This month marks 10 years since the first Marvel VS game, X-Men Vs. Street Fighter was released. The game was a dramatic change to the pace of previous capcom fighters (and fighters in general); having devastating super moves, super jumping, infinites, and generally a super fast feel of play. More VS games were released, including Marvel Vs. Street Fighter, Marvel Vs. Capcom, and Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, which is arguably the pinnacle of the series.
I remember when XvSF first came out, although I was still very young and very scrubby, I was still in amazement that X-Men and Street Fighter characters were actually fighting against each other… only in a dream could you imagine that. It is also worth to note that there are some people here that wouldn’t even be playing fighting games if it wasn’t for the VS series… it has definitely come a long way.
I remember when someone gave a detailed report on alt.games.sf2 of a location test machine of X-Men vs. Street Fighter showing up at an arcade in Chicago, and everyone thought it was a joke post.
Despite all its problems, XvSF was at least nice in the sense that it sparked a lot of competition in the arcades where I used to live, since it didn’t seem like any fighting game in the last couple years around there had gotten all that much vs. play. So I enjoyed it.
Back then I established I was a better gamer than my own big brother. I knew all the news before he did, I started regularly beating him in Tekken, etc.
One day he called me talking about this game where the SF characters were playing the guys from Marvel Super Heroes and they had all this hype looking shit. Ryu shooting normal fireballs bigger than his super from SFA? Akuma’s Hurricane Kick electric? Ken doing SRKs in the air? The new super FBs are fucking beams? I immediately called bullshit on that.
Then he brought me to this one arcade on Broadway. Shut my ass up. lol I still raped him in it(SaberFUCKINGtooth/JuggerFUCKINGnaut ftw), but it opened my eyes. I made it a point to keep my eyes open for shit like that in the future.
Oddly enough that one arcade also was the first time I was actually able to play Art of Fighting 2 on an MVS machine, as all the Queens arcades(and any place that happened to have games in it) only had AoF1.
Brings back memories. I WANTED XMvsSF so much that i was almost prepared to buy a japanese saturn just to play the import(damned no U.S release).
Then i learned about the cart swap trick. You’d start it up with the import cart that lets you play japanese games, then quickly switch out to the 4MB expansion cart at the moment before the function “kicked in” to search for it. Allowing me to play the game on my U.S Saturn w/4MB cart.
Then later i learned about the third-party action reply pro. That had built-in Import converter+4MB expansion in 1 cart. So it was automatic play afterwards with no swapping necessary.
I’ve long since sold my saturn, but also gained Emulation. So i can still play good’ol XMvsSF arcade on the Pc.
The original MvC for the Dreamcast is probably the reason I play fighting games now, and although I don’t play the Vs series so much now their legacy as a great fighting game franchise is undeniable.
even though XVSF is 10yrs old now, its still a better fighting game than any marvel fighting game being release by EA. Heck, all the Versus series from capcom is better than EA marvel series ever produce. Thats why im thankful capcom atleast made some good marvel games.
I remember when I 1st saw XmenvsStreetFighter at pizzahut,the big ass fonts on the screen,fatty fireballs,remix tracks,aircombos, and the superjumps!!!
oh yeah who could forget the announcer…
runs to mommy to get 2 quarters
insert 2 quarters
hypeass announcer guy: X!!! X!!!:mad:
This is X-Men verus StreetFighter!!!:mad: :mad:
You never seen anything like it in the WHOLE world!!!:mad: :pleased: :china:
MvC is the reason I play competetive fighters today, period. I started playing the game at a pizzaria my family would frequent. The graphics seemed so amazing, and it had VENOM (omfg) and MEGA MAN (yaaay) in the same game. When the PS2 was launched, and I realized I had neither the funds nor the opportunity to get one, I ended up picking up a Dreamcast. A friend of mine let me borrow MvC1 and revealed to me that there was actually an MvC2. The rest, as they say, is history. I may prefer the more contemporary SF games now, but I’ll never forget my roots.
This series is what got me into fighting games years ago. I remenber borrowing MSH vs SF and enjoying the hell out of it. It was the lure of being able to play as my favorite super heroes that go me in.
i was into the original marvel super heroes gem wars at aladdin’s castle back in the day, then followed by COTA then vs series. oo how i miss those days.
