Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes

"It's not as bad as it seems..."

I had never expected this, and it was rather quite a surprise when I heard that Capcom first announced the production of MvC:EX for PSX. Even though I have never played XSF:EX and MSF:EX for PSX, I expected MvC:EX to be better than any of these two (especially XSF:EX, which I have heard from one of my friends that it was utterly horrible.)

Well, as a devoted VS series fan, I finally found this game and bought it. Believe me, it's not really that bad. I mean, I don't see a reason why you should care if the team tag is left out. The only reason the team tag was put in for longer battle lengths, and team supers, and all that stuff. I actually do have fun w/ this game, despite the lack of team tag play.

Even the team tag is left out, helper characters are still retained, surprisely. However, they play a bigger role in the EX edition now.

Firstly, the first two modes are the Battle and Versus mode, which is the one-on-one mode, blah blah blah. Now, there's an interesting feature on helper characters. There are two types of helpers, Partner or Special. Partner is choosing another of the 15 selectable main characters to have them in team supers, counters, etc, but not in Team Attack.

Special helpers are the ones in the arcade. The difference is, you can select them manually, and they play a larger role. Not only you can summon them infinitely, you can use them in somewhat a Team Attack style super when the helpers continously attack while you get to attack w/ infinite supers for a short period of time. Helpers can be used to counter, also, but not as in team supers.

Cross Over mode is still retained, and helper characters are used the same in arcade (ex. limited uses, roulette select.) Basically, it's the same as the arcade, except the teams have same characters.

The last moves are Gallery, Options, and Training (did I miss anything else?) but I doubt you need to know what they are.

The other minor differences is that when you air combo, the screen closes on the comboer, or rather quite, pixelates. This is one of the little things I dislike, but good thing is, it doesn't affect your combo play. You can still do CapAm's double jump combo, Chun-Li's infinite, etc.

Also, additional thing is, hidden characters can no longer be selected through the arcade secret codes. I don't know if they can be time released a la SFA3, but they can be selected manually once you beat the game w/ a certain character. Like if you beat w/ Megaman, you'll get to select Roll, as in Chun-Li to Shadow Lady, Hulk to Orange Hulk, etc., do the math.

And, of course, keeping another traditional way of the VS EX games, you get to play Onslaught. He can be quite fun for you to god-mode, but somehow, I believe that Cyber Akuma would have made a better playable boss character.

Overall, it's pretty much fun anyways. It's just that I believe most people only judge this game by it's differences, due to the disapperence of the team tag play. I'm sure you all know this quote by now, don't judge a book by it's cover.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 02/23/00, Updated 02/23/00