The Marvel vs. Capcom Series Before the PS3 Came!

Before Capcom stank, we had some of the best games.  The Marvel vs. Capcom series was a crossover which I wish had a comic to explain the non-canon events.  These games made Capcom characters more powerful than they were like Ryu's Shinkuu Hadoken here becomes a beam super in contrast to how it is in the regular Street Fighter games.

Now for the games themselves:


X-Men vs. Street Fighter in the arcade introduced tag team play but not in the home systems.  I just thought the idea itself was a pretty good actually, playing two against two.  The story supposedly has the X-Men teaming up with the good guys of Street Fighter.  Before fighting the major boss Apocalypse, one must fight the sub-boss team of Magneto/General Bison.  Then after that, Apocalypse is one tough challenge which I freaking hate being attacked by his drill.  I just thought Magneto and Apocalypse are among my favorite villains.  So I was glad some new characters not in Children of the Atom were introduced but too bad Psylocke was shelved... tsk tsk!  After beating Apocalypse, you fought your secondary partner as the final boss.


The second game was supposedly a continuation.  Here some classics from Street Fighter and Marvel Super Heroes return while others exit to form yet another epic game.  As said, the home systems do not have true tag team due to memory constraints.  I thought this one had some bad suck on Sakura's fighting since she could only fire her hadoken upwards but had a cool Shouoken dash.  There was also the concept of "tag assist".  The game itself had Apocalypse as the sub-boss and that super irritating Cyber Akuma (here Akuma became Apocalypse' Horseman) as the bosses.  I thought that the game itself was pretty cool while it had some awkward moments like Zangief's double atomic buster or why Ken could fire a Shinkuu Hadouken when Ryu is the primary player and they do a team super.


This was a great game as well.  After Apocalypse was defeated in this non-canon series, the threat of Onslaught arises.  Characters like Jin Saotome, Megaman (yes, him) who is pretty cheap and powerful, Captain Commando and Strider Hiryu came in.  I personally preferred being cheap as Megaman to which he was really a cheap bastard.  Onslaught had two forms which you had to fight.  Fair enough, you have two characters and be sure to keep your health high when fighting him.  Onslaught is one cheap bastard.  The endings here were pretty good, if not the best for the series.


Marvel vs. Capcom 2 was a fun game except it had no endings, understandable due to the large roster of characters but it was pretty fun.  You started the game with 24 and unlocked the 32, which you needed to spend some extra time.  It had the roster of Marvel Super Heroes, X-Men Children of the Atom and the previous Marvel vs. Capcom entries to which you can have your dream matches.  The new feature was the three vs. three which intensified the game as well as the assist types.  The depth of the game required you to make a good balanced team to take out and win.  Which of course, I thought in this one Cable is ULTRA cheap and he's my favorite to spam and abuse.  The story had Abyss (no not Abyss from X-Men) who is taking over the world.  Cable from the future teams up with Ruby Heart to save his time.  In here, Abyss has three forms- the giant armored form, the slime demon form and the huge lava monster form.  With Cable, it's easy to beat Abyss since he's so cheap.  So far this game was more fun in VS. Mode than regular player mode.