Marvel vs Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds. Is it FTW or FTL?

Hello and welcome back to final part of Fighting February... appearing at the end of April. Moving's a time consumer, ya know? First off, we spoke of changes to two of my favorite fighting games, BlazBlue: Continuum Shift and Super Street Fighter 4. The following week, we talked discussed two leaked characters: Evil Ryu and Oni, both of which have appeared officially in arcades. Finally, we will put an end to this delayed mess, by reviewing the relatively new hit fighter, Marvel vs Capcom 3.

First some history, for the longest time, I didn't care much for Marvel vs Capcom 2. Don't get me wrong, it was and still is a very fun game that I like to play on occasion, but my main problem with it came with the tourney scene. It was just too repetitive for me to really enjoy, unless it was a special kind of tournament such as the growing in popularity 'low-tier' tournament. Why? Only 12% of the 56 character cast was even used, namely Sentinel, Magneto, Storm, Captain Commando, Psylocke, and Cyclops. Oh sure, there are some exception to this rule like team Mike Z (Tron, Doom, Juggernaut), or Team Clockw0rk (Strider, Doom, Sentinel), but for the most part, a good chunk of the cast wasn't even considered unless you were just messing around. Regardless, the core game was a lot of fun and remains to be a great party game in my personal opinion, where most people can pick it up and play and just have a riot.

When Marvel vs Capcom 3 was announced mid last year, I was excited because this was coming off of Super Street Fighter 4 and Tatsunoko vs Capcom, both which while not perfectly balanced, had much more of the cast considered viable to compete in tournaments. Case in point, Makoto, considered the worst character in Super Street Fighter 4 has been used to win several tournaments and PTX-40A, one of the more cumbersome and lower respected characters of Tatsunoko vs Capcom won the SoCal regionals last year. Why do I bring this up? It serves as a standing point to how I look at Marvel vs Capcom 3 when it came out, going to be mostly balanced. So what's the final result?

Story: Haha. You want story in a fighting game? Well, here's the good news, there is a resemblance of a story in the form of well done cutscenes that serve as a series of openers for the game. These give a good bit of intrigue without actually saying a word and that's kind of cool. Then you actually play the game's story mode... or rather, you play the arcade mode and get generally goofy or confusing two panel endings that really only serve as fan service. It's disappointing, especially in the sense of how the story was advertised to be greater than what it actually was. Still, it is better than Marvel 2's ending which was a generic 'thanks for playing' message, but ultimately, Marvel 3's story is non existant beyond some pretty openers and a 12 page average comic.

Gameplay: What's to say about Marvel vs Capcom 3? It's a fast-paced fighting game with an emphasis on big combos, teamwork, and comebacks. The game uses a six-button layout similar to that of Tatsunoko vs Capcom, with a light, medium, and heavy attack, as well as a special attack that is used to launch, smack down, or just do unique attacks to your opponent based on the character. It's very easy to jump in and do some crazy things, but there's a lot of extra elements of strategy such as snap backs, cross over assists, delayed hyper combos and more. Each technique being a valuable tool to fight.

The game's roster is nothing to scoff at either, with a nice 38 current character selection with character each having their own unique fighting styles, strengths, and weaknesses. Some casual fans might complain about the downgrade in character quantity, but the quality of each character has never been better in the versus franchise. Furthermore, the balance for the roster is surprising decent with good strategy and team synergy tending to beat single characters most of the time.

If there is a weakness with Marvel vs Capcom 3's core gameplay is the X-factor element. What's the x-factor element? Once per match, a player can instantly cancel his recovery into another move with added damage, speed, and a healing factor, the amount of an increase is based on the number of team members you have back. It's a nice idea for a comeback mechanic, which isn't a bad thing... except that the boost for having one team member is nothing short of ridiculous with one character victories happening in a matter of a handful of hits. It's actually more frustrating than entertaining. While there have been a few patches for bugs, if there's ever a major patch plan, I hope that x-factor is considered for re-evaluation.

 Other problems for the game include a very sub-par online experience. Not that the connection is bad, it's mostly decent, but when you're not fighting, it just reeks of bad online design, where participants can't even view the fight going on. This becomes very bad for groups higher than 4 people. Other complaints include a lack luster single player options, but as time goes on, more and more challenges, called events, are being unlocked, but it makes you wonder why weren't these in the game in the first place? In short, Marvel vs Capcom 3 at it's core is still a very fun game that is great to bring out with friends around, but when you're by yourself, there's just not too much content to work with.

Graphics: The graphic in Marvel vs Capcom 3 is a nice use of cel-shading and style to make the 2 dimensional sprite from the old games into very well represented comic-book-styled three-dimensional models. Furthermore, the backgrounds for the games are full of little reference to other games and comics, such as the Daily Bugle and Baxter Building on one stage and so on. Simply put, graphics look good and they're pretty to watch.

Music: The soundtrack for the game is awesome with each character having their own theme that well represents them or is practically a remix of their own theme. They're fun to listen to and are catchy as any good fighting game theme. The vocal tracks are also well done, for the most part with some of the english voice acting being hard to listen to, even during combat. Thankfully, at least for the Capcom side, their voices can be switched by character to Japanese so you can keep your favorites.

Overall: Marvel vs Capcom 3 is a lot of fun and will certainly keep you and your friends busy for a long while if you're into the fighting game scene, but with a large lack of content beyond the core game, it's hard to overlook the game's flaws. If you loved the old game and are a die hard fan, check it out. Otherwise, you might want to try a rental to see if you really like the game before you buy it. 7.5/10. Originally, if I wrote this review when it first came up, I'd probably give it a slightly higher score, but as I look around at other fighting games this day and age, it's hard to give it much higher than what it has. Still a fun game, but only when you have people around to play it with, though I'd probably give this game an 8/10 if I didn't play a particular game before this review, but we'll get to that one eventually.