The first of my most anticipated games of the year has arrived and after a week or so of play I think it's about time for me to follow up on my initial thoughts. Firstly the positives.
Ho-ly crap does this game look stunning. Initially the move to 3D models on a 2D plain was one that I felt left behind the classic Capcom fighter aesthetic, still preview images doing little to spark my interest, but having now seen the game in full swing I can most definitely say that it's got the right look about it. The level of detail put into making the 3D animations closely resemble the original sprites is staggering at times. Iconic characters like Wolverine, one of Capcoms most used sprites of yesteryear, move in a familiar way, little things like his bouncing stance really hit the nostalgia button for me. In addition new faces fit in with the old beautifully and there hasn't been a moment of play yet where I've found myself thinking that there was something off visually.
Another of the welcome changes to the game is the control system, or at least part of the new control system. The new basic layout has done away with the three punch/three kick setup and simplified things down to light, medium and hard attacks. It took a while getting my head around having moves like Akumas hodoken and hurricane kick attached to the same button but after a few matches it felt very natural. Alongside the three main attack buttons is a "launcher" move, one that will shoot your opponent into the air for further combo-ing.
The flipside of the control scheme is Simple mode. It simplifies the game further to the point where pressing forward and your "special button" will perform a super move. Basically it's MvC3 for toddlers. And I have no problem with that for the most part, it makes sense for Capcom to make sure as many people as possible can get a kick out of the game, but when it comes to its use online...well you might be able to imagine why having all the skill drained from play makes playing Ranked Matches feel a tad redundant.
Speaking of online play, it's time for major gripe number one (I have dubbed myself the Jaded Geek of course). The online play is a mess and for a few reasons.
Firstly, when you fail to connect to an opponent you get kicked back a menu screen. Having to reselect things over and over whilst listening to the first three seconds of a piece of music is mind numbing.
Secondly, there's no ranked match or player match lobby system meaning you have to join whatever game the system forces you into with no thought given to connection quality. Anyone who plays fighting games knows that changes to game speed make a huge difference and in a high paced game like this all the more so. What I've experienced more than anything else is matches so incredibly slow that they are unplayable, the frame rate reduced to four or five per second to make up for the terrible connection between the players.
And finally for the online play, Simple mode. With the speed issues I just mentioned button inputs become very hard to perform - slowing down the input for a hodoken is not easy when you can't judge whether what you're pressing is even going through but pressing forward and special isn't. So Simple mode offers bad players the opportunity to exploit the horrible online setup to their hearts content while player who actually want to learn and compete on an even field are left in the cold.
All of these factors combine to create a situation that will quickly kill off any online population the game might have and stop people playing it much past the first few months of ownership. Fingers crossed for a patch to sort this situation out.
On to gripe number two and it's a lack of modes that's got me irritated. Fighting games used to come with standard modes that very rarely got left out. Simple things like Survival, Time Attack and Tournament mode all used to be in just about every game you might care to mention from the 90's right through to the 00's and yet Marvel Versus Capcom 3 has none of them. At all. These are phenominially basic modes to implement yet they're not here so what's Capcom up to?
D L-fucking-C. I've already taken my swipes at this game before its release for having Capcoms now typical DLC reek about it but it seems the company has been up to its old tricks. Y'know Shuma Gorath and Jill Valentine are going to be downloadable characters? Well did you know that they're also on the disc? Yup, good old Capcom locking content you've already got in your hands. Next up of Capcoms terrible DLC policy spawned atrocities is costumes. Again with the minor graphical changes with a pricetag attached big enough to pay for the purchase of another game.
What more have they got to offer? Well how does a developer shadow mode sound? Don't know what this is? Well, in days gone by it was often possible to unlock secret developer ghosts to play against in some games. Often getting them unlocked was a case of being incredibly skilled and getting fast times or high scores, the shadows representing a bonus challenge. They were minor bonuses for the hardcore to enjoy. So now Capcom is going to charge for them. And they can fuck right off with that attitude.
So, am I happy with my purchase at the end of all of that. Yes and no. Yes the game itself is fantastic and is a worthy successor to Marvel Vs Capcom 2. And no because for what you get the game is not worth the full price tag and I could have waited for a month or two and spent £25 instead of £35 then bought the rest of the content that was on the disc with the money I'd saved. I'm just hoping Capcom are at least a little kinder with some free content updates soon because now this game has arrived I've got almost no reason to ever pay attention to them or buy their products again after getting so sick of their backwards steps.
EDIT: The first of Capcoms Shadow Battle packs is out and it's free. So I'll eat my words for having complained about it but what remains to be seen is whether they charge for the next bunch. I'm leaning towards "yes" as the most likely answer.
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