Punisher bad guys such as Jigsaw, Bone Breaker, and Bushwacker, albeit in their more family-friendly 90s versions.
The game can be played in 2-player co-op, and that’s the ideal way to get through the game due to its large amount of enemies on screen (which helped set this game apart from the Streets of Rage and Final Fight games of the time) This game runs at a brisk pace with constant setpieces and very different settings for each stage.
The Punisher (1993) is an oddity of this MARVEL vs. CAPCOM Fighting Collection as the only beat-’em-up included. It’s a nice addition, especially with the inclusion of online multiplayer. It makes for a nice distraction to sit down with a friend and just mindlessly flail away at thugs for an hour in one of the most requested Capcom beat ‘em-ups, before you dive into the real meat of the rest of the collection’s package.
X-Men: Children of the Atom (1994)
Following the media boom X-Men saw in the ’90s, Marvel and Capcom came together again to take Charles Xavier’s band of mutants out of the world of scrolling beat ‘em ups, horrid LJN-published console titles, and (still fantastic) Sega-published action platforms. Instead, we pit the mutants against each other in classic 1 Vs 1 fighting game style made popular by Capcom’s biggest title at the time, Street Fighter 2.
With a roster consisting of characters such as Cyclops, Wolverine, Storm, and Ice-Man along with the villainous Magneto and Juggernaut to throw down against, Children of the Atom was every ’90s kid’s dream, especially if they liked Street Fighter!
X-Men: Children of the Atom did a lot to further the genre of the 2D fighting game. This game features visuals on par with watching the cartoon show, a combat system adding more of a focus on combos than ever before in a Capcom fighter, and stages that get destroyed during battle via floor cave-in.
It feels a little slow and awkward compared to later titles in this package, but Children of the Atom still has a heck of a lot of charm and is worth dabbling with just to see how much of its DNA still floats around in more modern fighters.
Marvel Super Heroes (1995)
Following on from the success of X-Men, Capcom and Marvel decided to stick together and give the wider Marvel Universe a go at the ol’ bout-for-bout, drawing in on the popularity of Spider-Man, Hulk, and once again Wolverine. This game also took characters like Iron Man and Captain America under its roster at a time when neither of them were the stars they are today.
Strangely enough, the game follows the “Infinity Gauntlet” comic arc making it quite relevant to modern players familiar with the recent Marvel Cinematic Universe, and this changes gameplay in a big way compared to its contemporaries. During a match, you can pick up any of the Infinity Gems and activate them, giving you a buff such as moving faster and regenerating health, amongst other character-specific abilities.
The game once again looks gorgeous and goes the extra mile to look authentic to the source material, with some stunning animation and vibrant colors. The gameplay is a lot smoother than Children of the Atom and the Infinity Gem system is fun and well-executed; you can see why they chose to work with it again in the 2017 release of Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite. All in all, it’s here where the quality of the collection really starts to rise.
X-Men vs Street Fighter (1996)
Here it is, the first official, full-fledged Marvel/Capcom crossover title following Akuma’s cameo appearance as a secret boss in X-Men Children of the Atom. Much like the title suggests, this game takes the same roster of X-Men characters from the Children of the Atom (1994) video game (plus Sabretooth and Gambit) and pits them against the guys and gals of Street Fighter. This game takes a note out of The King Of Fighters’s book by making it a team-based affair, while also allowing you to switch characters in and out at any time, something very few fighters did at the time.
One interesting feature is “Hyper moves”. These change up traditional super moves from previous games; Ryu for example now fires out a giant beam of a Hadoken which provides multiple hits. There are also team Hyper attacks that while devastating also get charming unique names if you happen to the score the win with one of them.
The fast-paced combat and the fusion of two 90s mega powers pushing a much-loved genre forward is electric. X-Men vs Street Fighter still stands up well; it has a great roster, feels fantastic to combo, and pulling off the hyper moves will never get old. The strategy involved with the tag mechanic of switching your characters in and out to regenerate health was and is a real game changer, and while the debate remains of if it was the first true “tag fighter”, it is certainly the one that had the most impact.
Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter (1997)
One year later and history repeats itself. Following a successful X-Men crossover fighting game, the guys and gals at Capcom expanded the roster once more to the wider Marvel universe. If X-Men alone was a little too restricting, this one has you covered (though naturally a few of the X-Men cast managed to sneak in).
While technically a sequel to X-Men vs Street Fighter, it feels more like a roster swap even on the Street Fighter side. A lot of the backgrounds are the same and mechanically it’s pretty much the same game.
What Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter did to separate itself from its predecessor while managing to make such a large impact on the genre was the inclusion of game-changing “Assist” attacks. Pressing a button combination will make your off-screen attack dive onto the screen and fire out an attack. This is a common inclusion nowadays, but at the time this was something new, and it completely turned the tag fighter style of fighting games on its head.
Marvel Vs Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes (1998)
Here is the first of the biggest hitters of the package. The world wasn’t ready for this clash. It wasn’t just restricted to two properties; characters, backgrounds, and even bosses from both Capcom and Marvel were on hand to push the tag fighter genre further than ever before. And boy does it do that so damn well.
The roster is such a great mix of Capcom characters. It features the obvious choices like Ryu and Mega Man, before leaning into the obscure with Captain Commando and Jin from Cyberbots. Marvel, on the other hand, plays it much safer—replacing Iron Man with lookalike War Machine was certainly a peculiar choice, but the inclusion of every kid’s favorite anti-hero Venom balances out the otherwise rather safe roster choice from the Marvel house that Stan Lee built.
The background stages are fantastic here and feature so many nods to other franchises. The Mega Man stage is a strong favorite as Dr. Wily runs around shouting at the Mets (a staple enemy of Mega Man games), and the stage set in the first level of Strider is just gorgeous. There is even a Darkstalkers stage for fans of that series. Genuinely some of my favorite fighting game stages exist in this game, even if it’s a little light on the Marvel representation.
In a strange step back from Capcom’s previous crossover fighters, you cannot summon your partner in to make an attack. Instead, you get randomly assigned one of 20 summons at the start of a match and they become your assist attack. While initially quite exciting, especially as you try to pick out all of the different cameos, not all assists are made equal. If you get assigned a useless one you already start the match off on the backfoot.
One new mechanic for Marvel vs Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes is the ability to have both your heroes on the screen at the same time to put a dent into your opponent’s health bar. You are also given unlimited hyper meter, so I’m sure you can imagine just how hectic that can get. It certainly puts your defense skills into play to try to handle your opponents.
I’ve always found the pacing of matches in this title to be more my style than that of its chaotic sequel. Yes, there is still a focus on aerial combos, but the assist system has a finite amount of uses and overall the game feels more grounded and manageable. For any newcomers to the franchise I would suggest making this one your first stop for competitive play, especially as a lot of what you pick up here transfers to the sequel.
Marvel Vs Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes (2000)
The big one, the icon itself, everyone who has even a passing interest in fighting games will have no doubt seen Marvel Vs Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes. With its giant roster, over-the-top soundtrack, and chaotic visual and aural abuse as the battle ensues in front of you, there’s a reason why this became such a well-loved game. Having it available on all modern consoles in the year 2024 is something that no one thought would happen, and yet couldn’t feel more right.
This game features 56 playable characters from both Capcom and Marvel. You’ve got a lot of the ones you would expect from Capcom, plus obscure picks like Tron Bonne from Mega Man Legends and Hayato Kanzaki from Star Gladiator, and even a character named SonSon related to a character from the obscure Capcom game of the same name. There’s also a few original characters such as Ruby Heart the pirate and Amingo the cactus creature. Marvel also pulled out some curiosities such as Cable, Marrow, and Silver Samurai along with the expected Spider-Man, Wolverine, and other big names from the comics.
