Riding the tsunami type wave X-men vs Street Fighter created through the fighting game world, Capcom releases Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter. With huge shoes to fill could this game even catch the eye of fighting game fans? This question was quickly answered with a crowd pleasing Shoryuken! Capcom had done it again, taking their tag team style fighting and just tweaking the gameplay enough to not change what they had created, but only improved upon it.

Keeping all the gameplay mechanics from X-Men vs SF, Capcom makes some subtle changes that add some serious stategy and depth to an already slick fighting game. All the combos,supers, and tag team moves return but now your partner is even more helpful. The player can now call his partner in for an assist style attack. Each character has their own assist attack which is one of his or her special moves. Lets say you have a team of Ryu and Spider-Man. If Ryu is out fighting simply press strong punch and forward kick simultaneously for Spider-Man to come in with his web swing special. Once the move is finished the character will do a taunt and jump back out. This makes for some good defensive moves as well as linking supers and other special attacks to the assist. The down side to these assists is that if they are blocked or dodged both characters can be hit for some major damage. Also each character has only one assist move which can’t be changed so experimenting with different combinations of characters can yield some great combos all the while amazing your arcade competitors.

Outside of the subtle gameplay changes Capcom adds some new fighters from their respective games and brings back some veterans from the first tag team extravaganza. The most notable chracter to be added is Japanese news reporter Norimaru. For those of you who don’t watch Japanese television , he is comparable to the U.S.’s Dan Rather. Outside of being included as a gimmick character, he is great to defeat your friends with to make them feel inferior to you in the game. Sort of like perfecting someone in Street Fighter II Turbo in consecutive rounds. Capcom also begins their trend of hidden fighters. There are six hidden fighters, Grey Hulk, Stone Zangief, Mech Gouki (Akuma), Iron Spider-Man, Evil Sakura, and Mephisto. These fighters are not just copycats with different color schemes, but actually different fighters with their own attributes and fighting style.

These were all welcome upgrades to a great fighting engine and did nothing to cripple the style of play, they only improved upon it. Although these changes made for another great fighting game, I have saved the best upgrade for last. Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter has in my opinion the greatest game announcer in gaming history. Whoever it is makes me want to get up and fight for real. Hearing the opening sequence for the first time made me want to jump into the game and become part of it. Then hearing my finishing Ultra combos bellowing out of my speakers was one of my favorite game moments ever. If you have never heard him or just want to hear it for the first time again check out the video.