Marvel vs. Capcom 2

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes (2000) is arguably the most popular game (as of yet) in the Capcom Vs series.

The final 2D entry in the Marvel vs. Capcom series, it sandwiches every playable character from X-Men: Children of the Atom all the way up to the orignal Marvel vs. Capcom. The only absences are the Vs Boss characters, the palette swaps, and most helpers from the previous game.

To make things easy for you, that is a whopping 56 individual characters, placing the game among those with the most numerous cast.

If that wasn't enough, the game bumped the teams up to three fighters per team, allowing you to select different sets of assist attacks and Double (and Triple, of course) Supers. The game also allowed you to chain supers together for absurdly long and painful combos, or just safe, if costly, switching between characters.

Eventually, Capcom lost the Marvel license, and both companies would follow separate routes until 2008. After massive fan demand (and the success of Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix), MvC2 was rereleased for Xbox Live Arcade and the Playstation Network with online play. This reignited the Marvel and Capcom relationship, and in 2010, the companies announced that the game would get a true sequel in the form of Marvel vs. Capcom 3.

Marvel

Capcom

Brand-new characters (representing the Capcom side):

  • Amingo: a cactus-man.
  • Sonson: the granddaughter of the hero of a classic Capcom game of the same name (based off of Journey to the West)
  • Ruby Heart: a Pirate Girl who is (ostensibly) the main protagonist of the game.
  • Abyss: The game's Final Boss. A being whose awakening is spreading a wave that's killing off all life on land.
Tropes used in Marvel vs. Capcom 2 include:

"Henshin, Commando!"

  • Heroic Mime: For some reason, Storm doesn't have any dialogue aside of grunting.
  • Hot-Blooded: Jin Saotome, oh so very much.
  • Humongous Mecha: Sentinel. For non-playable mecha, we've got Jin's Blodia, who is used in some of his attacks.
  • I Am Legion:

Venom: "We are Venom!"

