"Who would've thought it would last this long? A review from a competitive player."

All right. This game has been out for what? 4 years now? I've played in several tourneys, played against some of the best, and used well over half the roster in competitive play. I can safely say I know more about this game now than just about any other guy who has given a review of it. This is the single most competitive arcade fighter you'll find out at this time. Even after 4 years. Why? Let's get into that.

Gameplay: 9/10
The main idea of this game is to kill off a 3 team members of your opponent's team. Simple enough. You can combo them to death, play keep away and shoot them, lock them down and trap them, or you can land the first hit and run away all day until time runs out. You have a total of 56 characters. Some different. Some similar. Some more different than others. You have just about all the marvel characters ever put into a capcom fighter and all the capcom characters put in the crossover series... and then some. But the main aspect about this game is the assist system. Upon picking a character, you have the option of picking 3 assists. For the match, you can call on that character to perform his or her assist attack when he's in reserve. Old school scrubs may complain that this ruins the game and the purity of the crossover series due to the unlimited assists, which may be deemed ''cheap''. Oh please. Just because you may suck at adapting to a new game doesn't mean the change makes it worse. You don't see those guys crying about KOF 96 having better hit box detection than KOF 95 do you? hell, i don't even see the same guys crying about MvC1 where two war machines got at least 50% chip damage FOR FREE. Scrubs... This is a COMPLETELY different game from its predecesors. It should be treated as such. Moving on, the assist system is what gives this game depth. For example, you can have Storm as your main character. Then you have several partners you can pick for her, each one will determine the best strategy you can use. For example, Storm backed with Sentinel ground assist is highly effective for zoning. Storm backed with Captain Commando Anti Air is very effective for a runaway storm. Storm backed with Cyclops or Psylocke's anti airs are useful for rushdown storm. The possibilities are endless.

Anyway, moving on. One of the biggest complaints is that this game is unbalanced. Well no **** sherlock. Every game is going to have characters with better options than the rest. Over the years, the top 10 characters in the game have been more or less in no particular order Storm, Sentinel, Strider, Magneto, Cable, Cyclops, Spiral, Dr. Doom, Blackheart, and Ironman. The 4 most common in tournies are Storm, Sentinel, Cable, and Magneto. Because of these 4, some may label this game as ''broken and unplayable''. Let's get one thing straight. Broken? maybe. Broken to the point of unplayability? Hardly. Take any member of those 4 or even the entire top 10. I can easily name 2 tough matches for that character outside of the top 10. With 56 characters and 3 times as many assists to back them up, this game is full of matches with several dynamics and factors that could heavily influence the outcome. This system of dynamics is what makes the game so successful.

Control 9/10
This game does take a while to get used to, particularly for characters with extra movements, like an air dash, double jump, or a flight mode. But overall, it just takes some getting used to. You'll get the hang of it.

Sound: 10/10
The sound and voices are crisp for the most part.

Music: -383/10
Jazz just doesn't suit this game.

Graphics: 10/10
No problems here. The supers are nice and flashy. So are the sprites.

Overall: 9/10
It's fun in the beginning as long as you're playing against equal level opponents. If you and some friends want to go at it, you may enjoy doing so with all the various options you can explore for each character. Just as long as one of you doesn't become a hard core player. Once one becomes competitive, the rest of you have to follow if you want to make this enjoyable. Just don't go crying ''CHEAP'' when someone of higher skill owns you big time. Suck it up, learn some tricks, and own that fool up.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 02/01/04