The game was provided by CAPCOM for review. Thank you!
Admittedly, 2D fighters are one of the genres I am rubbish at. No matter how much I play, I will almost always forget how to do specific combos, resulting in me defaulting to jumping and attacking. Even still, I love this genre with a passion, with my favorite fighting games being Mortal Kombat and Tekken. But before all that, the games that got me into it were Marvel vs. Capcom. After playing the game, I became obsessed with the M.U.G.E.N. engine and creating my fighter with whoever I wanted to, but even still, I always came back to the original titles. Now, I get the chance to play them in one nice collection. Despite the heavy price tag, this is the best way to experience these iconic titles thanks to rollback netcode, The Punisher, a great gallery, and new settings to customize your experience.
The collection includes seven different games, with six of them being very similar in gameplay and one outlier. The six similar games are all 2D fighters that play similarly. We have:
For each game, you will control a solo person or a team of 1-3 characters you select. Each character has light, medium, and heavy punch and kicks (6 attack buttons total) and special moves you can use. The games are a bit harder, relying heavily on utilizing your entire arsenal of moves to take down the enemy as fast as possible. You can also use the triggers and shoulder buttons to activate these special moves instead of putting in the specific command, but for the most part, you will have to learn combos to dominate.
As for the last game, we have The Punisher, a side-scrolling beat 'em up that was released in 1993. Since then, unlike the other fighters included in this collection, we haven't seen the game appear often, but they brought it back here. This is a game I haven't played before, but if you like the side-scrolling style of games like River City Girls and Streets of Rage, you will enjoy this one. And just like the others, this is a tough game at times, too.
Ultimately, that's part of the appeal of these games, and they are still as great as I remember. I have nothing negative to say about any of the titles here. They are all classic games; they all play well, and I had a blast in each. The games also have some changes, including new playable characters, the ability to change screen flashing, and other minor tweaks. These are older games, so I don't expect many overhauls, but it also doesn't add a ton to make old players come back expecting a new experience. This is a great way to play the games you remember, but don't expect them to have changed or feel brand new in some ways.
The biggest draw for a collection like this is the additions made around the game; there are some great ones. There are two ways to play all the games: Offline and Online. Offline allows you to play against CPUs or another local player, and it is a training mode for most games. Including a training mode is great and allows you to practice your combos while seeing hitboxes, timing, the buttons you press, and some stats like damage, combo count, and stun. Every game has a training mode except The Punisher.
Then we have Online play, which is fantastic in itself. Thee online is using Rollback Netcode, so stability should be fantastic, and we have a couple of different online modes to play through. There are the usual casual and ranked matches, as well as custom ones, that you can set up with your friends. There's a leaderboard for the Ranked matches for each game, but the mode I am most excited about is the High Score Challenge. You choose a game and compete with players online to see who can get the highest score in the game. Your score increases based on your remaining health, combos, and how quickly you end the battle.
You can also customize your display to be exactly what you want it to be. You can change the border wallpaper, use different filters to change your game's appearance, and even change the display size! The size can change back to its original 4:3 layout, or even stretch the game to fill the entire screen and get rid of the borders! I love the options they added, and it makes it feel like I can make the game look exactly how I would like, whether it be more classic, like in the arcades, or newer with some blended pixels.
On top of that, we have the Museum, which is a gallery that contains artwork and design documents, and a Music Library to play your favorite songs. And yes, this includes our favorite character selection screen music from Marvel Vs. Capcom 2. There are hundreds of these for each game, and it's so cool to see how these classic games came to be through the artwork. Seeing design documents detailing the games and concept art grounds the games a bit, and I think it's a wonderful addition. I generally don't care about this kind of stuff and wouldn't say it's my main motivator to buy the game, but I do like it.
And all the games are playable on the Steam Deck, though it isn't 100% perfect.
Playing the Marvel vs. Capcom collection on the Steam Deck is nearly perfect. It all works extremely well, and it is absolutely my favorite way to play, but there is one problem that rears its head: battery life. For whatever reason, the game's battery drain is way higher than it should be, which is something similar I have seen recently with the Castlevania Dominus Collection. Luckily, there's an easy fix that doesn't compromise quality or framerate.
By setting the TDP limit to 5 and GPU Clock Speed Frequency to 800, we can reduce battery drain from 11W—13W to 8.5W—9W. This adds about 1.5 to 2 hours of battery life while not sacrificing anything visually and still getting 60 FPS. It's hard not to love this change because it really only helps the game. Otherwise, everything is perfect, which is easily my favorite way to play.
There aren't a ton of accessibility settings here, but there are some nice options to make the game easier or harder. You can change difficulty, attack power, timer speed, available modes, speed selections, and specific settings for each game that can reduce light, add in secret characters, and show the boot display. You can also change the controller type and customize which buttons do which.
The game doesn't support 16:10 resolutions, so there are black bars, but it supports cloud saves and controllers. There are no HDR settings.
Marvel vs. Capcom's Collection brings some of the greatest 2D fighters to modern devices, and I love it. Each game plays exactly as I remember, and including The Punisher is a nice touch (and a new experience for me). The options added to customize how you want to play the game, rollback netcode, and the gallery are all welcome and do help elevate the experience more than I expected. The collection doesn't change the actual games too much, which can make the price tag feel a bit hefty, but I honestly felt the changes and additions here justify the cost. Part of the appeal is taking it on the go, so I can play it on Desktop and Steam Deck, but I feel it's a worthwhile purchase for fighting game lovers and fans of the originals.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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The Marvel vs. Capcom Collection brings back some of the best 2D fighting games in a fantastic way, and it is nearly flawless on the Steam Deck!
