Marvel vs. Capcom 3 was clearly a labor of love for both companies, with lots of references to their various franchises sprinkled throughout. The stages you fight in have plenty of cameos from both companies, and many characters express their personalities quite well. Spider-Man for example does not simply yell for "Magneto!" to help him; he teasingly calls the master of magnetism "Maggy...", while Hulk refers to a certain wolf sun goddess (Amaterasu from Okami) as "dog!" among other names he can’t be bothered to remember. Nods to the dedicated tournament scene for the previous game are here as well, including at least three nods to the infamous ’It’s Mahvel Baby’ video (whose audio is so utterly ’not safe for work’ that it won’t be linked to in this review), and the rest of the game is full of similar good-will gestures. Fans of either or both companies will have fun picking out all the references!
It should be noted that MvC3 is missing polish in some areas. The traditional "Vs. CPU" mode is actually hidden in Training Mode, requiring players to toggle settings in order to get the training dummy to put up a fight. As of the time of this writing, many players have also had to specify their user language in online play in order to find opponents; simply selecting the default ’Any’ will often yield errors. Also disappointing is the apparent loss of the Replay Mode from Super Street Fighter IV, making it much more difficult to record and study your matches. Online lobbies are also questionable at this time, since there is no ability to spectate the match at hand; the end result is many players have simply stuck to one-to-one ranked matches or player matches rather than using lobbies. These sort of omissions are bizarre, though hopefully Capcom can patch them over time.
Those omissions are disappointing, but the character roster makes up for it. While about half of them are returning characters from either Marvel vs. Capcom 2 or Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, many of them have been tweaked to be more compelling to play than they were in the past. The truly new characters are even more noteworthy, covering a great variety of play styles. Haggar from Final Fight adds excellent attack range to the usual ’slow grappler’ arsenal, while Marvel’s Taskmaster and Amaterasu from Okami are extremely flexible; good at many things but not the best at any of them. Dormammu and Arthur represent different takes on ’projectile keepaway’ strategies, and Phoenix/Jean Grey actually is the best (or close to it) at several different types of attack... but pays a heavy price since she has less than half the health of many characters and can be killed in a single combo. The sheer variety of play styles represented by the roster in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is one of its strongest points, and there are surprisingly few disappointing choices in the available characters.
Online play is currently somewhat simple in its implementation and options, but it mostly works well. Assuming reasonable network conditions, most players should find it playable a majority of the time. There can of course be problems from time to time, but if you were able to live with the online play in Super Street Fighter IV then you should find this reasonably playable as well. Networking functions seem to be pretty important in any case, since Capcom has made it clear they will be supporting this game with a variety of DLC over time.
Marvel vs. Capcom 3 does make a few odd mistakes and does need a few things corrected in the future, but what we have now is an amazing fighting game. It’s easy to learn, has enough depth to reward dedicated players, and its roster is incredibly varied. If you’re up for a much more wild and fast-paced fighting game than the norm, Marvel vs. Capcom 3 will definitely be worth your time and money!
Recommended Reading: The folks at fighting game enthusiast site Shoryuken.com have put together a great ’Hyper Guide’ for this game, covering both the engine (e.g. universal rules) and character-specific strategy. Check it out if you want a great starting point for learning how to play your team of choice.
