The Street Fighter series is a pretty stable series that has a strong following amongst the 2D fighting loyalists. You can almost equate Street Fighter to being the Madden of fighting games, because the games will always be stable, people will always buy them, and they will never be completely horrible (with the exception of Street Fighter: The Movie). Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter, unfortunately, is one of the sub-par titles.
Although this is one of the early vs. titles, MSH vs. SF offers a good list of fighters, nine from the Street Fighter series and eight from Marvel Comics. There are a good variety of character types from both sides. You have your basic all around characters like Ryu and Cyclops, heavy bruisers like Zangief and The Hulk, speed demons like Chun-Li and Spider-Man, as well as characters in between.
Besides your basic versus and arcade style modes, you are given two other unique modes of play: Hero Battle and Cross Over. In Hero Battle, you either choose the Street Fighter characters or the Marvel Super Heroes, and you fight the opposing group until one side has exhausted all of its characters. Cross Over mode plays similarly to a tag-team mode, with the exception that the computer picks your tag partner.
I’d love to say that MSH vs. SF has some of the best control out of the Street Fighter series, but I’d be telling you a horrible, horrible lie. As with most Street Fighter games, there is an awkward pacing when it comes to the movement in MSH vs. SF, but for some reason this title seems to be slightly slower and a little less responsive than it should be.
MSH vs. SF has a really good graphical representation compared to other 2D fighters of the 32-bit era. Besides the bare-bones menu screen, everything is nice, bright, and clear. Each character is drawn really well and the animations are clean and smooth. No complaints here.
It’s very obvious that Capcom loves to stay very close to the arcade feel with its games when it comes to sound. Everything is loud, boomy, and fast-paced, almost as if you are supposed to be on the edge of your seat 24/7. This approach to audio in a fighting game is good, but it’s overdone, and is almost a staple in the fighting game industry.
MSH vs. SF is a solid game, but it isn’t the best-polished of the Street Fighter series, or of any of the Capcom crossover games. I say save your pennies for Street Fighter Alpha 3 or the Capcom vs. SNK series. Let this title be the one that gathers dust in your collection.
