Did Capcom Pull the Wool OVer Our Eyes on Marvel Vs. Capcom 3

For nearly one year, Capcom spoon fed us information about Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, from new characters, their movesets, and fighting mechanics. From classic Ghosts and Goblins hero Arthur to the 4th wall breaking Deadpool, the game looked to please everyone with fond memories of the shenanigans in Marvel Vs. Capcom 2.

Then the game released.


When press outlets and gamers finally got their hands on the retail game, it was as if the only things we could enjoy were only the things Capcom specifically talked about.

There are no extra modes like survival or time trial. It teaches you few combos in its own mission mode and even then the combos it teaches you in mission mode are limited in utility in real matches. And online gameplay is like playing a fighting game online in 2009. Amazing that 2009 was only 2 years ago and yet fighters from that year can feel like antiques now.

Online gameplay is either limited to best match results on ranked or player fights unless you want to find a lobby, for which there is no spectator mode while you wait. It's incredibly baffling what happened to MvC3's online modes. The netcode is even flabberghasting, as even 5 bar connections can give you difficult, second long input latency.

Just 2 years ago, I played Street Fighter IV and struggled with its system of playing one random opponent at a time. Then when Super Street Fighter IV came out, it gave me the opportunity to choose an opponent based on connection quality rather then just the game's best guess at who I wanted to fight. It gave me lobbies I could play with friends in so that we'd all be involved in the game whether we were actively fighting or spectating the game.

I suppose you could argue that both games were developed con-currently, so they never implemented such features we take for granted now in modern fighters. MvC3 started life in 2008 which by then, the original Street Fighter IV was barely out. And yet Super Street Fighter IV, which gave us such modern features like replays and spectating, came out roughly 10 months ago. Was 10 months not enough time to observe the results of Super Street Fighter IV, an upgrade from a previous iteration, and implement them?

These are all just problems that baffle me to no end for their oversight in the final retail version of the game. I haven't even talked about the thing that bothers me the most: Sentinel. But that's for another day.

At the end of the day, playing MvC3 online is a lesson in not taking everything we have now in modern fighting games for granted. Everything we've heard about the game pre-released was based on building hype for the tournament scene of the game and even that community is facing the ugly realities of how the game is balanced right now. But as for the commercial factors of the game, MvC3 is lacking for some odd reason.