X-Men vs. Street Fighter

"The first "Marvel Team-Up" with Capcom"

I couldn't believe it. I never thought this would actually happen. After making X-MEN: CHILDREN OF THE ATOM and MARVEL SUPER HEROES, I didn't know what Capcom would be doing next with the Marvel license. Then in the arcade in a mall I saw it. A meeting between Marvel's famous mutant team and Capcom's popular fighting gang. The X-Men have encounter others outside Marvel company before. DC comics' Teen Titans. Paramount's Star Trek, the original and next generation. There was a time Wolverine and Gambit stole the Batmobile in the graphic novel, MARVEL VS. DC. This game took me by surprise. A great fighting game to have on the Saturn. Unfortunately, Sega didn't release it in America, so you have to get the Japanese import version, plus an Action Replay 4m cart to make it work. I ordered it both online along with another import game (VAMPIRE SAVIOR).

If the story line were to appear in a comic (wish it did), then it would be something like this: A powerful super-villain (who I won't reveal, but I believe you have an idea), whose philosophy is ''the strong will fight to dominate and weed out the weak'', has been abducting super beings. Not just mutants like Psylocke and Forge, but people like Shuma-Gorath, Blanka, Sakura, and Dan (hah?), guys whose fighting powers are beyond human. Cyclops, leader of the X-Men, gathers up Storm, Gambit, Wolverine, and Rogue to form a search for their comrades. Meanwhile, people involved in street fighting, Ryu, Ken, Chartlie, Zangief, Chin-Li and Dhalsim get together and prepare themselves from an attack by this mysterious foe. Magneto, sensing this powerful boss might disrupt his plans for mutant domination, goes to seek him out and bring his allies, Juggernaut and Sabretooth. M. Bison (Vega) goes out in the search as well, bringing the duped Cammy along, figuring this powerful being could be threat to the Shadaloo empire and plans to his psycho power to take him out. Finally, Akuma (Gouki) enters the fray, just battle anyone, caring not to what's going on. Soon, all the groups encounter each other. While some greeting are pleasant and form small teams for assistance, most clash with one another in a super hero brawl (comic book rule) and battles break out. When the smoke clears, whoever left standing faces the end boss behind all this.

With the help of the 4MB cart, the port from arcade to Saturn system has succeeded with perfect precision. There is very little loading time, no slowdown or missing animation frames. The background stages are large, detailed and clear. There's not much look at, though, compare to other Street Fighter stages, which is just as well, since you don't want to be distracted while playing and rather see how your character is doing anyway.

When I was playing the game in the arcade, I couldn't understanding what Gambit was saying and it wasn't because the place was noisy. On the Saturn, however Gambit doesn't garbled and neither do the others. The music, while sounds great, wasn't that impressive to listen. The themes all sound the same, like it came from one instrument at times and being repetitive doesn't help much. Some are re mixes that are original from X-Men:COTA and previous Street Fighter games. Only the new characters have new themes. I do like some of the themes, like Sabretooth's and Magneto's. There are 40 tracks on CD you can listen to. The best part, the music is played on a loop, which means you won't hear any silence from the audio reloading.

The controls are easy to use, even easier than the previous Street Fighter games. If you played them before, then you'll become a pro in no time because the moves are basically the same. Even a novice whose first started playing would have no trouble. There are new moves and specials to keep the game fresh every time you play. The characters can do super jumps just like in X-Men:COTA, which is the first for Street Fighters. Rolling from SF Alpha are new to X-Men in this game. Other techniques are push-away counters, variable counters, and minor life recoveries. The one thing that stands out the most is the tag team ability. You chose two fighters, not one, and press fierce punch and roundhouse kick to switch them. That and with wild ground and air combos, this makes it more wild than watching tag team wrestling.

Although the graphics, sound and controls are terrific, but there are a few things that keep it from having a perfect score. The difficulty levels are easy, even at a high level, but not as easy as MARVEL SUPER HEROES, where most characters just stand there and do nothing, so there is a challenge. Even more so when you crank up the turbo level. It's also fun playing against another person.

Another thing that I wasn't happy about is, since this game was made for Japan, the text on the quotes and endings are in Japanese. I wish it had an English option like it has hidden VAMPIRE SAVIOR. Even the manual is in Japanese, so I have no idea what the Short Cut Mode in the option is suppose to do.

But overall this game is great to have. Saturn's version is worlds better than the PSX version. It has better animation, no slowdown and the ability to switch. This a valuable to have to your Saturn fighting collection.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/13/03