*** Marvel Super Heroes ***
       By Capcom

2d fighter 
1-2 player(s)

I still remember looking through the future game release list when I 
was deciding on picking up a Playstation very shortly after it was 
released domestically.  One of the many titles which surprisingly 
wasn't 3d and which helped push me towards the Playstation was X-
men:Children of the Atom.  Thoughts of controlling my favorite 
comicbook super heroes in a 2d "Capcom" fighting game filled my gaming 
head with delight.  Unfortunately, this little dream never came true. 
The Saturn version of X-men came and went.  As time went on, the 2d 
prowress of the Saturn became more evident, as did the crippled 2d 
ability of the Playstation.  Capcom did grace us with good ports of 
their SFA series which the Playstation could handle, and the 3d Namco 
fighters were fantastic.  So I was sated, but still, I didn't have my 
comicbook fighter, and it didn't look like I was ever going to have it.

Along came Marvel Super Heroes to my local arcade, the bigger and 
better sequel to X-men.  Needless to say, the quarters flowed like a 
waterfall from my pockets.  Some time later, Capcom announced that this 
title was coming home to both the Saturn and the Playstation.  Saturn 
fans and Playstation fans alike were doubtful that the Playstation 
could handle such a tangled over-animated technical web of 2d.  After 
quite a long period of development time, and much to the surprise of 
all, it's finally arrived.  2 years after looking at that release list, 
I finally have my 2d comicbook fighter.  And best of all, it's actually 
a good port of the arcade to a machine that was widely said to be 
incapable of handling it.

Marvel Super Heroes was animation intensive in the arcades, striving 
and achieving a very fluid and cartoon-comicbook appearance.  So a 
translation to a home console with only 2megs of main memory and a lack 
of strength in 2d is obviously going to take a cut to squeeze it all 
in.  How did it fair?  Quite nicely actually, considering the 
aforementioned obstacles.  The characters have retained their vibrant 
colored and anime-styles and are roughly the same size as their arcade 
counterparts.  The animation that was cut or more-often trimmed wasn't 
really necessary for gameplay.  Standing animations consist generally 
of 3 frames, most walking backwards animations are the same as walking 
forwards, crouching's 2 frames if you're lucky, and dizzies are pretty 
choppy.  Most of the other animations, however, have retained their 
arcade "jiggle".  In other words, during most moves, the character will 
seem to shake and strain via a very slight animation.  

Backgrounds are just as large and sport most, if not all, of the 
animation as the arcade.  Stages are 2 screens high and some have 2, 
sometimes 3, levels of parallax while others feature a background that 
is constantly scrolling by, displaying different backdrops.  All's not 
perfect, however, as in order for the playstation to display all this 
scenery, it had to take a drop in color depth.  Backgrounds appear 
slightly washed out and aren't as vibrant as the fighters in the 
foreground.

Unlike past Capcom ports where the sound effects were their strongest 
points with deep bass and resonating tones, the effects here have 
barely managed to be average.  The sound effects have a low sample 
rate, and the result is punch, kick and voice effects which lack depth.  
This was probably done to free up more memory for the graphics, and 
given that, I believe it was a fair trade-off.

Background music is taken straight from the arcade.  Not that that's a 
feat in and of itself on a cd system.  However, like the arcade 
version, some of the music is pretty bad, Wolverine's inparticular, and 
unfortunately there are no arranged or mixed music options.

The gameplay is traditional street fighter with a few twists.  
Characters are able to super jump 2 screens high.  An arrow at the 
bottom of the screen indicates where the other player is on the ground.  
Because of the amount of time one can spend super jumping, the ability 
to hit your opponent multiple times in the air were added.  Some may 
like this element, some may not as it can add a bit of unpredictability 
to matches.  

Special moves and super moves are standard fair for this generation of 
street  fighter clones.  A new element added to the gameplay this time 
is the inclusion of infinity gems.  A gem will pop out of a character 
after an exchange of heavy blows, and only 5 total are ever available.  
You pick them up by just walking over them, and an inventory of what 
gems your character has is displayed in the lower corner.  Selecting 
which gem is readily available is accomplished by pushing select, and 
using these gems is performed similiarly to doing a super move, and 
will augment a character's particular ability, depending on the gem, 
for a small period of time.  Once a gem is used, it won't make another 
appearance until the next opponent.

