There are a few kinds of fighting games. Some are very balanced where all characters are created equal. Some require a high amount of skill/practice and patience to be great at it. Some are just stupid amounts of fun and totally unbalanced. That is what the Marvel vs Capcom series has always been, fun, but horridly unbalanced. Games that stop being fun at tournament level because they require you to use the very best of the best characters and not who you want to use to win.Luckily in this day and age of online gaming, not everyone cares about who's the best, and don't play with an always win mentality, so games like this aren't so bad anymore. What's better is MvC3 is much more user friendly where combos are relatively universal between characters and are pretty simple to pull off. This offends the pros, but honestly I think it's for the better. There's nothing I hate seeing more than in MvC2 someone whip out Magneto and use his infinite that took him years of practice to do. That is not my interest when playing a game, to invest years of time into it to 'get it.' That's just sad really. MvC3 lets everyone in on the fun, and the high level stuff is still hard enough to do where you'll need a few good months of practice still.
Now enough with my initial banter, onto the review.
Graphics:
This game is gorgeous. It plays and feels like you're in a comic book. The lights are flashy, the frames are smooth and the backgrounds are interesting and always on the move. The level of detail on the characters shine through, and the animations really make you feel like you're using certain characters. Like Dante, if you've ever played a Devil May Cry game this really feels like Dante if he were in a fighting game. He has damn near all of his moves from the games, and his sword swing flows just like the DMC games. That's pretty impressive, and that isn't noticed just with him, but with everyone else too.
Still, it's hard to write anything else about the graphics. They are great, the end.
Sound:
The music is shockingly good, I guess they needed these 10 years to finally get decent tracks for a Marvel game. MvC2 was noted as having practically the WORST soundtrack for a fighting game ever. MvC3 on the other hand, not only has really great music, but it fluctuates by what characters you have out which is really neat.
The voice acting is...good? Ok, it's good...but annoying and ever present. I think I've gone to bed the past few nights hearing Deadpool scream "PINEAPPLE SURPRISE!" It's not as bad as some games like Blazblue where EVERY character is constantly talking, but this is still pretty bad as MOST characters are saying something all the time.
The sound effects are very satisfying and fit well with everything going onscreen. Chris's shotgun blast sound is especially good.
Gameplay:
Unlike the previous Marvel vs Capcom game where you needed a Ph.D in combo execution to play it, MvC3 tones that down and makes it much easier for nearly anyone to play. This is great honestly. I can't find a downside to this. While it's nice to know playing Street Fighter that I can do this or that and few others can, it still creates a barrier of people in the know and people who are not. And those who are not are often in the majority, so you're left with a smaller selection of people to play against in the end who are at or above your level.
Making the game easier to play was the best thing they could have done with this kind of game. It's still challenging to do advanced combos, and the best of the best will still undoubtedly be the best, but at least the worst of us gets a sporting chance now.
The game plays as such, everyone has a light, medium, hard, and launcher button, and two assist buttons. You get a 3 man team, and combos are pretty much always A, B, C, D or light, medium, hard, launcher (special as Capcom calls it) as is the case with this game. Once you hit the launcher you may jump to meet them and continue a A, B, C pattern ending on D to ground/bounce them to continue another combo or end in a super move. See? Simple isn't it?
There's advanced things to do like air dashing, super jumping, instant overheads/crossovers, and maintaining a zone like in most fighters. But the basics of the game are very simple, probably the simplest I have ever played.
There are 35 characters for now, and more on the way comprising of course of Marvel and Capcom characters. A fine selection to choose from indeed.
Online:
Online is great, once you get into a game. But that's the problem, finding a game is REALLY dumb. Unlike Street Fighter 4 where you select from a list of potential opponents which showed their connection speed, MvC3 does an auto search that has a high chance of failing. When it fails, it sends you back to the loading screen, which takes a bit, then back to the online menu. This is very annoying, and very frustrating. It takes longer to find a single match than it takes to play two of them.
With that said the online is decent. It matches you up very close to your opponents rank. There's a fun RPG level up mechanic much like what is found in nearly every online game ever now. And you can save 3 of your favorite team combinations for speedy access.
Player matches are great, because you find someone and can quickly rifle games off at the speed of light. Once a match is done if both players select rematch, then BOOM you immediately get another match, no loading times, no menu selections, nothing, it's fantastic. The same is for offline Versus, which is just super convenient.
Lobby is terrible though. There's no spectator view, and I have yet to find a fighting game except MvC3 that doesn't have spectator view. That's pretty bad. So when you're in a lobby you get to watch...nothing and wait your turn. It's so boring. I'm not sure what Capcom was thinking here. I almost bet we'll get it in DLC for an added cost...
Story:
N/A it's a fighting game.
Conclusion:
MvC3 is a pretty fun fighting game. It will most likely end up being known for a handful of cheap tactics the pro community comes up with, but oh well, hopefully a bunch of people from all skill sets stick with it to make the online stay fun for a few years.
Keep up the good work Capcom.
***UPDATE 4/1/11***
I couldn't hate this game more. Sure it's still fun in small amounts, but it has a TON of issues. Blocking things for one seems utterly broken and sometimes impossible. There are times in this game I have my hands off the buttons entirely, blocking in the correct way and the game doesn't register me blocking. THIS HAPPENS ALL THE TIME, and it's ridiculous. Most of the cast is entirely pointless as well, and utterly useless. Just like in MvC2, there are only a handful of characters worth picking and you'll never get a team of 3 where you like every character in it. No, you are FORCED to pick some characters just because they work well with others.
Other notes: X-Factor is the dumbest system ever. Wesker is broken beyond belief, he has way too much priority, is way too fast, does way too much damage for having way above average health. Everything is WAY too safe especially Wesker who I honestly believe has nothing punishable about him.
After 40 hours with this game I can honestly say I think I'm done with it. I find no enjoyment in creating teams for the sole purpose of killing characters in one combo, or teams that just run away and throw projectiles. I'd like to use Zero and Haggar on a team if possible, but they are both terrible and REALLY don't work well together. Too bad. Sticking with Street Fighter where you are allowed to block, can pick whoever you want, don't have to worry about stupid things like team synergy and broken hypers that deal WAY too much chip damage (especially in x-factor where blocking nets you as much damage as if you ate the hyper cleanly).
The game frustrates me to no end, and I'm not easily flustered. Sure, I could be good at this game too. All I have to do is pick Sentinel, Dr. Doom, and Ammy. Or a similar combination of broken characters like everyone else does.
***END UPDATE***
*"Pineapple Surprise" is in reference to grenades Deadpool throws at you*
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