The soundtrack is here in its full glory, so you’ll be hearing “I’m gonna take you for a ride” over and over. Featuring many jazz-sounding tracks, it’s such an unusual soundtrack that it works towards making this game such a memorable experience. Imagine some upbeat and swingin’ jazz and funk mixed with 90’s synth while Spider-man and Ryu scream lines at the top of their lungs in the background.
The stage backgrounds are fully 3D, which creates a rather strange visual mix with the 2D sprites, a lot of which are showing their age at this point. It just gives this game such a bizarre identity where it’s not Marvel or Capcom, but a beast of its own nature.
The gameplay has changed yet again: assists are back to being from your chosen characters, but in a twist, you can choose from 3 moves that they will perform when they come onto the screen. This game is now at a 3-character limit, which means there will be 6 fighters per match that can be called in with very little cooldown, which can be a lot to take in. There is a heavier focus on aerial combat, and the game is generally much faster than its predecessors. If you take this game online you’ll likely get a massive shock, as this is one tough game to break into.
Marvel vs Capcom 2 is still an unbalanced game, as it would be impossible to make all 56 characters viable in every scenario, and not every assist is born equal. It’s a lot of good fun though. If you can get a good group of people (either local or online) you can have a wild time trying out all the different characters. On the other hand, if you hit up Ranked you will see the same handful of characters over and over again due to having a more established competitive meta. Marvel vs Capcom 2 is the kind of game where fun outranks balance by a country mile.
The Package
So the games are all classics for different reasons, but what makes this title more than just a ROM-dump collection? First of all, we have a fantastic amount of bonus content in the form of concept art and a jukebox where you can listen to all your favorite songs to your heart’s content.
Each game allows you to change the difficulty, attack power, timer speed, how fast the actual game runs, if you want to be able to freely put in credits or limit yourself, and if you want the hidden characters available or not. You can change these settings in casual and offline mode, but they are locked in ranked to create the most fair experience.
The major addition from their original releases, and likely one a bulk of you reading will want to know about is the online multiplayer features. Every game in the package features online multiplayer, and all (barring The Punisher) have both casual and ranked options. There is even an online High Score Challenge that brings The Punisher back in for you old-school score chasers.
The game uses both the American and the Japanese versions, which means that Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter has the Japanese exclusive comedian character, Noritake Kinashi, for those of you who are curious. It’s a good option for those overseas or who are just used to playing these games with the Japanese versions due to how hard they were to get hold of.
The only thing that might trip a small group of gamers up is that this is all the arcade versions of the games. There is no Mega Drive/Genesis version of The Punisher, or the bizarre cutdown versions of Marvel Vs Capcom or Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter that made it to consoles.
Finally, on the subject of online multiplayer, it features rollback netcode and it works damn well. You can adjust the input delay on the fly so you can cater your experience based on how well the internet connection is holding up. Sadly the collection lacks crossplay between platforms, but even just having all these games readily available with lightning-fast rollback netcode is more than worth the asking price.
You can set the game to request matches on any of the games you choose and any of the versions while you just grind away on the arcade mode or dive into the included training modes. It beats having to just sit in a menu waiting for a challenge, and you can set it for a few different games and just decide when the request comes in if you fancy playing Marvel vs Capcom or want to hold out for an X-Men match instead.
Verdict
MARVEL vs. CAPCOM Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics is a phenomenal package for both casual players and fans alike. There are several high-quality, coveted games here and plenty of bonus content for those of you who only dabble in fighting games, along with some of the strongest online options around. This collection will have you going for “one more match” long into the night.
MARVEL VS. CAPCOM FIGHTING COLLECTION: ARCADE CLASSICS IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Purchase: Humble Store (PC/Steam)
If you enjoy Fighting games, then perhaps you’d like our review of Tekken 8 or SNK vs Capcom: SVC Chaos.
Many thanks go to Capcom for a PC review code for MARVEL vs. CAPCOM Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics.
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