MAHVEL BABY!
Finally…Marvel vs Capcom…has come BACK, to Xbox! Apologies for the over the top Rock intro but I couldn’t help myself. Is this review going to be somewhat biased and fanboy driven? Yeah, probably. Do I apologise for that? Not really, it’s just something you’ll probably have to deal with dear readers.
Yes, after much controversy and quite the lengthy wait, the fabled Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection Arcade Classics has come to Xbox. No longer do Xbox fans have to resort to leaving their 360 set up just to play Marvel vs Capcom 2. What a glorious day.
Now let’s get on with the review!
I Wanna Take you for a RIDE!
For those who are somehow not aware, Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection Arcade Classics is exactly as described.
It’s the ultimate collection of old school 2D pixel art Capcom fighting games that involve the Marvel license. This collection includes the classic titles:
- X-Men Children of the Atom
- Marvel Super Heroes
- X-Men vs Street Fighter
- Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter
- Marvel vs Capcom Clash of Super Heroes
- Marvel vs Capcom 2 New Age of Heroes
- The Punisher
The inclusion of the scrolling beat ’em up classic The Punisher is also a very very welcome addition and while it initially raised my eyebrows when first revealed, obviously makes a lot of sense given the Marvel license. It was just initially jarring given the rest of the games are 2D Fighters.
Up until now, the only way to have all these incredible games in one place was by emulating them all (TOTALLY LEGALLY). Otherwise you’d have to own the consoles these titles released on. Which would mean you’d need to own at minimum an original PlayStation and Dreamcast/PS2 combined.
So having all these games in one place on a modern console is truly welcomed.
I Almost Had a Heart Attack
But what makes this Collection so great isn’t just the amalgamation of all these classic fighters, but the fact that Capcom also went the extra mile to add online play – with rollback netcode no less, plus a fantastic suite of extras that really add something special for the fans like me. No cross play is quite an unfortunate oversight though which means the online populations will most likely be small on most platforms except maybe PC.
You have the Museum which contains both a Gallery and Music section. Both of which are what you’d want and expect. When you go into the Gallery, you can select each game in the collection and view a veritable smorgasbord of artwork that ranges from character art to behind the scenes concept art and design images.
Music is as straightforward as it can be. Select the game you want and listen to any piece of music from said game. But let’s be real, you’re only selecting Marvel vs Capcom 2 and proceeding to vibe the F out. To this day it’s crazy to me how controversial Marvel vs Capcom 2’s soundtrack was viewed at the time. While I personally found it instantly iconic back in the year 2000, I can totally understand why Jazz Lounge music was seen as odd for a fighter. But to say it’s soundtrack has aged like fine wine would be underselling it massively. It’s right up there with the greatest game soundtracks of all time like Streets of Rage II.
The Collection also includes in-game achievements known as Fighter Rewards which range from stuff as basic as “Play (X) game” to rather arduous grinds like “Complete each game in the collection with every character. (Continues OK)” which are all graded as Bronze, Silver and Gold aligned to difficulty of the task.
They’ve even managed to include a training mode where you can fine tune your fighting skills. The mode is about what you’d hope and or expect for this kind of collection. It works on a per game basis and allows you to tweak settings for your own training purposes as well as even displaying hitboxes, input and attack data. It’s actually surprisingly in depth.
Cross-Over Heaven
But what about the games themselves?
Well, there’s two groups of people most likely reading this review. People who have played these games and know exactly what they’re getting and people who haven’t and are curious as to what all the fuss is about.
All the games use their arcade ports and as far as I could tell, made their way across perfectly intact. Now someone like Maximillian might be able to pick the games apart and find missing quirks, exploits and such, but as someone who just plays these games as a regular pleb, they’re perfect.
For those who don’t necessarily know what they’re getting into, in 1993, Capcom dipped their toe into world of Marvel licensing with the scrolling beat ’em up The Punisher. To this point, Capcom had already well and truly established themselves as the kings of the 2D side scrolling beat ’em up with classics like Final Fight, Captain Commando and Knights of the Round having already released. The Punisher and Alien vs Predator allowed them to find success with licensed properties, which then earned them the freedom to further this pathway in another genre they already dominated thanks to Street Fighter.
X-Men Children of the Atom came along in 1994 and was (relatively speaking) a pretty big departure from the 2D Fighter foundations Capcom had established with Street Fighter II. It was also wildly successful which led to Capcom further pushing and strengthening the Marvel relationship by making a fighter that included characters from across the Marvel Universe. Once we got to the first “cross over” title in X-Men vs Street Fighter, a path had been established that was so popular it created a sub-genre of team up fighters with the main mechanic obviously being the ability to tag in partners/team mates. This sub-genre reached it’s pinnacle with the all-time great and arguably most revered Marvel vs Capcom 2.
Each of the fighters plays similarly and anyone who has played Street Fighter II (surely that’s just about everyone now?) will have the foundation required to get by here. You have your standard light, medium and heavy kicks/punches which can be combined with various directional inputs to pull off special moves to help beat your opponent. Once the tag team games came in, you also had the option to obviously tag in a team mate to take over if you were struggling with a match up, about to die or just needed to get out of a jam. Marvel vs Capcom 2 removed the medium kick and punches and replaced them with “partner” buttons which pertain to asking your team mates to jump in for a quick attack before jumping out. This worked alongside being able to fully tag them in.
The key difference with the Marvel Fighters compared to Street Fighter is the speed of the games as well as the focus on massive jumps, juggling and combos which can really get hectic and create chaos on the screen. Which can be intimidating for someone just stepping into these games.
Cool decision!
The Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection is a must not only for fans of the cross over fighting games, but for any fighting game and Marvel fans.
If you can overlook the fairly glaring omissions, there’s still a great collection of classic arcade games with neat unlockables and fun achievements. Glaring omissions you say? Well yeah, as great as this collection is, there are two fairly baffling decisions that have been made that hurt the games online lifespan and cause a fairly significant inconvenience to the user.
Firstly – as mentioned earlier, there’s no cross play. Which is fairly staggering in 2025 (2024). I’m not sure how they expect this game to have any kind of real life span when 2 or 3 of the platforms this is on will most likely be completely dead population wise. I honestly don’t know if it’s something that can be implemented later on, but hopefully it is.
The second glaring issue and from a quality of life perspective I feel this one is actually even worse. This game, for some inexplicable reason doesn’t have per game quick save slots. You get one quick save which covers the entire package. That’s it. So if you have a quick save for your progress in the Punisher, then want to jump into Marvel vs Capcom 2 and quick save right before the final fight there, it will overwrite the existing Punisher save file. What makes this even more baffling is that the other Capcom Collections don’t have this issue. Only this one does. Again, I really hope this gets sorted out later but I’m not holding out hope.
Outside the aforementioned oversights, there’s a near perfect collection on offer here that’s an absolute must for fighting game fans.
Review | Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection Arcade Classics
Played on
Xbox Series X
PROS
- Incredible collection of classic games
- Online Multiplayer with rollback netcode
- Fantastic extras
- Arcade perfect ports
CONS
- No per game save file
- No cross-play
