Review #797: Marvel VS Capcom - Clash of Super Heroes

 The dream ain't dead.

 As per usual, if you want a straight up port of Marvel VS Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes look elsewhere, because the PS1 version is 1 vs 1 fighter that's missing a few animation frames. With that out of the way, what can I say about MvC 1? I loved this game, and I loved this version of the game, so much so that I was actually quite put off by Marvel VS Capcom 2 on the PS2. Having so many characters on the screen at the same time as well as tagging in and out gave it a feeling of floatiness and combat felt like it lacked proper gravity, so... I kinda preferred this version of the game over the sequel. That said, after learning to enjoy Street Fighter VS X-Men I thought that I just wouldn't like this game as much. I was wrong.

 Alright, so as far as modes go, it's only got Arcade Ladder, Training, VS Player and the returning Crossover mode, in which you fight proper tag team matches, albeit in mirror mode(Both players or player/CPU must use the same pair of characters). And the roster is down from 17, like SF VS X-men and SF VS MSH, to 15. But, and this is a huge but, Capcom decided to stop being lazy and brought us completely new sprites: Megaman/Roll, Venom, Captain Commando, Jin Saotome and Strider Hiryu. Iron-man is back in the form of War Machine, and when I was a kid and watched the 90's Iron-Man TV-Show War Machine was my favorite, so that's a huge plus even if he is just a palette swap, and Morrigan's legendarily recycled sprite joins the fray for the first time ever on a VS game. Ken and Akuma are gone, and while I'm sad my boy Ken is out, but Ryu is now Complete Form Ryu, a Ryu that can use the Super Gauge to change the properties of his moves to match Ken or Akuma. Oh and Apocalypse? Scratch that, Onslaught is the new final boss and he has two forms! Rounding up the cast are the returning Chun Li, Zangief, Spider-man, Captain America, Hulk, Gambit and Wolverine. All in all... I absolutely love this cast of characters, it's a mix of obscure and fan favorites. The only character I'd remove would be Zangief, since I think him and his style don't match the rest of the characters very well. On another note, I think the game has too much blue. A lot of backgrounds have a lot of blue hues, and we've got Megaman, Captain Commando, Captain America, Venom and War Machine rocking them blue hues, and Chun-Li and Spider-man also have a ton of blue, not to mention that Hyper Combo backgrounds are.... blue. There might be too much blue.

 Remember how SF VS MSH introduced palette swap alternate characters? We've got more of them, and they are even better. Roll is pretty much her own unique sprite, even if she shares a lot of moves with Megaman, Red Venom is a faster and weaker Venom, Orange Hulk plays like Hulk did in MSH, Gold War Machine trades beams for missiles and the ability to block for Super Armor, Lillith/Morrigan is a Morrigan that fights like Lillith and Shadow Lady is an alternate take on Chun-Li. Every alternate character is fun by its own right, which is more than I can say about SF VS MSH. This Playstation version also adds a badass zoom effect when throwing and landing Aerial Raves, which is unique to this version.

 By now you should understand how these VS games play, although that will change by the time of Marvel VS Capcom 2. But we ain't there yet, so we've still got 6 attack buttons, 3 kicks and 3 punches. The partner system has changed a bit. You can select "Partner Hero", which means selecting another playable character as your ally, and this lets you use the Variable Counter(Which makes them jump in for an attack to counter a blocked enemy attack), the Variable Combination, which mixes your super with their super(And if you defeat an enemy with it you'll get an amazing splash screen with a hybrid hyper combo name) and, new to the series, Variable Cross, in which you summon a copy of the enemy character to fight alongside you, sandwiching the enemy between you and them. But, you could also opt for "Special Partner" and choose from a larger pool of characters that can only be used as assist characters, such as Thor or Colossus, and they too have their unique mechanics: Assist Attack, in which they jump on screen and perform their attack, Assist Counter, which is pretty much the Variable Counter, and the Assist Hyper, in which you call them in and they repeat their attack various times.

 Finally, Capcom got the hang of what the PS1 could actually do, and I'm happy to report that slowdown is pretty much gone, save for a few hyper moves, and it seems to only appear if you actuall hit the enemy. It's incredibly satisfying to finally get to use Iron-Man's(Or War Machine's in this case) repulsor blast without tanking the framerate into the single digits. Capcom also added a lot of shortcuts, so now you can press start after a fight for an instant rematch, skipping load times, or press start during Arcade mode to skip the after fight taunt and opponent ladder overview to skip even more loading screens. The game as a whole also feels better than previous VS games on the system, the controls are more responsive than before, and the game feels much better. For example, getting Chun-Li's Hyakuretsukyaku attack in SF VS MSH required an ungodly amount of mashing, while in this game is much easier to pull off.

 I had fallen in love so much for SF VS X-Men that I didn't think I'd like this game, which was pretty much my childhood and I'm pretty sure the first PS1 game I ever played on my PS2, as much. But nope, Marvel VS Capcom is more than just a roster remix, and not just because of the new sprites, but because the game feels better to play as a whole. It's also incredibly hype, with exciting music and a fantastic announcer, 'Let's go Crazy' indeed! So... yeah, Marvel VS Capcom is the best one of the bunch when it comes to PS1 ports of these games. It's not an accurate representation of the Arcade Original, but I don't care, I can appreciate these ports for what they are and I love the fact that these 1 on 1 versions of the game exist.
 9.0 out of 10