Oh well. I'm mainly getting it to play local again like back in the day. $15 is really too expensive, especially after the awesome Afterburner was only $10. but I'm feelin' I need this in my blood so I will pay it.
I have it, but I've hardly played it. It's so different from SF4 or BlazBlue.
MvC2 is tied for my favorite fighting game of all time with VF4: Evo/VF5. When I played it again tonight for the first time in many years I was rocking and immediately remembered why I loved MvC2 during my college years.
MvC2 does not require a lot of physical skill or memorization. This may seem like a negative, but I don't have high end physical skill in fighting games, so I like that even I could play on the same level as pros. All the other fighting games require really high physical skills for high level play. In SF3 it was being able to parry 20 hit supers, in SF4 it's FADC which I can't do for the life of me, in Guilty Gear it was roman cancels which I could never physically pull off more then here or there, in Tatsunoko it's the baroque rainbow stuff that's basically a GG roman cancel. Fighting games these days all have really tight timing/difficult movements for high end play and for the average joe like me that's a turn-off. In MvC2 everything was basically the golden LP,LK,MP,MK->special or super combo. Then do that but finish with a launcher, jump up and repeat and you have your bread and butter air combo. After a week or playing anyone can pull off almost any combo in the game. There just isn't much physical skill involved in performing combos and
I like that. It's also good for your non-fighting game buddies because they can pick it up really quickly.
MvC2 also has a shitton of everything. Not only does it have one of the biggest rosters ever at 56 characters. But each character has like 10 special moves, 3 assist attacks & 3+ supers. Compared to say SFIV where you have 3-4 special attacks, 1 super, 1 ultra it's fun because there's just so much variety in how to play. You can pull out different supers at different times and incorporate all kinds of moves to combo into. Hell you can turn Zangief green and have him breath fire if you want.
Then comes the next step which is where it gets really fun. You see these 100s of special attacks/supers/assists available in the game and since everything combos very easily, you think "what would I like to connect?" instead of saying "what can I connect?". Want to have zangief jump in and juggle with an assist that you then combo into and end with a super with Ryu? Go for it! Mix up Blackheart's meteor shower with a strider trap on the other side? Go for it. Since chipping does SO MUCH DAMAGE. It's not even up what connects/juggles. It's also about "even if they block, I can kick their ass through chipping" ideas. Between all the possibilities in the game there are probably 10,000 strategies you can do.
Unfortunately because of that the game is broken as hell. It was just impossible for the game designers to test every possible move/assist pairing and keep a balance. So people found out the ridiculously overpowered groups and as word spread out that's all everyone did. But if you just play with friends and stay away from cheezing each other with infinites or full-life chip traps, then it can be a whole lot of fun.
MvC2 is the almost perfect fighting game for someone who wants a low/medium-skill, high strategy, high variety game. It's all about thinking up great strategies through move pairings and less about actual execution since everyone is on the same level in physical execution skill. This is exactly what I want out of a fighting game since I'm not great at execution and I like mind games, so I love MvC2 and hope MvC3 lives up to it.
