Author: Franz "d3v" Co

When the line-up for Evolution 2017 was announced last Tuesday, something was noticeably different, something important was missing. For the first time since the tournament’s inception in 2002, there was the threat that a Marvel vs. Capcom game would not be in Evo’s roster.

Now, some of the younger readers and players out there may be thinking to themselves “so what?” What you need to understand is how much Evo and the Marvel vs. Capcom series are tied to each other. If Street Fighter can be said to represent the heart of Evo, then Marvel represents its soul–and that’s not just because it was there from the start.

The History of Hype

That isn’t to say that the Marvel vs. Capcom’s series’ history with Evo isn’t important–it is. The rivalries and hype moments that the series has brought into Evo have become an important part of its history.

Take a look at Echo Fox|Justin Wong. As much as he’s remembered for his unfortunate part in “Evo Moment 37,” it was also at Evo where his reputation as the king of comebacks was cemented. His amazing match against Michael “IFC Yipes” Mendoza at Evo 2007 was similarly immortalized as part of the Evolution Pro Tips series’ “Pro Tip #7: Never Give Up.”

In this match, Justin uses his last remaining character, Cyclops, to take out Yipes’ entire team of Magneto, Storm, and Psylocke. This amazing show of skill, nerves, and heart is now a favorite examples to encourage newcomers not to give up, even against overwhelming odds, when they fight at Evo (and a fitting metaphor for the community not to give up on getting the game into Evo 2017).

Justin would then continue his penchant for amazing comebacks at Evo with Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3–making amazing victories throughout the years against various top players, such as EG|Christopher “NY ChrisG” Gonzales, PG|Ryan “Filipino Champ” Ramirez, and more.

Of course, Justin and his comebacks aren’t the only source of memorable moments at Evo. The Marvel vs. Capcom tournament has always been a stage for amazing stories. Take for example, Duc Do’s win at Evo 2005 with his team of Spiral, Sentinel, and Cable.

At that time, Duc’s team wasn’t considered to be as strong as it once was. This was when Marvel vs. Capcom 2’s metagame had shifted towards a more rushdown-centric game over the previous emphasis on zoning and trapping. Many top players were using Magneto, Storm, and Psylocke at Evo including Justin Wong, EG|Ricki Ortiz, and Yipes – who Duc faced at grand finals. Despite all this, Duc showed that there was still life in his team and that he was still a threat, beating Yipes 3 games to 2 in grand finals.

Speaking of notable stories, let’s not forget the more recent ones. Long considered to be “America’s Game” Evo 2015 turned out to be a massive eye-opener with a Chilean, Nicolas “Kane Blueriver” Gonzales tearing his way through the ranks to finally show that that the US couldn’t sit on its laurels.  He even did it with Hulk, Haggar, and Sentinel–historically considered one of UMvC3’s weaker teams.

Now, the tournament itself isn’t the only source of great stories and from the Marvel vs. Capcom series at Evo. Numerous exhibitions and grudge matches have taken place at Evo as well. Who could forget Justin Wong’s memorable exhibition match against Dark Prince, where he had to use a low tier team selected at random. Despite this handicap, the set was still close with Justin almost winning against Dark Prince who was using a pre-set “god tier” team.

Dark Prince himself is something of a controversial figure at Evo, being one of the first people to ever be banned from the event.

These stories, these moments from the Marvel vs. Capcom series have become part of the Evo “lore.” The hype that they’ve brought has become a part of that which makes Evo what it is today. More importantly, the Marvel vs. Capcom series, and Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 still remains a source of great stories.

2016 was supposed to be a year where UMvC3 was a dead game, yet it gave us what is arguably one of the best stories of the past decade. Christopher “NY ChrisG” Gonzales had long been considered one of UMvC3’s “gods,” but he had yet to win himself an Evo championship. This year looked to be more of the same, simply because, standing in his way was his nemesis, Justin Wong, who had beat him and sent him home every time they fought at Evo. 2016 however was different, that year, a more relaxed, more confident ChrisG was finally able to defeat Justin, even stopping one of the latter’s fabled comebacks, paving the way to his eventual championship win.

