Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics

Six classic fighters and one extra beat-'em-up come together in a collection that's well worth the wait.

Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics is an essential release if you're after one of the most prolific parts of fighting game history. The museum mode is a treat, and the games themselves seem to be arcade-perfect conversions, apart from MvC 1 (which should hopefully be fixed in a patch given it's fine in the PC release). While some bonus features from the console versions of these games would've been nice, it's still undeniably a great collection of titles.

There is a decade of gaming evolution here, including what is arguably the pinnacle of Capcom's fighting game craft. Perfectly preserved and presented, everything is beautifully formed and wonderful to play. Assembled with real clarity in regards to fan expectation, Capcom has thoroughly delivered the goods, from its ton of bonus features to its rollback netcode, with years' worth of combative nuance to explore, learn, and exact in the online arena. Oh, and The Punisher is awesome, too.

When it comes to preserving history, this is about as good as it can get from an official source. Between backwards compatibility and being on a platform like Steam, there are fewer ways that even a licensing deal expiration can get in the way of playing this collection in the coming years.

The MARVEL vs. CAPCOM Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics is a fantastic celebration of the series, showcasing some of the best fighting games released by the Japanese publisher in the late '90s and early 2000s. Although the lack of cross-platform play reduces the collection's appeal, the additional options and extras are welcome enhancements that make playing these timeless classics on modern hardware even more enticing, especially on consoles.

Although its framework is similar to Capcom's last fighting bundle, Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection's contents shine too brightly to care.

It all started in the arcade back in 1994, with X-Men: Children of the Atom. That game formed the basis for the Marvel vs. Capcom series, and Marvel v...

The fighting genre has seen its fair share of ups and downs over the years. You could argue that it’s currently the strongest it’s been, but the re-release of these games in such an impressive package goes to show that Capcom were amongst the early architects that helped what came to follow. Simply put, MvC: Arcade Classics is an excellent collection that celebrates the early days of the mash up madness of Street Fighter, Marvel and co. It’s to be hoped that part II of this collection, scheduled for later in 2025, continues with the quality-of-life improvements and quality seen throughout this edition.

The Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection is a must not only for fans of the cross over fighting games, but for any fighting game and Marvel fans. If you can overlook the fairly glaring omissions, there’s still a great collection of classic arcade games with neat unlockables and fun achievements. Glaring omissions you say? Well yeah, as great as this collection is, there are two fairly baffling decisions that have been made that hurt the games online lifespan and cause a fairly significant inconvenience to the user.

MARVEL vs CAPCOM Fighting Collection Arcade Classics is a great opportunity to play the classics that inspired many current fighting games. Due to its unbalanced difficulty and lack of support for new players, I cannot recommend it to anyone who wants to get to know the series, but it is perhaps a way to relive something that was already experienced in childhood in the form of nostalgia. For those who are curious, it might be better to play the most recent titles like Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite.