I decided to start this list off with a bang. I’m putting Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 out first because this has been a controversial title at best this year. Mainly this is due to the fact that Marvel vs. Capcom 3 came out in February of this year. The game was amazing. The first installment had some amazing features like Shadow Battle and a great player card that was originally seen in Tatsunoko vs.Capcom which was a Wii exclusive. One of these made the transition to Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3.
The main differences between the games that the first title had 38 characters and Ultimate Marvel versus Capcom 3 has 50. Other than that, there are some balancing changes and the addition of the Heroes and Heralds mode that is both online and offline. In order to insert the Heroes and Heralds mode, it seems they had to drop Shadow Battle. But as Shadow Battle was only a perfecting of A.I. opponents to match a particular style of play, it could probably be lived without. However, Shadow Battle was one of the major things that kept me playing the original title. As with all other fighting games it remains a work in progress. Why is this title so wonderful? Building upon the incredibly amazing framework of Marvel vs. Capcom 2, this is the fine tuning of that franchise to a fine edge. Once one has practiced with this game for an extended period of time; the possibilities are endless. While I’ve been unable to spend quite as much time with Ultimate as with the original I am positive that the trend holds from one to the other. With the first, I spent around 100 hours and with the new one I’ve hit around 10. But the game only came out around a month ago.
Many people have stated that this is a really bad move by Capcom and they take it out on the franchise. While this game probably could have been downloadable content but considering the amount of content I would venture to say it wouldn’t have been much cheaper than the the price of the new boxed copy. While I understand the problems people have with what Capcom did, I would venture to say that most of those folks would be happy playing the original and just renting the new game. As they probably didn’t play the original for more than a few hours. Most people who have invested a great deal of time in the franchise understand how sweeping the changes have been to the systems that make them worth the money. This is certainly the last time Capcom could probably get away with a move like this with their more casual fans but this also comes with the knowledge that fighting games are beginning to float back to being very hardcore again and away from the casual market.
Perhaps with a new Street Fighter on a new console this might change. But currently I see fighting games getting more hardcore not less. So for the hardcore, they simply move from one game to the next as the new installment arrives. It’s a tradition, like putting up a Christmas Tree at Christmas. So for those of you who don’t like this game or this franchise you probably are simply not willing to put in the time with the game to make it fun. And that’s fine. But as far as fighting games are concerned the Marvel vs. Capcom Franchise is one of the four most important in the fighting game community. And for $40, this game is an amazing deal and a wonderful time.
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