365//365: Day 195 – X-Men vs Street Fighter (PSX)

The marvels of Marvel vs Capcom 2 has been experienced by fighting enthusiasts for the last eleven years. Over the top, screen filling supers meshed with over fifty different characters to choose from, made for some of the genres most eye popping shenanigans. Marvel vs Capcom 2 owes its riches to the titles that came before it, where each battle held a two on two focus and the roster was 85% smaller. After the success of the celebrated one on one Marvel fighting title called Marvel Superheroes, Capcom decided to infuse their intellectual property into the Marvel Universe and create a crossover with more lasting power than Marvel vs DC — X-Men vs Street Fighter.

Capcom created a zany, tag team fighting game with the hook of massive combos being performed on random X-Men characters, by various Street Fighter cast members, and vice versa. The frantic action, awe inspiring supers and constant tagging in and out became a staple to the “versus” mold that Capcom taps into for their crossover titles. Even after a half dozen different crossover brawlers, the concept doesn’t feel stale. Of course, console incarnations were soon to follow, with the Sony PlayStation releasing x-Men vs Street Fighter on their system.

Unfortunately, several important features were either removed, or re-tuned, creating an experience that’s vastly changed from the arcade release.

Back in the mid to late 90's a roster this meager was considered a plethora of options. Truth be told, this was more than adequate for such a radical and brand new concept.

Due to the PlayStation’s lack of system RAM, previous Capcom arcade fighter ports suffered from lost frames of animation and long load times. The same holds true for X-Men vs Street Fighter, although the cohesive feel of combat feels unraveled more than previous titles. The major draw in two on two battles have been axed, instead replaced by a best of three round scuffle, much like X-Men: Children of the Atom and Marvel Superheroes. This eliminates most of the strategy and counter picking from the arcade version, leaving you with nothing more than Chun Li’s Alpha character model performing air juggles on Gambit, without the all important tagging. There is a Crossover Mode that does feature the missing tag element, however they are based off mirror matches. Select two fighters, and the CPU will select the same two, enabling tagging. This isn’t much of a consolidation as much as it a tease.

The mechanics and audio remain strong points throughout the winds of change. The effects will become stock use for future crossover titles, and the music is some of the better composed in a Capcom Fighter. The remixed versions of the Street Fighter character themes are performed quite well, and stand as some of the stronger tunes in the Capcom musical catalog. The controls remain tight and responsive, especially with the ever convenient three punch and three kick button. It’s the same fast paced action found in Marvel Superheroes on the same system, though the lack of frames really does hurt the presentation overall.

The entire Street Fighter cast received over-the-top enhancements to their super moves, although they are not as blatantly ridiculous as Super Street Fighter IV.

Truthfully, if you can overlook the major omissions, X-Men vs Street Fighter really isn’t too bad of a one on one fighting game. The whole premise of X-Men vs Street Fighter was to take two major franchises, put them together in a TAG TEAM battle and let the player unfold the battles at hand. The Sony PlayStation version failed to deliver on a major component, though managed to still put out a playable title with some ever apparent flaws. You’re better off picking up a copy of Street Fighter Alpha 3 and Marvel Superheroes, and just swapping back and forth every 10 minutes.

Rating: 5.6