Marvel vs. Capcom 2 [PS2]

Which leads me into one of the biggest misconceptions about Marvel vs. Capcom 2 -- that it's a button masher. A common scoff that the less patient fighters proclaim, MvC2 is often tagged as nothing more than a glorified randomizer. Which is entirely untrue. On the surface, it may appear that players can tap buttons at will and make things happen, but if you dig a little deeper and take the time to learn the game the way it's meant to be learned, you'll see the truth: that it's incredibly complicated. Stick a master against a regular player and the results will be the same every time. After you get your butt kicked by somebody who knows what they're doing, see if you have the guts to say it's a button masher then.

Graphics Marvel vs. Capcom 2 was one of the best looking 2D fighters for its time, and it's a testament to the artists that almost three years later it can still compete as such. Originally built on the NAOMI arcade board, MvC2 effectively combines hand-drawn two-dimensional sprites with cartoon-like three-dimensional backgrounds. Revolutionary for the time (the only other game to pick up on this idea were the later incarnations of SNK's King of Fighters series), the somewhat stylized look was a huge leap over its predecessor's strictly 2D CPS2 design, and is still quite pretty in our 2002 world.

While not as fluidly animated as Guilty Gear X or Street Fighter III: Third Strike, the PlayStation 2 version of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is nonetheless incredibly smooth. The strange victim of slight scaling and pixelation issues that the Dreamcast and Arcade renditions didn't have, you'd be hard-pressed to find a two-dimensional fighter that looks as good as this one (it even beats out the later-released Capcom vs. SNK franchise). Especially when you realize that there's zero slowdown and no glitches in the animation -- which is even more impressive when weighed against the maddening 100-hit combos and pyrotechnic effects that litter the screen at practically every moment. Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is a fast, hectic, blatantly colorful visual dynamo.

Sound A sore spot for me when I first reviewed the Dreamcast version of MvC2 in April of 2000, the audio in this game is the epitome of the phrase "mixed bag". While the voice-overs aren't too shabby with fitting pipes for just about every character involved (forget about Rogue though -- hers is the worst representation ever!), the soundtrack is plain god-awful. A popular choice for Capcom composers at the time (see Breath of Fire III for proof), the jazzy lounge lizard music and snappy beats doesn't fit the action at all. Perhaps an effort to match the same type of atmosphere that SNK had captured with its jazz treatment for King of Fighters, the quality of each piece find pales in comparison to that beauty.

The audio effects however, fare much better. With the slashing clang of swords and adamantium claws piercing the speakers of your television set (with some nice positional goodies thrown in for good measure), and a distinctly booming representation for explosions and fire sounds. If only they cared about the soundtrack as much as they did everything else...

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