An interesting note to add is that Capcom seems to understand that the 
Playstation controller just isn't made for their style of fighting 
games.  To help remedy this problem, as a default, the R2 button is the 
same as pressing all kicks, and the L2 button is the same as pressing 
all punches.  It makes pulling off super moves, some special moves, and 
using infinity gems significantly easier than having to try and pretzel 
your fingers so you're hitting all the related buttons at once.

With all these super high jumps, combos, infinity gems, supers and 
special moves you would think it'd take a pretty heavy toll on the 
Playstation's abilities, especially with all of the animation it has to 
display in relation to the everchanging gameplay circumstances.  Well, 
it does tax the processor pretty hard at times, and slowdown does raise 
it's ugly head as a result.  This only occurs during sprite intensive 
situations, one's where there's many more foreground sprites to animate 
than just the two fighters.  Fortunately, it isn't as disruptable to 
gameplay as you would think, and that's the important thing.

Access times are about 9-10 seconds to load two fighters and a 
background.  They're even longer if you choose to play the game with 
all arcade visuals on, as you have to endure the load for the character 
select and win quote screens as well.  Turning on the shortcut mode in 
the options menu will remove these basically unnecessary play elements, 
keeping load times down to that 9-10 second limit.  It's slightly 
longer than SFA2, but average for a Playstation 2d fighter.  
Considering the large stages and character animation, it's not that bad 
at all.  One annoyance, however, is that the game doesn't seem to keep 
previous fight data in memory with the shortcut mode on.  Loads will 
always take that 9-10 seconds regardless if you use the same fighters 
or stage that you used during your last play.

Which leads to a few more items of minor dissappointment.  There are no 
options for practice or team modes.  Accessing the heroes alternate 
colors(some of which are more preferable) or doing a random select can 
only be done in the graphical character select screen.  And lastly, the 
memory card will not auto-load upon boot up, you have to do it manually 
through the backup option.  Fortunately, the playable boss codes do 
save to the memory card, and are on the list in the nongraphical 
character select screen.  Strangely enough, you have to re-input the 
code if you wish to use the bosses through the graphical select.

Comic book fans will, without a doubt, adore this game and easily 
overlook all of it's shortcomings.  Serious 2d fighting fans, on the 
other hand, will be critical of the semi-unpredictable, powerful, combo 
intensive gameplay and possibly pretty annoyed with the slowdown.  
People inbetween will be quite satisfied with what's offered.  Although 
it's definitely not perfect, the Marvel Super Hero license here goes 
quite a long way, and is really the main reason for interest in this 
title.  Who hasn't wanted to take control of their favorite childhood 
comicbook hero and save the universe?  If you're not into super heroes, 
then there's other 2d fighting games available with technically better 
gameplay, Street Fighter Alpha 2 inparticular.  But if you love Marvel 
Super Heroes and 2d fighters, there's no excuse for not checking this 
title out.


Peter Bott
faethor@ptd.net	


*** Overall - 7 ***


*** Graphics - 8 ***

 +  An impressive 2d feat for the playstation.

+/- 2d anime-styled sprites.
 -  Frame loss when compared with the arcade.
 +  Missing frames are not painfully obvious.
 -  Slowdown during sprite intensive animations.

 -  Most backgrounds have a slightly lower color depth.
 +  Some stages have parallaxing backgrounds.
 +  Other stages have scrolling backdrops.
 +  Ample amount of background animation.
 +  Backgrounds are 2 screens high and fairly wide.


*** Sound - 5 ***

 -  Sound and voice effects have a low sample rate.

+/- Background music is taken straight from the arcade.
+/- No option for arranged or mixed music.


*** Gameplay - 7 ***

+/- Traditional street fighter moves and special 
    moves, albeit a bit pumped up.
+/- Infinity gems introduce a new fighting element.
+/- Super jumps and air combos.

 -  Slowdown during sprite intensive animations.

 +  R2 + L2 buttons are the equivalent of all punches and 
    all kicks, respectively.  Greatly eases the use of gems 
    and infinity moves on the standard pad.

 -  Lack of Practice or Team modes.


*** Replayability - 8 ***

 +  Marvel Super Heroes' characters.

 -  9-10 second load times.
 +  Shortcut mode to bypass character select and win quote screens.