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| MvC 3 has a wide variety of characters from both companies, like Viewtiful Joe (left) and Thor (right). |
There is not plot. Allegedly there is a story about Capcom character Albert Wesker teaming up with Marvel Comics character Dormammu teaming up to take over their worlds, but there is no evidence of any story in the game.
Players choose three characters from a roster of thirty five, taken from various Capcom games and Marvel comics. Fights are one round long. To win the player has to knock out all three of their opponent’s roster. Like other fighting games, the player attacks with button combinations until the opponent’s life bar is depleted. MvC 3 has one button for a light attack, a medium attack, a heavy attack, and a special attack.
Regular combos just string these buttons together, while special attacks involve rotating the control stick a bit and pressing a button. The player can also perform hyper combos, which are like special attacks but require pressing two buttons and are a lot more powerful. They also consume part of a bar at the bottom of the screen which fills up whenever the player attacks or is attacked.
All the characters have similar special attacks. Pretty much everyone has an attack that involves turning the control stick a quarter counterclockwise and pressing two buttons. But everyone’s actual attacks are different. Some wrestle another character; some shoot something; some blow up an area, so no two characters feel redundant. And for the most part no character feels overpowered; all the big and strong characters are slow etc, so most anyone should be able to pick up the game and at least understand it, if not master it.
The attention to comic and video game lore is what makes this game really great. The cast range from really popular Marvel and Capcom characters like Captain America and Chris Redfield, to less popular characters like M.O.D.O.K. and Mike Haggar. And the stages are all from Marvel and Capcom that fans would recognize. It would be nice if there were more stages, or if they were more popular areas, but they are still pretty cool.
The best part though, is the dialogue. A lot of little hints are dropped through many of the things the characters say at the beginning and end of the fights. Sometimes certain characters will deliver special lines to other characters, usually as a reference to something they have been in. Again, it would have been nice if they all said something unique to each other, but that would have taken a lot of recording.
It is possible for the player to switch from one character to another by pushing the shoulder button. Doing this is helpful when one character’s health bar has been somewhat depleted and needs to recharge a bit. This can lead to fights where the players constantly switch between their characters, trying to keep them alive as long as possible. Tapping the shoulder button also brings in another character for one support attack.
The game comes with two modes, a single player and multiplayer mode. The multiplayer mode has offline mode to play with a friend in the room, and an online mode. The online mode keeps track of how well the player does in matches and records the player’s fighting style. This is recorded on a card that can be seen by other people online. It also ranks how well the player is doing. In online mode it is possible to fight in a rank battle, where the player improves their ranks by beating someone of similar rank; but good luck finding anyone playing that, because everyone mostly fight sin player battles, or in lobbies. Player battles try to match up players with similar ranks, or anybody depending on what the player wants. In lobbies two people fight while everyone else waits, and the next person in line fights the winner. It would have been nice to be able to watch the fights while waiting.
Single player mode has six battles against computer controlled opponents followed by a boss. Only the last two fights and the boss fight are difficult. After the boss fight the player gets to watch a couple of screens showing the character they used in a funny sketch. Some of them are better than others; most of them are not very exciting. The only really fun part is seeing more crossover interactions.
Beating the single player unlocks useless crap like artwork, the ending, character back stories, and a model viewer. All of it is underwhelming.
The graphics are great. The characters are cel-shaded really well so they look like comic book characters come to life. Music’s crap though, or at least not memorable.
It still succumbs to the problems that most fighting games have. Some characters have long distance attacks that can be spammed indefinitely. There is always the feeling that everyone else’s attacks work faster than yours. And in the end it largely boils down to who can memorize attack patterns.
Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is a solid fighting game that should be fun to anyone who likes fighting games and comic books. It has a few problems, but they should not bother anyone who just wants a fun and balanced fighting game.
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