'Marvel vs. Capcom 2' as good as ever

• By JOSHUA WASCOM
• Special to 2theadvocate.com
• Published: Sep 3, 2009

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“Marvel vs. Capcom 2” combines 50 years of Marvel comics, 20 years of Capcom games and a unique combat system to make one of the best fighting games in Capcom’s already stellar history. It’s been almost 10 years since its original release on the Dreamcast, but the gameplay and characters have both aged well, and the addition of online play makes this the definitive version.

Like any other Capcom fighting game, the story is nearly invisible. However, with a roster of 56 iconic characters -- all of whom bring their own stories with them -- it doesn’t really suffer from the lack of a narrative.

The fighting, at its most basic level, resembles the combat in most 2-D fighters. The stringing together of combos through rapid input of directions and attack buttons is all familiar stuff. However, “Marvel vs. Capcom 2” adds a very important new wrinkle with the concept of the team. You select three characters at the onset of the fight, rather than one, and all three of these characters must be defeated for your opponent to triumph.

It’s a small change, but it is very well used. You can both switch between characters at will, and, more importantly, you can call in the characters you aren’t using for powerful assisting attacks. As you attack, you also fill a power bar that can eventually be used to perform a devastating attack with all three characters. This all adds up to a surprising and pleasing level of strategic depth in the game, both in selection of characters and in swapping them out during combat.

Other than the addition of online play, a few optional minor graphics tweaks and the fact that all of the characters are unlocked from the start, this is a direct port of the Dreamcast game. Depending on your familiarity with and love for the original game, that may be fantastic, terrible or irrelevant. It seems like the developers could have added at least a few new features, particularly something to flesh out the lackluster single-player side of the game.

The game’s focus is multiplayer, though, and that’s where it really shines. The online play works perfectly most of the time, and the local multiplayer is as good as ever. It may be somewhat hard to justify a $15 price tag for a game this old, but “Marvel vs. Capcom 2” is a fun, fast-paced and deep experience that hasn’t really been replicated in the last 10 years.