As of late I’ve been replaying the first 3 CPS2 Marvel titles (especially CotA and MSH) and once again am reminded of the labor of love in which Capcom created these games and their wonderful animation (again, CotA and MSH), something which I don’t take for granted as much considering I haven’t been spoiled by modern-day consoles and hi-res/HD fare…yet. After XMvSF though, I noticed that both MSHvSF (lazy lazy lazy!) and MVC1 didn’t seem to have that “oomph” in the animation department. Their presentations and super move sequences may have become much flashier and eye-catching, but seemingly at the expense of the formely fluid animation. Am I just imagining things or did the mighty CPS2 hardware itself have it’s own limits and ended up reaching them???
Regardless, it took until the Dreamcast for a stock game console to perfectly port over CPS2 (and Neo-Geo) fighters which really reminds me how much those fighters raped the PS1 and (stock) Saturn hardwares (prime example: the PS1 port of CotA). Still though, what’s this I’ve heard about the “perfect” Dreamcast CPS2 ports still being somehow off??? (And I’m not talking about just SFZ3U)
And were all animation frames entirely intact for MvC2 (which I’ve never owned a copy of personally…don’t hurt me)???
Back on topic about the PS1/Saturn ports, anyone ever noticed that as far as animation cuts go for those CPS2 ports that the Marvel characters always got the brunt of the animation cuts??? The Capcom fighters were barely unscathed unless you were Zangief or Dhalsim.
Shockingly, I’ve found that most people consider MvC 1 to be the most well-planned of the series. MSvsSF was just horrid. I believe that the animation was altered to better gameplay. While the older games ARE fun, MSH and XvSF especially, I think they were headed more towards the gameplay of MvC2, as seen by the addition of assists. They were focused more on teh gameplay than the animation.
What perfect DC ports? The only CPS2 game that was on it was SFA3U, and it was shit. MvC2 was a Naomi game, as was CvS2, and since DC is essentially a naomi system, it had perfect MvC2 and CvS2 ports. Saturn CPS2 games were the best until the PS2 version of vampire collection, alpha anthology and the ccc2 Super Turbo were released. Still waiting on a vs. series port.
The reason marvel cahracters got it worse is beacuse of the demanding memory of their sprites. compared to ryu, ken, chun etc… how much harder do you think it would take to render in hulk, thanos, and juggernaught?
oh yeah… i always mistake that for CPS3, even though i have it for mame. haha
but yeah, then that’s it. 2 games.
@TC don’t mistake. MvC2 was NOT a CPS game. it was Naomi, like CvS, CvS2, Giga Wing 2, and all the other games that came out for DC almost exclusively.
CPS2 did indeed have limits, and DID end up reaching them. That’s the reason Vampire Savior 2 and Vampire Hunter 2 ended up being two separate games. There simply wan’t enough storage space to hold the sprites for the full roster.
animation frame cuts were simply due to storage space on cps2 hardware like felineki said. cota and msh had tons of animation but only a a few characters in the roster. from xsf and on, that roster got much larger, plus the fact now that the game has to load up 4 characters at once instead of 2, also causes much strain. its all a matter of hardware limits
Any idea why the art for the then-major capcom fighter series started sucking after Alpha2, Xmen vs, and Nightwarriors? People tell me Bengus was still the artist…what happened? Did he/she forget how to draw, or lose his/her dominant drawing hand in some freak accident?
I agree. I actually liked MSH vs SF. About CPS 2 and Naomi, I think MvC 1 looks great animationwise. It even kicks MvC 2’s ass. Just look at Ryu. Compare his MvC 1 and 2 versions. MvC 1 version looks and moves better and fireball effects were fantastic. The sprites in MvC 1 just appears to be better. You can see Ryu’s eyes and other shit way more clearly in MvC 1. The color palletes were also better. MvC 2 had better environment graphics, effects and transparencies but MvC 1’s sprites and animation owns!
Yeah, I already knew MvC2 was a Naomi game. I was just asking that with the increased horsepower and storage space of the NAOMI if all of the characters retained their animation frames instead of their cut-down MSHvSF/MVC1 versions.
As for Dreamcast CPS2 ports, I was talking about MVC1, SFZ3U (because the meat of the game is STILL CPS2) and SSF2T, which (for MVC1 and SSF2T) I’ve heard looked and have washed out colors, messed-up resolutions and whatnot.
super turbo didn’t exist, nor did puzzle fighter on dreamcast… let’s just forget they were even there, likewise with vampire… in fact, the only cps2 game that exists on the cast is marvel… forget the rest.
That’s because Ryu was an entirely new sprite that was never re-used after MvC1.
MvC2 used the Alpha sprite of Ryu again to save memory. Really, even on the Naomi there’s no way to have 56 characters without a hell of a lot of animation cuts. I think of the new characters, they made Cable first, gave him a ton of animation, and then realized when they wanted to up the roster that they had make a lot of drastic cuts. (see: Hayato, Jill)
There were animation cuts for whatever reason in MVC2. Look at cyclops in X-Men:COTA and then MVC2- his running, standing, and crouching animations are missing some original frames(just sits still when crouching).
Also for some reason colossus’s giant swing animation is totally different from his swing move in COTA. His standing animation also lacks frames from the original, as does sentinel standing, among others.
I enjoyed that title as lot as well! The presentation, music, select/fight screens, and animation quirks were all awesome, and the cast was a very fun mix-up.
Brings back fond memories from my Sega Saturn days, back when i had the saturn port of it in 98’ :wonder:
It’s no secret that the Street Fighter Alpha sprites (which were used for the majority of the versus games) had ASS for animation. They looked like pure liquified shit when placed alongside any of the Marvel characters. I would fathom that to be one of the reason for frame cuts on the Marvel side. The SF characters went unscathed because they didn’t have that many frames of animation to begin with
Sentinel was RAPED animation wise in MvC2. He just kinda stutters in place instead of the fluid complicated and silky smooth little jig he used to have
Heh, even the NAOMI was strained handling all those sprites. Sounds like they subbed the original CPS2 sprites with the sprites from some of the old PS1/Saturn ports. The CPS2 Marvel-only games and the SFIII series still have the best animation in a 2D-fighter. Scratch the higher resolutions and the 3D-hardware powered animations, I’m talking about ANIMATION.
As for MSHvSF, the gameplay itself sucked (as to a lesser extent the roster), but the presentation was truly tops and for awhile turned me into a fanatic of a game, preferring it over XMvSF and even MvC1. I waited and SALIVATED for the PS1 port to finally hit the U.S, and suffered and salivated even more at seeing and hearing about the Saturn port (and even getting to try it out once at this store). The PS1 ports of MSHvSF and MvC1 turned out to be better than the horrid XMvSF port because the original coin-ops already had cut down animation, but MvC1 apparently suffered almost as much as XMvSF because the PS1 couldn’t possibly handle 2 sprites+assist and sure as hell 4 sprites on screen simultaneously. I tried out the port a couple of weeks ago, it was hilarious.
How has the PS2 handled 2D fighting game ports up until now??? hasn’t bought or owned anything more modern than a Dreamcast
The CPS2 Marvel-only games and the SFIII series still have the best animation in a 2D-fighter. Scratch the higher resolutions and the 3D-hardware powered animations, I’m talking about ANIMATION.