So it's been about a week since the release of Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds. I think I've had enough time with it to form a decent opinion on the game. In short, it's great! But it's missing some things I wish it had.
I started actually trying to get good at fighting games with 3d games like Tekken and Soul Edge/Calibur. Then with Street Fighter 4 iterations. So I made a transfer from 3d back the new age of 2d fighters. I am, in no way an expert at fighting games but I'm more then competent to hold my ground. I've played all the versus games, but was never good at them nor did I try to be. Especially with Marvel Vs. Capcom 2. But I watched a lot of high level MvC2 play from tournaments over the decade so I understand the game to an extent. The extent that I never really played it to get good. So I thought MvC3 would be a good time to start. I know the concept of the game pretty well, but execution is a different story.
One thing I should say is if you love MvC2, you will probably have a dislike of the game at first because it is different from its popular predecessor. But you have to realize that it is a "new" game and take it for what it is. They did however streamline the game with the (Wii exclusive) Tatsunoko vs. Capcom button layout , so that anyone can have fun with it. Aside from the button layout borrowed from TvC, the games engine is also running off the one created for TvC. So the game physics are reminiscent of TvC as well. That being said, everything else is practically that over the top MvC2 style a lot of us grew to love. If you've ever seen a "Versus" (not counting the Capcom vs. SNK series) game played at a high level then you know these games can get crazy. It takes some time to get used to. If your new to the Versus games, knowing exactly whats going on with all the colors, explosions, fire balls, beams, and characters popping up on screen at once can be a bit jarring at first. OMG WTF BBQSAUCE MARVEL CHARACTERS FIGHTING AGAINST CAPCOM CHARACTERS!!!!!
Aesthetics
I'm really diggin' the comic book art style that they incorporated into the game. It was mentioned before that they were going for a moving comic book style, I think Capcom pulled it off extremely well. The backgrounds make more sense this time around. Your not fighting on a flying ship, desert, or in a theme park for absolutely no reason. Although I didn't mind that either. The backgrounds are relative, like the Danger Room (X-Men) for the training stage! How genius is that?! The Daily Bugle (Spider-Man), Metro City (Final Fight), Demon Village (Ghost n' Goblin's), Kattelox Island (Mega Man Legends), Hand Hideout (although Electra is more related to this level she is not in the game, but Wolverine is also related to it), S.H.I.E.L.D Helicarrier (name speaks for itself), Asgard (Thor), Tricell Laboratory (Resident Evil) and Fate of Earth (Galactus, boss stage only)
Gameplay System
Mvc3 uses a six button layout. 3 Attack buttons (
Light,
Medium,
Hard), 1 Special button (
S Has several uses), 2 assist buttons(
A1,
A2).
Most Versus games use something coined a
Magic Series. Which means lighter attacks
in most cases combo into the next highest attack. So in MvC3, L > M > H > S is the most basic combo for most characters. Although you can do this same series in the air, the most general combo to execute in the air is M > M > H > S. Because using the light attacks in the air usually pushes the character too far from the opponent. The S button is capable of linking together after any attack button generally.
The Special button does a number of different things. From the ground it can "launch" opponents into the air. From the air it can knock the opponent back to the ground if you don't hold any directions. Or preform an air exchange. Air Exchanges tags another character in, in the air and continues to combo. From the point character you can air exchange twice (from point character, to assist 1 to assist 2, in that order). You can also choose what direction you want to preform the Air exchange. Using down S. in air exchange combos builds more Hyper meter. Forward/Backward S. build slightly less meter. Up S. builds the least meter but does the most damage overall. If the opponent can guess which way your going to hit them, they can break the combo. If the opponent presses the same direction with S. your air exchange combo will be stopped.
Some moves in the game have a property called OTG (off the ground). What these moves do is hit the opponent off the ground so you can continue to combo them. For example, X-23's Ankle Slicer, Wesker's down/forward H, or Deadpool's Katana-rama. Hyper combos are preformed with the correct direction notation and 2 attack buttons. These super moves can usually combo after special attacks or normal attacks. All characters have at least 2 Hyper combos, some have up to 4. Most Hyper combos cost one level of hyper meter. Some characters have a level 3 hyper combo. These cost three meters and are invincible at start up. Meaning, in the beginning frames of animation that character cannot be hit. Level 3 hyper combos also ignore damage scaling. Damage scaling basically means the more hits a combo has in it the less damage it will do over time because the damage will be scaled back. There is also damage scaling after a throw (all characters have throws, can be preformed in the air or ground with Forward+H or Back+H). I believe it is 45% dmg reduction off the bat. Command throws on the other hand do not count.
Something new to the Marvel Vs. Capcom series is the X-Factor system. This is preformed by pressing L+M+H+S. X-Factor increases in bonus' the less characters you have left on your team. X-Factor increases speed, and damage. It also regenerates the point characters red health. Usually only the assist characters regenerate their red health. You do not take chip/block damage in X-Factor. X-Factor also resets damage scaling and block stun. X-factor is a very powerful system and knowing when to use it is an important strategy.
Movement is probably the most important thing to know how to do in MvC3. A lot of the cast can fill the screen with projectiles, so knowing how to jump, super jump, double/triple jump, dash, air dash, wave dash, triangle jump, box jump and teleport can be vital to success. Not all character have all these ways of movement, so experiment with you team and see how they can move.
