“I wanna take you for a riiiide.”
As a kid, I grew intimately familiar with the bouncy theme song for Marvel vs. Capcom 2. I’m sure most everyone has a story about this game, and here’s mine: my family could not afford a babysitter, despite the fact that my parents worked from sunrise to well beyond the sunset. My older brother was often placed in charge of me growing up, but when he wasn’t available (because he had his own life) I’d accompany my folks to the laundry they operated. Throughout the 90s and early-to-mid aughts, their business frequently featured one or two arcade cabinets. Marvel vs. Capcom 2 was the one that I occupied most, and it became everything to me. To my knowledge, it was the first game I ever tried to master. I must’ve hopped on the sticks twenty times an afternoon whenever I found myself at that laundry, and in turn MvC2 has never quite left me. Everywhere I go, I hear that tune still, and every fighting game I play, I simply yearn for the good ol’ days.
So when I was able to preview the upcoming Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics, you know I just had to boot up MvC2 for the first time in ages. I had to take it for a ride! The setup at the preview site came complete with fight sticks, transforming my session into a trip down memory lane that I was incredibly grateful for.
I’m overjoyed to share that the greatest fighting game of all time is as pristine as it’s ever been. I rolled a few matches against CPUs with my standard team—comprised of Spider-Man, Wolverine, and Akuma—and it was like I never left the sweltering heat of that laundry. The high-quality fight sticks provided during my preview may not have had the same flimsy feeling of the publicly used arcade cabinets, but it was a close enough approximation. I apologize in retrospect to everyone who had the misfortune of having to hear me button mash through those fights, but also god, what a genuine thrill it was to be able to do that again!
MvC2 (as well as the other games included in this collection) deserve to be everywhere. Our industry hasn’t always done the greatest job of preserving its own history and ensuring that future generations can experience the classics. Slowly but surely we’re getting better at it, and it’s been heartening to see more publishers and developers re-releasing their own legendary titles as they always should’ve been doing. In the same way that Capcom has put Resident Evil 4 on every platform imaginable, it should also be porting these arcade games onto anything with a screen.
Porting these titles to modern consoles doesn’t just mean I get to play one of my all-time favorite games on a machine readily available to me. It also means that some great games many folks may never have enjoyed or heard of finally get a spotlight on them. This new collection, which is launching on September 12 digitally and November 22 physically, also touts the first Marvel vs Capcom and Marvel Super Heroes, which have both enjoyed ports within the last few console generations. However, X-Men vs. Street Fighter, X-Men: Children of the Atom and Marvel vs. Super Heroes are also included, and this will be the first time that any of these three titles will be on consoles outside of their initial releases in the 90s.
The real draw of this collection seems like it’ll be The Punisher beat-em-up arcade game, which is receiving its first ever official release, aside from the blemished Sega Genesis port that escaped containment. Even if it is the odd man out, since every other one of the included games is a fighting game, it’s a real piece of history and it’s no small miracle that we’ll finally be able to bring home a copy of it.
As usual, these collections come with a number of added features and modernizations, such as online play and rollback netcode that should make things run as smoothly as possible. Additionally, there are museum-like features cataloging the history of these games with artwork and music from the entire series. Most importantly though, the games play exceptionally well. Not that Capcom has had any issues porting them over in the past, but sometimes these collections are mishandled and butchered. After sampling a number of the games, including dipping my toes into X-Men vs. Street Fighter for the first time ever, it appears that these titles have been treated with the utmost care and respect.
Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics appears, on its face, like a slam dunk. Here is a compilation of some of the most well-loved and revered titles of gaming’s youth in a well-considered package delivered by a team that seems aware of its historical significance. I know that I can’t wait to jump back in and be transported back to my own youth, when MvC2 felt like the pinnacle of games and there was no joy greater than getting to duke it out with some of my best friends and one of the most eclectic rosters ever. It feels so good to be back.
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