Today’s world is a world with a great number of the most “awesome” superheroes imaginable. There are a lot of heroes that pushes themselves to their limits, just to pursuit that one goal, whether it’s revenge or just an Utopian vision. For as long as I can remember, there’s this constant battle of deciding which hero is the best hero of all time but this decision isn’t an easy one to make. Each hero has their own unique capabilities to defeat each obstacle they face and their personality just makes it so much harder to decide who’s the greatest of them all. The only way to get rid of this discussion is by putting those different heroes against each other in one big battle but where can we find such battleground, you may ask? I present to you “Ultimate Marvel versus Capcom 3”!
The game is easily to pick up and start playing but it takes time to develop certain kind of skills. The core mechanic are very simply you have your light-, medium-, heavy- and special attack buttons. You block your opponents attacks by pulling your character away from your opponent. You can fling your opponent into the air to perform air combo’s. Next to these core mechanics, you have a couple of tweaks that are very important to know. First of all, you don’t fight with one character at the time. As you start up a game you can choose among 48 characters to form a team of 3 members. You are not bound to a certain world ( Capcom and Marvel) but you can mix up both worlds to form your team. During battle you can switch between the characters you’ve chosen for your team but you can also summon them for a second to perform a signature attack or to counter an enemy attack.
Thanks to this setup, you can perform combo’s that’s more suitable for your own playing style. Each character has its own unique attacks and playing style. For example, the incredible hulk is slow but does more damage but if you choose to fight with Spider-Man, this character doesn’t do a lot of damage with one hit but he’s rather fast and he can use his web to perform signature attacks. In the beginning of this game you can choose the beginning character and each chosen character let’s you pick a certain counter attack.
A battle in action.
Thanks to this setup, you can perform combo’s that’s more suitable for your own playing style. Each character has its own unique attacks and playing style. For example, the incredible hulk is slow but does more damage but if you choose to fight with Spider-Man, this character doesn’t do a lot of damage with one hit but he’s rather fast and he can use his web to perform signature attacks. In the beginning of this game you can choose the beginning character and each chosen character let’s you pick a certain counter attack.
Second of all, you build up energy while you’re fighting your opponent, this energy is used to perform special attacks. What I like about this fighting game is the fact that you don’t have to be an expert in performing “Street fighter”- special attacks to perform a special move. Some of the combo’s in Street Fighter were nearly impossible to execute but in this game, each character has its own special attacks but you have almost the same execution combination.
The last feature is a very important tactic to use in “Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom”. This new feature is called X-factor stats boost. This X-factor can be used to boost the speed, attacks and life for each character in your team but for a limited amount of time.
Also, it effects each character differently. This feature is very cool and it can change the tide of battle in no time, but there is a catch… The strength and the duration of this boost depends on the amount of active characters you still have in your team. The less team members you have, the stronger the x-factor becomes.
It’s easy to get in the game because this game doesn’t expect you to be an expert in fighting games.
The graphics of the game are very enjoyable. It’s full of color and the cell shading technique for all of the character models and background suits this game perfectly. Although the game looks good, there are still a couple of noticeable flaws. You’ll see that the game characters are very simple and some of the special attacks aren’t as exciting to watch as they should be. Not every special attack stands out and that’s too bad. But overall, it looks good and it really doesn’t bother you that much.
Let’s talk about some of the “Offline” modes you will be playing. There’s of course the “Arcade” mode, this is actually your standard fighting experience. You choose your team and you fight a couple of matches against a couple of NPC’s and in the end you’ll have to fight Galactus. With each run, you get player points that gets presented onto your “License Card”. This “License card” shows general player information like kill/ death ratio, fighting style, offline battle data, … There’s also a “Versus mode” which can be used to play against other players at home. You can adjust the handicap level ( health adjustment). There’s a useful “Training mode” to develop your skills. In this mode you can adjust your opponent’s settings and also a couple of game settings. The “Mission” mode is a mode where you choose to play as a certain character and you’ll have to complete missions ( objectives). Each character has 10 mission covering everything from basic moves to combos. There are also different difficulty levels.
Some of the playable characters
Last but not least, you have a special mode called “Heroes and Heralds”. During your arcade, you’ll earn cards which represents certain heroes that have specific abilities like invisibility, super armor, better jumping skills, … etc. You can battle clone minions who look like your normal game characters but they all work for Galactus. It’s your job to defend earth with the help of these “ability cards”. Each team member can be equipped with a certain ability. It takes the game to a whole other level.
This wouldn’t be a great fighting game if it didn’t have an “Online mode” as well! You can play normal matches, ranked matches and you can create your own lobby. You can adjust some things in this “ Lobby” mode like size, region and rank limit. You will also have the opportunity to spectate matches in lobbies.
“Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3” also has some kind of end content. With each battle you earn points and you unlock movies, character stories, Character endings , artwork and songs of the game. You can all watch these aspects in the gallery. Another plus in this game is the fact that you can change the voices of the Capcom Characters. The standard voices of the Capcom franchise are English but you have the opportunity to change them into the Japanese voices.
+/ Pros
- Different play styles and team combo’s
- A good amount of modes
- Fast paced action
- Good visuals
-/ Cons
- No interesting story of the characters
- It takes time to be skilled
- Dull end game content
8/10
Tested on PlayStation 3