Characters
Marvel:
- Captain America
- Deadpool
- Doctor Doom
- Dormammu
- Hulk
- Iron Man
- Magneto
- M.O.D.O.K (Mental Organism Designed Only For Killing)
- Phoenix
- Sentinel
- She-Hulk
- Spider-Man
- Storm
- Super-Skrull
- Taskmaster
- Thor
- Wolverine
- X-23
- Shuma-Gorath (Downloadable Content/DLC)
Capcom:
- Amaterasu
- Arthur
- Chris Redfield
- Chun-Li
- C.Viper
- Dante
- Felicia
- Haggar
- Morrigan
- Ryu
- Spencer
- Trish
- Tron
- Wesker
- Viewtiful Joe
- Zero
- Jill Valentine (DLC)
I'm content with the character choices they've made. Since everyone plays very different from one another. Their diversity is well rounded even with "female versions" of some characters like Hulk and Wolverine. Don't get me wrong though, She-Hulk and X-23 are very different from their male counterparts. Adding lesser know characters like Amaterasu, Taskmaster, M.O.D.O.K and Dormammu to the cast to mix in with the marque characters was a great idea. And finally being able to see old video games characters like Haggar and Arthur make their comeback is great feeling.
The characters have great presence. They act like you would think they would from their respective places in fiction. Dante is a show boat and has a ton of his moves from Devil May Cry. Deadpool breaks the fourth wall on many different occasions, even saying some MvC slang memes from IFC Yipes (One of the best MvC2 players in the world). Characters have some specific pre/post match banter with one another. Some Marvel characters with history together even call each other by their first name when they tag in. For example X-23 and Wolverine call each other Laura and Logan. Or Magneto and Storm call each other Erick and Ororo. Viewtiful Joe calls Hsien-Ko "Lei Lei" because that is her name in Japan and Joe is a fan of the Japanese culture. There are some lines straight from the comics as well. These small touches are subtle but very cool for fans.
One thing I think everyone that has the game knows, is that Sentinel is very strong in this game, as he was MvC2 but in a slightly different way. For one, he can dish out a ton of damage, especially in X-Factor. Has the most health in the game, pretty simple damaging combos, and has super armor on a lot of his normals and some of them even nullify certain projectiles (
Normals are the attack buttons pressed by themselves such as L, M, or H. in MvC3's case.
Super Armor is a property where the move can "absorb" a number of hits). But I can understand Capcom's reasoning behind this. Sentinel is a very slow hitting character (although he's decently quick moving, if you know what to do). He would get hit out of a lot of his moves and be totally garbage if he didn't have something to help him out. Aside from those great stats, Sentinel has one of the best assists in the game, Sentinel Force. As it being one of the best slow moving projectile assists, it does very well to cover characters trying to approach their opponent. Sentinel is great all around character. In my opinion though, you shouldn't really have him on point. For that fact that his Sentinel Force assist will greatly help your team, and he is just ridiculous with level 3 X-Factor.
Then on the other hand you have glass cannons like Phoenix. If she gets caught in ONE decent combo she will die. For a comparison, Sentinel has around 1,200,000ish HP and Phoenix has like 420,000 HP. She does have some ways to get around that though. Phoenix has a good run away game, can dish out good damage and has good mix ups to pop open the opponents defense. She has her Healing Field hyper that can heal her health very quickly if you are close enough to the opponent. And then her trump card, Dark Phoenix. Probably most powerful character in the game. To gain access to Dark Phoenix, Phoenix has to die and you must have 5 levels of hyper meter. Dark Phoenix can literally kill an entire team by herself, but her health slowly drains automatically. This can be remedied with her Healing field Hyper and or X-Factor. But your still in danger of getting caught in a combo if your not careful.
I don't feel that any character is adherently weak as of yet, but I think there are better characters suited to be an assist then to be on point at the moment. But as time passes I believe we'll start seeing that everyone has the juice to be great point character. I could probably go on for awhile about each and every character so I'll just stop while i'm ahead.
What I think is missing, and what I want to see...
There are some little things I feel are missing from the game. I understand it could of been a development time issue or something along those lines. Anyways, this isn't big deal but I would like to see more levels to play in. There are only ten and only nine are playable in versus. I'm ok with no replay theater, I can live with that, we have something called the internet. But for recording my own matches, that kind of sucks. So I wouldn't mind have at least a save match option. There is no watching the other matches going on in the online player lobbies. So if you're playing with more then two people in the lobby, the people not playing are sitting there looking at nothing. Sounds pretty boring to me. In the lobby I would also like to be able to edit the teams you can save. There is also no "rematch" option in the pause screen, I found that really odd. Say someone needed to do a button check, change their buttons whatever, you would have to go all the way back to the character select screen to start the match over. Last but not least I would like to see...
From Capcom I would like to see:
- Strider
- Jin
- Sigma
- Some other Mega Man Villains
- Frank West
From Marvel
- Omega Red
- Carnage
- Havok
- Mr. Sinister
- Ghost Rider
- Psylocke
- Gambit
- Doctor Octopus
I could go on with characters I hope they add but I'll just leave it at that. There are a ton of things I missed but if I keep going I'll end up writing a small strategy guide. But if you really have more questions feel free to ask. Some things if failed to mention:
- Team Dynamics
- Delayed Hyper Combo (DHC)
- Dashing
- Wave Dashing
- Triangle Jumping
- Box Jumping
- Unblockables
- Using Assists
- Hit Stun
- Block Stun
- Simple Mode
To name a few...maybe next time!
Closing Thoughts
If you are a fan of fighting games, Marvel comics, Capcom games, and over the top insanity then this game is right up your alley. It's simple enough for a beginner to grasp within a short time and complex enough to last for years to come. The beauty of this game is that it heavily promotes creativity. It's a game for the fans. Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds, MvC3:FTW, MvC3: For The Win, that new Crack!
