Capcom are pretty much the king of fighting games. It all started with Street Fighter on the early consoles and in the arcades and ever since then they’ve been churning out Street Fighter games and a tonne of spin-offs including the Marvel vs Capcom series, where a convergence of universes means the heroes and villains from both worlds can now fight against and alongside each other.
This time they’re facing the threat of Ultron Sigma destroying worlds with its clone of robots, and if he gets his hands on the six infinity stones scattered across the universe, things are going to look really bad. That’s the story if you decide to play story mode, with vs and arcade battles available if you like fighting against AI opponents or other people online or, dare I say it, in the same room!
The first thing to say about this game is that it does have a very broad appeal, whether you’re a Capcom fan who’s been playing games since the 80s (I’m one of them), or someone that loves the Marvel world in movies and comics, you’re going to enjoy seeing them all come together. Having Frank West chuck zombies at people or seeing more retro characters like Arthur and Firebrand fight all Ghosts n Goblins style is great to watch. Even Haggar from Final Fight has his signature moves as he deals damage on his opponents. Likewise Spider-Man, Hulk, Ironman and Thor come together and even though we’ve seen these peeps together in recent movies, we haven’t seen them interact with Doctor Strange and Rocket form the recent Guardians of the Galaxies movies. He’s also an annoying little bastard to connect with as well because he’s so small!
When it comes to gameplay mechanics, there’s the standard rolling of the d-pad in different directions with different buttons to do ranged attacks and other more fun attacks over the standard light and hard punch and kick attacks, and the game defaults to easy button combos so even someone bashing buttons can look good playing this. Once your meter fills up, a press of both hard punch and kick buttons or tapping both triggers will unleash a special attack that chips away at your opponent’s health, but can deal combos in high double figures. It’s certainly impressive if you’re not a fighting game expert. Of course you can turn these off if you take yourself a bit more seriously so it should appeal to beginners and fighting fans alike.
It’s impossible not to compare this game to the recent Injustice sequel featuring the DC characters and when it comes to the look, story and sheer production value, Injustice wins hands down. The scripting here is laughable at times, and at other times it’s actually pretty funny for the right reasons. The graphics stay typically cartoony unlike the hyper real performance capture used in Injustice. There are also very long loading times here. Fights don’t seamlessly blend into the story and it’s a shame the loading couldn’t be done during the story scenes. It jerks you out of the action and is even longer when playing vs games. A game as frenetic as this should really be non-stop so points must also be deducted for this.
Once the story’s finished, this game might hold your interest if you’re into playing online or have a family you can have friendly bouts with, but I don’t see it having the longevity of the Street Fighter or Tekken games when it comes to serious fighting games. It’s fun, but in time I think you’ll be seeking new thrills. It gets 7.5 out of 10.
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