Marvel Vs Capcom 3 Review

Its been ten years since the release of Marvel vs Capcom 2, an epic landmark of the fighting genre in today's industry, the third instalment took its time to get here but ultimately still makes a riveting impression in the genre as a whole. Its definitely something you must appreciate considering its not the favorable genre anymore.  

Now I haven't played a lot of the fighter genre but I definitely do recognise myself with it of course. I have played Street Fighter 2, the original Mortal Kombat and of course Tekken 2. But recently? I have not picked up Street Fighter IV, Tekken 6 or any recent Mortal Kombat game. I am just not as interested as I was back when I had my original Playstation 1 days. Tekken was no doubt one of those must have games on the PS1 and when I had SNES Mortal Kombat 2 was a must have on that. Fun days they where indeed.

Now, of course as Bob Dylan once sang "These times are a changing", well these times have changed FPS's are on an all time high with Call Of Duty grabbing the number one spot for games sales each month. And if publishers don't hear 'FPS' and 'Modern Warfare' its hard to convince them to fund any game. Not to say there is no diversity in the industry just pointing out that western games are dominated by the one genre, FPS.

I love FPS's like anyone but they are dominant. Its hard to believe that in Asia FPS's is one of the weakest genres as a whole their. Considering their competitive nature in many genres such as MMO's, Fighting and RTS but why not FPS's? Shouldn't the FPS games such as Call Of Duty and Battlefield be perfect for their competitive nature? The question remains unanswered and the only result I could pull together is that Asian men don't like white women. Yes Google fails once again.

So Marvel vs Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds is a direct sequel to Marvel vs Capcom 2: New Age Of Heroes. The game is made by Eighting Co. along with Capcom with the assistance of Ryota Niitsuma who stands as both a producer and director on the game. Ryota Niitsuma is very well known in the industry for his works on many fighting games such as Street Fighter IV and Tatsunoko vs Capcom. The game began development in 2008 with heavy demand from the fans since the second one was released in 2000. The delay was due to a (almost) decade long re-acquiring of Marvel character licensing which put the development on hiatus.

Marvel vs Capcom 3 contains up to 36 characters on the disc and more to be released over DLC. The fast paced gameplay is one of MvC3 traits and has certainly remained along with Hyper Combos which are special ability's that each character may perform when his level goes up. The X-Factor ability is a real game changer that can be activated by pressing all the action buttons at the same time. This allows the player to act faster and slowly increase his health. The 3 vs 3 games have returned with no 1 vs 1 and player 2 cannot play one of your three selected characters.  See a game for yourself.

Now to truly test a fighting game you would have to of course to go to a MvC3 fighting tournament. So for the intention of this review and to go see some real fighter buffs we (myself and EngageBlueberry) went to are favourite comic book shop Dublin City Comics to get a taste of the action and ultimately get are arse's handed to us. The outcome was slightly different. 

So for these tournaments you usually have to choose your characters and stick to them throughout the whole tournament my characters where Chung-Li, Ryu and Wolverine who were my favourite characters in the game. I wasn't interested in picking characters that had the best combos or who people thought were cooler. The game is about picking the characters you think are cool and play by the play-style you think is more appropriate.

This game is very fast paced and I only got to truly see how fast paced it was when you are put on the spot. And when you turn your head for just a second from the game you are watching, and suddenly it would be all over. A lot can happen in just a millisecond with MvC3 and that is why you will need your full concentration on the screen when watching a game. When you are put on the spot all your actions must be accounted for. There is a slight rush to defeat your opponent as quickly as possible so its important to take your time and pace yourself well. When you get too deep into an enemies combo or 'when the shit hits the fan' just track back and try to regain yourself remember you can switch characters.

Me (third from right) and EngageBlueberry (Second from right) concentrating deeply at the game at hand and preparing for the next game.

The rounds went by swiftly with me getting to the semi-final only to get my arse handed to me very respectfully but I was nonetheless thrilled with my achievement of reaching this stage. I also had a pretty intense game before the semi-final where I just managed to end it going into the third round. Just before the second round my opponent shrugged his shoulders and said "Lets start this" and couldn't help but feel intimidated. I was down to my last character, Ryu,  and he had two characters on relatively low health with an X Factor ready to use. I got right into the game when he knocked out my second character with Ryu jumping right in. I knew I had to get close to him and do everything I can to stop him using that X Factor. Ryu jumps right in and easily takes out his first character giving me a Hyper Combo which I performed on the second character ending the game. 

Me accepting defeat, look at the health bars :P 

The game is very balanced, this is why I mentioned earlier that your far better off with choosing characters your much comfortable with. There may be some characters that may seem to have an unending combo but you would have to be pretty awful not to counter act against these which the game clearly does. 

Marvel vs Capcom 3 is a game aimed at returning the old hardcore fans of the series and to get people who are completely new to the genre. For someone who has not played a fighting game since Tekken 2 id say it gets a grade A for getting new people into the genre. Its easy to get into the controls and the madness of the gameplay but also has a level of deepness that hardcore fighting buffs will love to the series. 

There is ranked multiplayer online, custom games, leaderboards and custom player cards for you to edit. The online system is pretty average but with player profiles and statistics for you to mess around in and find some interesting facts. 

Arcade mode is the singleplayer of Mavel vs Capcom 3 and is a very brief experience that ends in the boss fight with Galactus. Before the fight with Galactus your brought against an AI with random characters picked so there is not much narrative or any story to Marvel vs Capcom 3 which is a real downer. Considering most games like Mortal Kombat and Tekken have done legitimate singleplayer campaigns. Its quite disappointing to some people who would have thought that those epic trailers would have had some story behind it. 

The game is undoubtedly brilliant with smooth graphics and some awesome ability's to mess around with in player vs player matches. Its done a great job to introducing people to the genre as well as keeping the long term fans happy also. I defiantly recommend giving this game a try and to not feel too frightened when picking the box up at a retailer. You would not regret paying that $50. 

8.1 / 10 

• +  Lots of fun characters to get your teeth into 
• + The fast paced gameplay is so fun to witness and is twice as good playing it 
• - Brief game with not a lot of modes 
• - The lack of singleplayer is very disappointing 

Cheers for reading :) 

- Tim Tim