Marvel vs Capcom 3 - Whoa!

I picked up a copy of Maverl vs Capcom 3 yesterday and popped it in. First I played some vs matches against my wife. That was some great fun. The game is fast, furious, and very frantic. It was pretty easy to lose sight of characters with all of the action going on. I've never been very good at fighting games but I absolutely enjoy them. Marvel vs Capcom 3 is no different, I can put it in, beat some guys up for a while and call it a day.

I can't help but criticize some of the character choices (X-23 has really grown on though) and some of the noticeable missing characters. I know that the game was built from the ground up using 3D character models instead of sprites so there's not going to be 50+ characters, but where is Mega Man and Venom? Heck I'd take about any Mega Man at this point. Zero is a pretty sweet character who I've always liked but he just doesn't fill that gaping Blue Bomber hole.

After my wife finally called it quits (I was dominating until she found Dante and his overly awesome moveset) I played some single player arcade. My main goal was to unlock character endings and models for various characters. Things went well has I unlocked Dante, Ryu, Felicia, Zero, and Tron Bonne? I was actually going for X-23 in that round, but Tron was the only surviving member of my team so apparently I got to see her ending. I felt a little confused by this, I thought the first character you chose would be your "main" while the other two just tagged along. Turns out that's not the case, I need to figure out exactly how this works.

And what is up with the final battle? Why do some games insist that the last battle completely break the flow of the game? Yes Galactus is a menacing figure in the Marvel universe. But I can't fight him the way I fight every other character. He's just this large pink/purple thing that stands partially off the right side of the screen. Every attack he hits you with takes away 1/3 of your life bar. Worse, I kept thinking he was a God of War boss so I kept trying to use the God of War controls to beat him. But if I press L1 to block I actually end up swapping characters and normally taking mass amounts of damage. Why can't I just fight a smaller Galactus who has 3 health bars or something? DON'T CHANGE THE FLOW OF THE GAME DURING THE LAST FIGHT!!!! THIS IS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE!!!

The unlockables are ok. I like the character model viewer, I just wish I could make the models do attack moves instead of just standing there. Flipping through their color schemes is fun, I really like Zero's homages to Mega Man and Axel from the Mega Man X series. I wonder how the DLC costumes will fit into the viewer?

No one's ending has really been that great so watching them again is kinda blah-zay. I do hope the endings are some sort of sneak peek for future DLC characters. Getting Ghost Rider, Iron Fist, Mega Man Volnutt would be pretty sweet. Getting Dazz

The art is pretty much stuff that you've scene, same with the opening movies, still love the Captain America one with the helicopter.

I got the Special Edition and I have to say I'm underwhelmed. For $10 extra bucks you get a comic/artbook, 2 free DLC characters and access to Marvel Digital Comics. The comic is only 12 pages so it doesn't have time to properly set up anything. After the comic, is an art book. If you've followed the game at all then you've already seen all the pictures that are offered. I was hoping for a bigger book with some more character art. Then there is a small fanart section. There are some very talented people out there. On the back of the book is my code for my free Jill and Shuma-Gorath, but they aren't available for another month. Lame. And I get a free month of Marvel digital comics.

I guess I'll have to wait for my DLC characters, but I really, really wanted a better art book. I was looking forward to concept art and development art. But the book is so small that it's a pretty big let down. At least the main game is fun. I look forward to future character announcements (Ghost Rider please!). But I won't be buying any costumes until there's a cheaper combo pack available.

Edit: Just snuck in a game at work, sweet!