Even with all that’s already happened, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is still a place for new stories to happen. Last year’s event was also building to another story with Kane Blueriver almost becoming the first player to win in UMvC3 twice at Evo, only to be stopped by ChrisG. This year, many of the existing champions are on the lookout to try to get that elusive second win and put themselves above the others, if they’re given the chance. That said, there are also a crop of players who’re looking for make their mark, players like Raynel “RayRay” Hidalgo, and Daniel “Clockw0rk” Maniago who have at times been considered as part of the games “gods” but have yet to win Evo, to perennial top 8 contenders such as Vineeth “ApologyMan” Meka,  Luis “Paradigm” Cervantes, Armando “Angelic” Mejia, and the like. All of these and more are possible sources of great stories and hype from Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, if the game is given the chance to be at Evo one more time.

The Grassroots Soul

All this history, all these stories that have come and are yet to come from the Marvel vs. Capcom series, are not the only reason however why Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 needs to return to Evo. There’s another, just as important reason for it. As stated above, the series is the “soul” of Evo, and this is because of how it represents the undying grassroots spirit of the community.

Even before the first Evo in 2002, all the way back to its roots as the Battle by the Bay, or B3, the tournament has always been about the community. These tournaments started out simply as a place for the community to come together and compete. People came and competed in the games because they loved them, regardless of whether or not there was any sort of support from the developers.

Of course, Evo has come a long way since those early days. The event has become important enough that many companies, beyond just the developers and publishers are paying attention to it. And with this attention has come a lot of support. Not to say that this is a bad thing, in fact all this support has helped the tournament grow and the genre reach out larger audiences. That said, despite all this, there was one game in the Evo line up that always seemed to be there simply on the strength of its community alone–Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3.

Due to its nature as a licensed game, alongside the sometimes confusing nature of Marvel’s video game licenses, UMvC3 never really got the same level of support as  fellow Capcom series Street Fighter. However, despite this, the game’s tournament scene continued to thrive. This wasn’t really surprising of course, the Marvel vs. Capcom community had come from playing a single game competitively for a decade, and making it thrive despite the lack of any support. The community then was simply doing what it had been doing since Evo’s early days.

In this way then, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is one of the few games that fully captures the original grassroots spirit of Evolution. It’s a game that survives and even thrives in the tournament circuit because of its community.

Evo was started on passion: on a community’s passion for their games, and for playing and competing with others in those games. The Marvel vs. Capcom community continues to pour this same passion into their current game–Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3–into its events and tournaments, into the content they produce to help other players, and even into all the effort that we are now putting into getting the game into Evo, this article included.

If the player’s passion–their love for their games that got these grassroots efforts started–is the “soul” of Evo, then Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is the game that, out of all the Player’s Choice picks, that embodies that soul the most. To have an Evo without this soul would be a travesty. As such, I implore all you players who care about Evo, about the games, and most importantly about the community, to give Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 its rightful place at Evo 2017.

Vote for Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 on generosity.com here. Voting closes at 12:00 PM PST on February 8, 2017.

Pro Tip #7 archive care of Nak06, additional MvC2 videos care of Preppy.

When Capcom released its first Marvel-based fighting game, X-Men: Children of the Atom, back in 1994, it had one feature that quickly differentiated it from other fighting games of the day: its super jump height. Children of the Atom’s stages had a playing field that was over twice as high as it was wide, and allowed characters to explore this space with super jumps and air combos. This verticality became a series staple for later Marvel fighting games from Capcom.

More than just differentiating the games in what would become the Marvel Versus series from other fighters, the series’ verticality brought a giant shift in how the game was balanced, compared to traditional 2D fighters.

Airspace Control

To understand why the Marvel series’ super jump height brought about such a massive shift in balance, we first need to look at one of the most important concepts behind 2D fighting games. At their core, 2D fighting games are primarily about space control. Each move controls a certain amount of space, and the properties assigned to that move, hit boxes, hurt boxes, vulnerabilities, and even frame data determine how good that move is at controlling that space.

One of the most important spaces to control in fighting games is the air, as jumping is a common way to bypass moves that control horizontal space. In most games prior to X-Men: Children of the Atom, this was a risky move since jump-ins could easily be punished by anti-airs–moves that control vertical space. There are two factors in these games that help make anti-airs strong. First, they start from the ground; a character does not have to jump to perform them. Second, the vertical space of the game is itself quite low–meaning that these anti-airs don’t have to control as much space.

