Text/GameForce
Marvel comics created before World War II in the last century, the development of today has a huge influence around the world, in addition to the film and television adaptations to achieve excellent box office performance, a number of classic character images are deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, in addition to the game field also has a high reputation, which and Capcom co-produced "Marvel VS Capcom" fighting game series, has long been loved by players, this issue we will review this series that created a "gathering of heroes" fighting new gameplay, how was born and developed.
Time back to the mid-1990s, Capcom launched the "Street Fighter 2" let people appreciate the great charm of real-time confrontation, fighting games have become the focus of people's attention, after the great success of arcade and home console platform, Capcom also began to face competition from SNK and other manufacturers, with its own new generation of CPS2 arcade substrate, and Sega and Sony respectively launched the latest 32-bit home console, how to continue the glory of "Street Fighter 2", has become a test paper that Capcom must complete.
With the powerful performance of CPS2, Capcom first fully upgraded "Street Fighter 2", launched "Super Fighter 2" (commonly known as 16-person Street Fighter), and the final form of "Super Street Fighter 2X", continuing the classic at the same time, also began to create a new fighting game, and the cooperation with Marvel has officially started.
In December 1994, Capcom launched the X-Men Children of the Atom (X-Men Magnetic Primitive) in arcade, which is based on Marvel's popular "X-Men" comics, using Capcom's mature fighting game system, joining forces to create a new brand of fighting games, and also designing an original story storyline, X-Men members held a fighting contest to determine who is qualified to defeat the supervillain Magneto, in order to reflect the characteristics of the confrontation between the two sides, There are six characters on both sides, plus a total of 13 hidden characters.
The basic gameplay of the game is still 2D fighting, according to the original features designed a large number of aerial flying moves, the character also has an energy slot, after the accumulation can use the gorgeous super killer skills, a variety of moves are more relaxed, very suitable for fighting game newcomers, but also by the street fighter old players scorn, think that it is for children to play. Due to the addition of street fighter characters, this game can also be regarded as a duel between Marvel and Capcom, and then transplanted to SS and PS consoles, achieving 310,000 sets of sales, which can be described as a good performance. At the same time, SNK's "King of Fighters 94" gave Capcom an important inspiration and began to add more characters to the fighting game, rather than limiting the classic Street Fighter characters.
In October 1995, the arcade version of Marvel Super Heroes (Marvel Super Heroes) was released, the characters are still 13 people, we are familiar with the Hulk, Wolverine, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Captain America, Thanos and other characters debuted, and the only representative from Capcom is the little girl Anita in "Demon Warrior", which has become the only work in the whole series without Street Fighter classic characters, and the integration of Capcom game characters has since begun to layout.
The game continues the basic gameplay of the previous game, the new gem system makes the battle more possible, the player hits the opponent with various moves, can drop gems of different colors, accumulate to a certain extent can get different ability bonuses, this system has been improved in the later Capcom "Pocket Warrior" is well known to the player, while the character energy slot accumulates faster, allowing players to use more super kills, more gorgeous battles, and the style of traditional street fighters is completely separated. The game was also ported to SS and PS consoles, selling 400,000 units, of which 380,000 were from Europe and the United States, allowing Capcom to gain a new user base outside of Japan, and also determined to take the Marvel series of fighting games to a new level.
In September 1996, the arcade version of X-Men vs. Street Fighter (X-Men vs. Street Fighter) was released, commonly known as XVS, this game Capcom completely integrated the lineup of the two major manufacturers, each side has eight characters plus hidden characters a total of 17 people, players familiar with Long, Ken, Chun Li, Sangilff, Vega and other street Fighter classic characters appeared in the game, creating a new type of different character teams VS battle.
In addition to the character lineup, this game has a huge innovation in gameplay, in the past fighting games, no matter how many characters appeared, the final battle form is 1V1, even if the three-person team like the King of Fighters is formed, it is also in turn in order. In XVS, Capcom took inspiration from the wrestling fight that Americans liked, changing the form of the battle to a two-player team that can switch to rest at any time, based on the rich moves of the original characters, allowing players to flexibly form teams, realizing the fun of team cooperation, and greatly increasing the fun and accidentality of the battle.
However, this novel 2V2 gameplay, to the home host port has brought great difficulties, traditional fighting games, before each game of battle to read the scene and all the action frames of the two people into the host memory, so that there will be a relatively smooth experience, the 32-bit host memory is not large, in this case can only cut the content, either reduce the scene and character screen details, or reduce the action frame, which is the transplant fighting game that year feels shrinking the reason. To XVS here, to read the actions of four people into memory, the amount of data almost doubled, qiao women are difficult to cook without rice, in order to achieve a high level of transplantation in the hardware environment of that year, Capcom adopted different methods for SS and PS.
The Sega SS version uses an original port that restores the arcade effect, but it costs an additional 5800 yen to buy a newly launched 4MB memory expansion card, if there is no card or the previous version of the 1MB card can not play, the high price is equivalent to buying a new game, although the SS version has achieved 260,000 sets of sales with smooth porting effects. Unfortunately, Sega did not release expansion memory cards outside of Japan, resulting in this European and American style game, Which could not be played in Europe and the United States, and I believe that many people switched to the PS camp at that time.
Sony PS version due to the inability to increase the host memory, forced port character actions into a slideshow, so can only endure the pain of cutting the new gameplay, the two team rotation into the main role (normal use) + secondary role (aid attack), in fact, into a similar to the "King of Fighters 99" traditional 1V1 + additional support, in order to make up for the shortcomings of the gameplay, Capcom to the PS version to add a one-click must kill Auto mode, as well as a faster Turbo mode, the name of the EX version, in fact, the castrated version. This game can be said to be the game with the most obvious advantage of SS over PS in the 32-bit console war, but the PS version still sells 420,000 sets or exceeds the SS version.
