The fruits of last year's FreeMVC2 Twitter campaign are finally coming to bear, with Arcade1UP seeing the release of a Marvel vs. Capcom 2 replica arcade cabinet announced at this year's EVO tournament. The unit is already sold out at most retailers, but Arcade1UP was nice enough to let CBR take a look at the unit for review.
Released in 2000, Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes is hailed by many as one of the best fighting games of all time. This highly influential 3v3 fighter built on the success of Capcom and Marvel's earlier partnership, and while follow-ups Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds and Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite may have briefly scratched that itch, they're still going back to MvC2 today - even though the game's decreasing availability over the past 20 years has made doing so increasingly difficult.
Assembling an Arcade 1Up Cabinet is Easy - If You're Patient
Of course, the peril of purchasing an Arcade1Up cabinet stems from the fact that you'll have to put it together yourself. The packaging is gorgeous, but nobody wants to leave this thing in a box for all time. The packaging continues the cabinet itself and a custom MvC2 riser. Be warned - the box weighs in at a hefty 90 pounds, so you may need to line up a friend to help you move it around.
Assembly of the cabinet was a fairly straightforward process, though you will want some space to put it together. All-in-all, the assembly of the entire cabinet took about 45 minutes. I made just about every mistake one could make in the process, including installing the marquee upside-down (a foolish error that resulted in me having to take an entire side off to correct) and not plugging in the ribbon cable that connects the monitor to the joystick correctly.
Barring my dumb mistakes, though, assembly was a breeze. The cabinet itself is a rather clever piece of assembly and only requires the user to fiddle with bolts and pre-drilled holes. It's not perfect by any means. The screwed-on bottom edges of the side panels give it a nice bit of added height, but the same does break up the clean panel art if it catches your eye.
This is my first experience with an Arcade1Up cabinet, and I was pleasantly surprised. The final assembled version is much sturdier than I expected. The size does make it a little awkward for me as a taller person, but it's not unusable. On the riser, it's just tall enough to tower over it, though without the riser, it's the perfect height to sit in a chair.
The real appeal of this is obviously in the cabinet's actual design. The aesthetics of Capcom's arcade cabinets cannot be denied, and MvC2's cabinet has always had a beautiful look. The Arcade1Up repro is remarkably faithful, with bright, beautiful side panels and the lit-up marquee making this piece stand out. I've turned it on multiple times to let the attract mode run in the background while I went about other tasks because it's such a fantastic, eye-catching piece to let hang out in the room.
Arcade1Up's Marvel vs. Capcom 2 Game Selection is Out of This World
If you're looking for the ultimate collection of Capcom & Marvel's collaborations, Arcade1Up has put together a hell of a roster. The line-up is first complemented by the entire run of Marvel fighters Capcom produced: X-Men: Children of the Atom, Marvel Super Heroes, X-Men vs.Street Fighter, Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter and Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes. It's a definitive collection of arcade ports, and all feel genuinely great to play. They look stunning, too, though you can enable scanlines if you're looking for something more arcade authentic. All the games include online lobbies, though the only lobby we could find populated was a handful of players in Marvel vs. Capcom 1. We could only get into a couple of games, but the combat was tight and snappy, with no noticeable lag that affected our inputs. This is a massive selection of influential fighters, with graphics that hold up even today and a roster of impressive characters to play as, from Captain America to Ryu, from Cyclops to Sagat.
It's not all fighting games, though. Ports of two notable Super Nintendo games are included: X-Men: Mutant Apocalypse and Marvel Super Heroes in War of the Gems. The most honest thing to say about these games is simply that they are products of their time; how you feel about these games will depend on how much time you sank into them back in the mid-'90s. Still, as an added value to an already expensive package, they're great to have.
But nobody is buying this cabinet for those games. The appeal here, the main course, the one everyone wants, is Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes. And it plays exactly like you hope it would. Every character is here, from the ones you remember and love to the weird ones you forgot were in here (seriously, remember when Marrow was a major X-Men player?). For many of us, our only experience with this game was home ports, and getting to play it in all its arcade glory is truly wondrous. The game has tight, snappy controls, and the Arcade1Up hardware feels wonderful. We never felt like we were dropping inputs or experiencing lag in matches. The sound was loud and punchyIt felt like a genuinely arcade authentic experience.
Arcade1Up's Marvel vs. Capcom 2 Cabinet is Fighting Game Enthusiast's Dream Come True
Price and availability are currently going to be what prevent you from picking this one up. The units were out of stock on Arcade 1Up's site at the time of this writing. If you track one down, the $599.99 price tag isn't for the faint of heart. The fact is this will be a cabinet aimed at a very specific subset of fans. Marvel vs. Capcom 2 has something of a learning curve already, and the difficulty with modern ports being available has resulted in the most notable and beloved fighting game of all time having something of a niche audience. This is a stunning cabinet with a library of prestigious games, but it's not aimed at modern fighting game fans looking for something to scratch an itch between MCU releases. This is aimed at the hardcore fighting game enthusiasts of old who are looking for a stunning collectible to show off in their game rooms.
With that in mind, it's hard not to recommend this, even if you are a more casual player. The simple fact is these are some of the best fighting games on the market, even by today's standards, and Arcade 1Up's attention to detail in crafting this unit is ever-present. This is more than a love letter to fighting games; this is the history of a genre that took over the world, all in one stunning 5' package. It's criminal that these game are as hard to play today as it is. From our experience revisiting it through this cabinet, we came away with, but one thought: Marvel vs. Capcom 2 still holds up as one of the best fighting efforts on the market all these years later, and it's a joy to have a playable version of it once again.