With the super jump height of the Marvel series’ however, traditional anti-airs are weakened. The higher vertical height makes it easier for characters to get around them. Additionally, players also must give up a lot of horizontal space on the ground when pulling them off. Combine this with the additional options in both movement and attacking that super jumps give, and being higher up can be much more advantageous in these games.

For a practical example of how the Marvel series’ vertical space affects balance, look no further than its effect on the “shoto” moveset. The shoto moveset of Ryu (and Ken) has been called by some “the perfect moveset,” with a projectile to control horizontal space, a rising uppercut to control vertical space, and third move (the tatsumaki kick) that moves them forward. In the Marvel Versus games however, this moveset isn’t quite as perfect: Ryu cannot implement his traditional zoning game because super jumping makes it so much easier to get around both his horizontal and vertical space control tools. What was “the perfect moveset” in Street Fighter II is no longer such in the Marvel games, and Ryu tends to struggle in these games as a result.

 

Breaking Traditional Space Control Roles

The verticality of the Marvel series required a significant rethink of how space control was implemented in the series. The solution that Capcom came up with was to break the traditional space control roles, to help fill out the void left by these weakened anti-airs.

This breaking of traditional roles can be seen in how the series reworks the tools for controlling horizontal space, projectiles and long range pokes, and uses them to control vertical space as well. Perhaps, the most straightforward example of this is how certain anti-airs, such as Cyclop’s “Gene Splice” and Charlie’s “Flash Kick,” gained projectile elements. Other characters gained a myriad of vertical and diagonal projectiles as they were brought into the series.

Beams on the other hand aren’t true projectiles (they’re not separate from the character), but function as long pokes, like Dhalsim’s limbs in Street Fighter, but without vulnerable hurtboxes. These include beams that go purely vertical such as Storm’s “Typhoon,” Dormammu’s “Purification,” and of course Captain Commando’s “Captain Corridor.”

Aside from allowing these tools to control space from the ground, the series also allows them to control space from the air–going downward, instead of upwards. This is arguably even better, as it allows a character to keep their opponent grounded while maintaining the high ground. Even more devious is when we have a projectile that does both, such as Dr. Doom’s “Hidden Missiles,” allowing for the advantages of both, making for a very useful move (this alone may be the main enabler for Morrigan’s “Astral Vision” trap).

Of course, with projectiles and pokes being given greater roles, other special moves, as well as movement itself, needed to be made stronger. Part of this was done by giving characters more aerial movement, such as multi-directional air dashes. However, that isn’t the only solution (nor the most interesting): some characters instead received aerial moves that moved quickly through the field while dealing damage.

Meanwhile, some characters who may not have had a lot of aerial options were given really good ground options instead. These characters, such as Vergil, Wolverine, and Strider, were designed so that they could lock an opponent down and prevent them from taking to the air. In fact, most pixie-style rushdown characters fall into this style, using a combination of fast movement, and the occasional teleport for some characters to bulldog their opponents.

Now, while traditional anti-airs have had their role lessened, they still have their place. These moves become more focused into being reversals, or combo filler. Yes, some effort was made to try to make them more effective in the early games, either by increasing their range, or just flat out giving them projectiles. However later versions seemed more in tune with making them excel in their limited roles such as making Wolverine’s “Tornado Claw” cancel-able to super.

Taking these together, we can see that a good combination of vertical space control beams or projectiles, combined with good movement or fast moving specials, would be the Marvel series’ equivalent of a “perfect moveset.” Indeed, this has become the foundation of some of the best teams in the later, assist-heavy incarnations of the series such as Justin Wong’s Storm/Sentinel/Cyclops in Marvel vs. Capcom 2, or Chris G’s Morrigan/Dr. Doom/ Vergil in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3.

Moving Forward

Now a good number of you must already be ready to type comments about how the Marvel games aren’t the only ones with a tall stages and super jumps, and you’d be right. The series may be the ur-example of this, but other games have followed suit and given their own takes on verticality in 2D fighters. This makes the concepts first explored in the Marvel games’ all the more important for both developers and players to understand.

For the developers looking to create similar fighting games with any degree of verticality, understanding the concepts first put out in the Marvel series–and then adapted by other games–can help them with their own games. Understanding how the vertical space affects balance ultimately leads to better-balanced games.

Meanwhile, for players like us, understanding these concepts can help us make better choices in-game: both in our choice of which characters to use, and the moves and tactics that we employ with these characters–leading us to be better players.