Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter

"Not the biggest fan."

OVERVIEW

This was among the final stream of titles for the Sega Saturn, only released in Japan. This is the sequel to X-Men Vs. Street Fighter, and in my opinion, though slightly improved graphically, it's not as good. However, it is arcade-perfect (with the 4MG RAM cart).

Graphics: 10

This game looks great. The animation is just about as good as 2D gets, and the Marvel characters look better than ever. The supermoves are enormous, there's rarely a hint of slowdown, and there are practically no load times. Your partners switch without any delays, so the gameplay is smooth, unlike the PSX version.

Sounds: 10

The voices and sound effects in the game are true to Marvel shows and Capcom fighting games. Cyclops sounds really gay, Wolverine sounds like an animal, brutal punching noises, etc. Since the themes are based on the character fighting, and not the background, the music sometimes doesn't fit the scene at all. In any case, as always, Capcom's music is a delight.

Gameplay: 7

I like the Versus series because you don't have to do the double D-Pad movements to do super moves, like in Street Fighter Alpha. Just down + forward 2P or 2K does the trick. Down + forward P+K will do a team supermove for any two characters. The combos in this one are not nearly as insane as they get in Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 of course, but this game was well on its way.

Even if you're not a fan of fighting games, you'll enjoy playing this one. I don't especially enjoy the over-the-top gameplay and combo focus, but hey, I have fun with this game with friends from time to time. I liked X-Men Vs. Street Fighter a bit more though, because the character selection was better... And Ken wasn't so weak.

Features: 8

I wish this game had a training mode, because practicing the manual combos would be really helpful. As it has been with most recent 2D games, all the characters have similar move systems (a fireball, dragon punch, and hurricane kick of some sort). There are your normal big guys, like Hulk and Zangief... And some guys who only fight close range, like Wolverine. They don't have any guys who really rely on charge moves... BUT, you can unlock ''Shadow'', who is basically a ''shadow'' version of Charlie; being an age-old Guile fan, this made me happy (I don't have a clue as to why they didn't just include Guile as a normal character though). Well, in any case, special moves are really weak, so aside for rapid, successive use, they don't play an important role in winning matches. For this reason, Shadow/Charlie ends up still being a crappy character since his flash kick and sonic boom take time to charge.

Overall: 7

A solid import, but not exactly my cup of tea. Still fun for a quick go or for collecting purposes though. For the better game, I suggest Street Fighter Zero 3.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 04/07/01, Updated 08/19/03