"X-Men VS Street Fighter" is considered to be the first generation of the VS series in the true sense of the first generation, the same size of the two sides of the lineup, multiplayer team can be changed at any time to play, determine the simple effect of gorgeous moves, these basic features in the follow-up works continue to carry forward, VS series also began to more entertainment fighting game development, in addition to the traditional hardcore fighting players, to discover a new world.
In June 1997, Capcom continued to launch the arcade version of Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter (Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter), commonly known as MVS, the number of characters increased to 26, and even added the original character based on the Japanese comedian Ken takeshi Kiri, the gameplay of the game is not much different from the previous game XVS, the home console port is still the SS version needs to expand the memory card, the PS version is castrated EX version, sales of 260,000 sets have declined, The overall content is not too new, basically a transitional work.
In January 1998, less than a year later, Capcom launched the arcade version of Marvel vs. Capcom again. Capcom (Marvel vs Capcom), commonly known as MVC, the two partners began to integrate the entire big brand content, and the title MVC has become the official name of the series until today. The gameplay system of this game has been further upgraded, in addition to the two-person team, you can also choose a dedicated support character, which has achieved a novel 2+1 battle mode.
In the game, there are 22 battle characters and support roles to choose from, adding up to more than forty people, in addition to the increase in the number, the most important change is that Capcom is no longer limited to the fighting game characters, to many classic arcade character design moves to add to the game, including Mega Man, Attack Wyvern, Captain Of the Famous General, Demon Village Arthur and other action stars appear in the fighting game, not only let the old players feel more intimate, but also give new players the opportunity to contact capcom classic masterpieces in a new form.
When the game was launched, the SS console had already reached twilight, Sega's new DC console appeared, the greatly improved function easily achieved a perfect port, and the PS version continued to appear as a castrated EX version, surprisingly, this greatly reduced port version achieved 780,000 sets of sales, of which Europe and the United States accounted for 750,000, the power of brand union has been significantly improved, as an MVC series classic, the game was also re-ported to the PS3 and Xbox 360 consoles in 2012.
In February 2000, Capcom launched a fully evolved arcade version of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (Marvel VS Capcom 2), commonly known as MVC2, this game no longer uses its own CPS2 substrate, but the Sega NAOMI substrate, which was originally designed for 3D fighting, and MVC2 is still a 2D fighting gameplay, but the scene has a clear 3D depth effect, giving players a novel visual experience. Due to the significant improvement in hardware performance, Capcom once again improved the system, upgrading 2V2 to 3V3, while abandoning the traditional six-button operation, simplifying it to a light and heavy fist and foot four keys plus two support keys, further establishing the characteristics of the MVC series in terms of gameplay operation.
The number of characters in this work has been greatly increased to 56 people, and all of them are complete and operable characters, in addition to the classic Street Fighter characters, "Demon Warrior", "Mecha Fighting", "Energy Gem", "Star Fighter" and other fighting works have representatives to participate in the battle, the popular female character Jill has also appeared, and even the Sun Wukong prototype Son Son Son, who has disappeared for more than ten years, has also returned in the form of fighting, and the MVC series has a new charm that makes the classic reborn.
When the game was launched, a new generation of consoles appeared, Sega DC, Sony PS2, Microsoft XBOX have been ported, of which the PS2 version sold 720,000 sets, DC and XBOX versions are 140,000 sets, because NAOMI is the DC host interchange substrate, so the DC version of the performance is closest to the arcade, but also became one of the representative works of the DC host. In 2009, MVC2 was ported to PS3 and Xbox 360 consoles, and in 2015, an iOS mobile version was also introduced.
Since then, the fighting game market has been greatly impacted, and with the rapid development of home computer and game console hardware performance, the arcade business has continued to decline, and the cooperation between Capcom and Marvel has also diverged. In February 2011, after several years, Capcom finally launched a new marvel vs. Capcom 3 (Marvel vs Capcom 3), commonly known as MVC3, this time there is no arcade version, directly on the PS3 and Xbox 360 consoles, achieved 1.36 million units and 1.07 million sets of sales, once again aroused players' interest in fighting games. In November 2011, the upgraded Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3), commonly known as UMVC3, added the PS Vita handheld platform, and has since undergone another enhanced remake, porting to the PS4, Xbox One, steam full platform.
In September 2017, Capcom launched the latest work of the MVC series, Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite (Marvel VS Capcom Unlimited), corresponding to the platform PS4, Xbox One, Steam, the game returned to the 2V2 mode, and designed the Marvel movie style original plot, IGN score 7.7, in today's fighting game is no longer a hot environment, the overall performance can only be regarded as decent.
In his sequel after MVC2, Capcom drastically reduced the number of characters in traditional fighting games and replaced them with a variety of genre characters. With the continuous launch of the Marvel Universe series of movies, Marvel characters are evolving and developing both in terms of number and story relevance, in contrast, Capcom due to the lack of new works, the characters on the scene belong to the nature of fried cold rice, and the style and story are difficult to unify, and there is obviously a feeling of being rigid.
Now looking back at the development of the MVC series, before MVC2, it can be said that Capcom ran with Marvel, and then became a runner, which also has a lot to do with the decline of the fighting game environment, my personal favorite is MVC, MVC2 two works, whether the style of unity or operation gameplay represents the highest level of fighting games at that time. The important value of the MVC series, on the one hand, is to attract a large number of new fighter game players through simple rules, on the other hand, to create a new stage, so that many classic characters have a new charm, although from a strict e-sports point of view, the MVC series is not a good work, but as a means of mass entertainment is very successful.
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