  • An Ice Person: Iceman.
    • Also Storm in some of her attacks, and Silver Samurai while in Ice Sword mode.
  • Improbable Weapon User: Servbot. He uses things like potato peelers, for crying out loud!
  • Joke Character: Dan (natch), Roll, and Servbot.
  • Kamehame Hadoken: The second part of the trope's name comes from the version of the Shinkuu Hadouken, which is the best known of many, MANY, MANY instances.
  • Katanas Are Just Better: Several characters either have the real deal (i.e. Jin Saotome in one of his Victory Poses, Silver Samurai, etc.) or a slight variation of it.
  • Kick Chick: Chun-Li and Cammy.
  • Kiss of Death: Morrigan's Eternal Slumber secret move.
  • Laser Blade: Strider Hiryu's Cypher, Hayato's plasma sword. The former leans more toward Hot Blade.
  • Legacy Character: SonSon is the granddaughter of SonSon, the eponymous protagonist of an early Capcom game of the same name, which was based off the Journey to the West story.
  • Life Drain: Omega Red's specialty.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Sentinel, especially when flying.
  • Loads and Loads of Characters: The game included pretty much every playable Marvel and Capcom character inside of Capcom's Marvel games that was featured in the series up to that point, to a grand total of 56 (counting both of Wolvie's forms, and not counting the boss).
  • Macross Missile Massacre: War Machine's Proton Cannon and War Destroyer.
  • Made of Iron: Colossus and (Mecha) Zangief for the literal example. Both even have Super Armor (Colossus as a Super move).
  • Making a Splash: Ruby Heart can create pillars of water for an attack.
  • Megaton Punch: Jin's entire fighting style, especially the Blodia Punch, which is a Megaton Punch by a Humongous Mecha.
  • Mini-Mecha: Tron Bonne rides one to fight.
  • More Dakka:
    • B.B. Hood's special has her summoning her two mercenaries and firing at will
    • Mega Man's and Roll's Lv1 super has them becoming Mazinger Z's expies firing many types of projectiles at will.
  • Noblewoman's Laugh: Tron Bonne as a taunt.
  • Original Generation: Amingo, Ruby Heart and Abyss.
  • Pirate Girl: Ruby Heart. To a much lesser extent, Tron Bonne.
  • Playing with Fire: Blackheart, Silver Samurai (Fire Sword Mode), Captain Commando (along electric attacks), Dhalsim, Ken and Zangief (in his Mecha form) among others.
    • Cammy and Bison use a Psycho Power-fueled variation.
  • Powered Armor: Iron Man (natch), War Machine, Captain Commando and Abyss.
  • Power Creep, Power Seep:
    • How the (mostly) Badass Normal characters from the Street Fighter-verse can last more than five seconds against powerhouses like Magneto.
    • Seeing how a fairly obscure character like Marrow can beat A-listers like Magneto, or Wolverine, makes the game even more fun to play.
    • Heck, even a circuit-and-metal SERVBOT can beat MAGNETO, a SENTINEL or the JUGGERNAUT (bitch)!!!
    • The fact that any of these characters can go toe-to-toe with Shuma-Gorath, the resident Eldritch Abomination, is proof enough.
    • Somewhat averted in competitive matches, as the top ranked characters are all big-name Marvel characters (except Sentinel and Psylocke) with a few exceptions (Strider and Captain Commando).
  • Rocket Punch: Sentinel. It even says those two words.
  • Rubber Man: Dhalsim and Spiral.
  • Rule of Funny: SonSon crushes a watermelon on an enemy's head then eats it.
  • Ryu and Ken: All 5 types: Ryu, Ken, Sakura, Akuma and Dan, all of them Shotoclones. And for examples not involving those two street fighters, there're two Wolverines (Adamantium and Bone claws); Iron Man and War Machine; Mega Man and Roll; and Guile and Charlie
  • Serious Business: The game holds the record for the biggest money match in fighting game history, with a $40,000 prize.
  • Shock and Awe: Storm's primary form of offense. Many other characters have at least one shock/stun move.
    • Captain Commando's power gloves use both electricity and fire as attacks.
  • Shotoclone: Aside from the 5 examples of Ryu and Ken above, Spider-Man, Captain America (comics), Morrigan and Cyclops.
  • Shout-Out: Check the page.
  • Small Girl, Big Gun: Jill uses a rocket launcher so big that despite being a badass extrodanaire the recoil knocks her over.
  • SNK Boss: Abyss, if you use a melee-only team.
    • Just to clarify, Abyss' first form isn't hard to take down melee, but the second form pretty much requires liberal projectile usage. The third can be taken down in either fashion, but leans towards aerial attacks.
  • Soundtrack Dissonance: The infamous original soundtrack, consisting of jazzy music. The entry on that page likens the dissonance to using zydeco music in Silent Hill.

Gonna take you for a riiiide!

"HYPER COMBO FINISH!"

  • Third Option Adaptation: Ruby Heart was created as a mediator between the Capcom and Marvel sides, acting as a neutral protagonist.
  • Transforming Mecha: Rush Drill and Beat Plane. Both controllable by the player.
  • The Unexpected: Shuma-Gorath, Jin and Marrow.
  • Updated Rerelease: If you are really (and we mean really) technical, the 2009 port could count as this with its additions of online play, fixed glitches, custom soundtracks and sprite filters. No more, no less.
  • V-Formation Team Shot: Captain Commando and his team does this after his Captain Storm super move.
  • Victory Fakeout: Happens twice with Abyss. Each time you defeat its first two forms, the usual YOU WIN! message appears, and your onscreen character even does his victory pose. Sadly, your health is not restored.
  • Voluntary Shapeshifter: Amingo and Venom make extensive use of this in their movelist. Then there's Shuma-Gorath (who can change shapes into mouths, spikes or even stone), Spiral (has one Super in which she turns into everyone on Marvel's side of the cast), Morrigan (can shape her batwings into several forms), Felicia (can turn into a small kitten) and Anakaris (can shape into various pyramid-shaped forms)
  • Wave Motion Gun: Iron Man's PROTON CANNON, Cable's HYPER VIPER BEAM and Morrigan's SOUL ERASER
  • Wolverine Claws: Wolverine, d'oh.

  1. Adamantium claws
  2. Bone claws