Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics Review by Guggs

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When thinking of gaming in the ‘90’s it’s no exaggeration to consider Capcom as royalty. Their dedication helped to create some of the colossal franchises we still love in the modern day, least of all in the fighting genre. Late in the decade, their introduction of Capcom’s tag-team fighter, a new sub-genre, helped revitalise and refresh a scene which had been suffering with ups and downs in popularity.

If you’re of a certain age, putting your hard-earned money into a Street Fighter cabinet for “one more go” is but a fading memory. Fortunately, Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics allows you to play those games, without having to nervously ask your parents for more coins to put into the pocket money eating machines.

This latest Capcom compilation consists of: X-Men: Children of the Atom (1994), Marvel Super Heroes (1996), X-Men vs. Street Fighter (1996), Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter (1997), Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes (1998), Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes (2000), and The Punisher (1993)

All six of the fighting games (The Punisher is the outlier and a welcome change of pace) will see you control a team of 1-3 fighters as you aim to take down your enemies utilizing your arsenal of moves, as quickly as possible. The six attack buttons allow you to use light, medium and heavy punches/kicks, whilst the shoulder buttons and LT/RT allow you to activate special moves. The games are fairly challenging without tweaking any difficulty settings, so it’s essential to learn combos and combine the characters you feel work best for you if you want to succeed.

After being a little overly confident and diving straight in, I found myself humbled and missing my input timings, resulting in me moving like I was trying to intimidate my opponent via interpretive dance. After some time in the training modes, it wasn’t long before I was pulling off the Shoryuken and combos with ease. If memorising combos and inputs isn’t your thing, you can simplify the process to a single button press when playing offline, meaning players not used to the genre get a welcome introduction and will be able to pick up and enjoy their time.

If you want a break from the traditional fighting game, the inclusion of The Punisher offers just that. The 1993 side scrolling beat ‘em up also offers a tough challenge (possibly because on an arcade cabinet it would lure you in to part with your spare change) but those used to games such as Streets of Rage & TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge will know what to expect. I found myself returning to The Punisher more often than I thought I would, as I battled my way through hordes of bad guys with Frank Castle, determined to reach the end! I have yet to accomplish that, but I’ll head back to it in the future and finish the job.

Each of the seven titles available comes with a wealth of additional options. All are available to be played in their native Japanese versions, whilst the training modes, and their ability to be modified with things such as button inputs on screen allowing you to practice those health bar draining combos, was a brilliant inclusion, especially as someone who hasn’t played a fighting game for some time. Each game also makes use of a marquee card should you forget how to trigger that all important, fight finishing special move. Throw in the ability to tweak the game’s speed, difficulty, timer and controls, as well as introducing online modes (both casual and ranked) and there’s plenty here which make this accessible to new players, as well as catering for veterans.

I played a couple of matches online against others and noticed how well the connection held up, this is in part due to the rollback netcode, which also made it difficult for me to blame the connection as I was comprehensively pummeled in each match I played. Although it was good to play the traditional fighting game online, my favourite inclusion was the high score challenge mode. You simply select a game and see who can get the highest score. You can increase your score by dealing with fights efficiently, using combos and how much health you have at the end of the battle.

Away from the frenetic pace of battles, it was great to browse the Museum. There are literally hundreds of pieces of artwork and design documents to view. I enjoyed seeing the process of how some of these games came together and although you’re not going to buy the game on these alone, their inclusion was one I appreciated.

The fighting genre has seen its fair share of ups and downs over the years. You could argue that it’s currently the strongest it’s been, but the re-release of these games in such an impressive package goes to show that Capcom were amongst the early architects that helped what came to follow.

Simply put, MvC: Arcade Classics is an excellent collection that celebrates the early days of the mash up madness of Street Fighter, Marvel and co. It’s to be hoped that part II of this collection, scheduled for later in 2025, continues with the quality-of-life improvements and quality seen throughout this edition.