review by justin anderson

the desription: First, Capcom brought us a meld of X-Men: Children of the Atom and Street Fighter. Then a meld of Marvel Super Heroes and Street Fighter. Following on the success, the Capcom heroes will now face a selection of some of the strongest Marvel heroes, while both sides fight against Onslaught's plans.

Ryu, Zangeif, Chun Li, Jin, Strider, Captain Commando, Megaman, and Morrigan are joined by the Hulk, Gambit, Captain America, Wolverine, War Machine, Spider-Man, and Venom. Among these playable characters are an additional 16 special heroes, which can be chosen to perform simple attacks, but can't actually be played individually. These range from lesser-known Capcom characters to Marvel heroes from previous Capcom fighters (mainly X-Men).

the gameplay: The game is a fairly faithful arcade translation, with certain extras. But, a few things were also taken away. Additions of training modes, options, a picture gallery, and a theater to view seen endings adds a lot. But, one key feature was stripped from this version- you can't switch between your 2 fighters during battle. The arcade allowed you to select 2 characters, switching between them at will or when the first character fell. Now, the second character merely acts as a counter fighter. "Crossover" mode will allow fighters to switch as their partners are defeated, but this is still a serious drawback to one of the main features of the arcade.

You're better off choosing a special partner, since these attacks are more reliable.

Battle mode follows the basic story. Pick your fighters, battle several opponents, then fight Onslaught. Opponents will vary, though the game seems to prefer throwing in fights with Venom and Morrigan in almost every trip through. Training mode allows you to pick a character, an opponent, and simply fight said opponent as a chance to learn a character's basics.

Basic options allow for the player to set difficulty, time limits, number of rounds per fight, sound volume, play various background music clips, and save to a memory card.

Extras mode cycles through drawings of the characters, unlocked as you defeat Onslaught with each character, and an ending viewer, opening new endings as Onslaught is defeated. There is also a "special heroes" option, which I have yet to unlock.

Controls are standard 2D fighter controls, with special moves performed in the standard style of pressing button sequences. But fans of Darkstalkers and later games will recognize the power meter, which increases as you fight, allowing you to perform certain ultimate attacks as the guage rises. You can also "heal", through a dual damamge meter. A green bar which lowers faster, and a longer purple bar. As time passes with no damage, the green bar slowly raises to the length of the purple bar. Keep in mind, this green bar is your life, and the match ends when it drops.

Spider-Man could have been a lot better. He stands in a very strange pose, and most of his attacks are weak. His web ball will halt an opponent for a few seconds, and web swing offers an effective kick, but Spidey will most likely fall to anyone with superoir strength or powerful fireball projectiles.

Venom is a far better choice. His punches deliver decent damage, and his web attacks can be quite powerful. His symbiotic morphing also offers chances for long range damage, and Venom can compete with the fireball throwers and often win.

Red Venom, a hidden choice, is a much faster, much stronger version of Venom. His attacks have been remapped as well. But, Red Venom takes damage very poorly, and getting trapped in a single combo can almost ruin your chances of winning, since he can go down easily.

These hidden characters are unlocked by beating Onslaught with certain heroes- War Machine, Hulk, Venom, and Morrigan. These unlock Gold War Machine, Orange Hulk, Red Venom, and Purple Morrigan. Personally, I think this was laziness on Capcom's part. Clearly, these are meant to be Iron Man, Thing, Carnage, and Lilith. Very cheap. Okay, Thing and Carnage I can halfway understand. But Gold War Machine? War Machine was simply a palette swap of Iron Man from Marvel Super Heroes to begin, so why not bring in Iron Man? Purple Morrigan? They already had Lilith sprites in the game anyway, so why even bother with a palette swap?

You can also unlock Shadow Lady using Chun Li, though Shadow Lady was meant to be a darker palette swap all along, so it, at least, has an excuse. You can only unlock 2 new characters- beat the game with anyone, and you can unlock Onslaught. Yes, you get to play as Onslaught! Though he can use no partner or special heroes, and does not fight in the same manner as the other fighters. Beat the game with Megaman, and unlock his sister, Roll.

Some characters have their respective themes from older games, while most have new themes which don't have much to do with the characters.

Oh, who cares, right? This is a Spidey website. We wanted the Ramones!

Graphics are rather top quality, standard for Capcom's 32-bit 2D titles, using a flat anime-based approach. The artists generally observe the US character models closely, though it sometimes slips through this is a Japanese inspired art style. Spidey's standing pose, for example. His spine is practically twisted.

Voice Acting? All the Capcom heroes have their original Japanese voice overs intact(so does Roll's theme). The Marvel ehroes are American actors, though generally imitate voices done by those who did the cartoon voices in the past, and at times, it really shows.

And there's an oddity which has no explanation. Whenever you perform a grab, the screen blurs for a split second. It gets irritating.

the review: I give the game a **** of *****. Mainly for doing this series as a non-continuity game, as opposed to how DC vs Marvel was handled. It's also a fairly fun button masher, with characters owned by 2 companies. Though character selection probably could have used some tweaking(3 Street Fighters? Capcom can't be that limited). it's worth buying if you're into 2D fighters. But if you have a Dreamcast, picking up a copy of Marvel vs Capcom 2 may be a better idea.

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