Marvel vs Capcom Infinite Review
Robert Lewis Knuckles III
“Back to its Roots”
One of the biggest crossover games returns on the new generation consoles with Marvel vs Capcom Infinite. It’s been six years since Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 was released and it's had its great moments but lately its been slowly losing the hype so does Marvel vs Capcom Infinite bring the fun and excitement back to the world? Well we’re about to find out.
Marvel vs Capcom Infinite brings together characters from the Marvel and Capcom universe for insane tag team action. This is the fourth installment in the Marvel vs Capcom series but instead of calling it Marvel vs Capcom 4 Capcom called it Infinite to promote the upcoming Marvel movie Avengers Infinity War that’s coming out in May 2018.
The gameplay in Marvel vs Capcom Infinite has Capcom going back to its roots. Instead of 3 on 3 tag team battles it's now 2 on 2 battles. Now I would prefer 3 on 3 but with the new features it fits so much better. The button layout has changed and went back to Marvel vs Capcom 2 layout with Light Punch, Hard Punch, Light Kick and Hard Kick. Which I’m very happy with. I was never a fan of the attack buttons in Marvel 3. One of the biggest features with Infinite is that there are no more assist and you also have the ability to tag in your partner anytime you want. Capcom want players to be more involved in their fights meaning that Marvel vs Capcom 2 and 3 featured and during the battles players would call on their assist to help them battle at times players would have their assist do all the work and in Infinite players won’t be able to hide behind their assist. The ability to tag in your teammate anytime you want without using meter is a very unique feature. It makes players be creative with their combos and it's a little bit more safe to tag in your parner. For example Ryu can his Shinku-Hadoken and if the opponent blocks the tag in his partner so he can safely get out and try to perform a cross up overhead but be careful when using the tag in feature because happy birthdays still exist. Happy Birthdays are when both teammates are caught in a combo.

One feature that was missing in Marvel 3 was the ability to break a combo because almost every character dies in one combo from the start of the combo. Infinite features the counter switch. When you are getting hit and if you have at least 2 bars of super meter you can perform the counter switch that brings your partner to break the combo but be careful you can get caught in that same combo that your partner is getting hit or your opponent's partner can come in with the active to try to stop you from the breaking the combo.
The gem system from Marvel Super Heroes return in Infinite but they are used a bit differently. When players select their characters they can pick one out of the six stones; Power, Mind, Space, Time, Reality and my favorite Soul. Each having their own ability. The Infinity surge can be used at anytime without their gem meter having to be filled. The Soul Stone Infinity Surge can drain their opponents health and the Space Infinity Surge can draw their opponents closer. Now when the players gem meter reaches the halfway point they can use the Infinity Storm where turns into the color of their stone for a huge ability. The Soul Stone Infinity revives their fallen teammate and the player can control both characters very similar to Marvel vs Capcom’s crossover ability. The Infinity Storm are kind of like a comeback mechanic but it's no where close to X-Factor.

Now what has made Marvel vs Capcom Infinite so unique was the roster and I have to say right away that this is a weak roster. The roster is only 30 characters which is very small compared to the last Marvel games but the biggest issue that fans will notice and that there’s no X-Men. The X-Men characters started this series with X-Men children of The Atom. Wolverine has been in every Marvel game made by Capcom and to see Wolverine, Storm and Magneto not in this game is very weird. On the Capcom side fan favorite X from Megaman X makes his fighting game debut. People were upset that Mega Man wasn’t in Marvel vs Capcom 3 and to see X make his debut is awesome to see. We also see the demon Jedah from the Darkstalkers series make his way into 3D. X and Jedah are the only new characters on the Capcom side and everyone else are returning characters from Ultimate. The Marvel side consist of characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe so of course you’ll see Captain America, Iron-Man and Rocket Raccoon. They are joined by new characters Gamora from Guardians of the Galaxy. She’s one of my main characters to use and she’s a lot of fun. The evil robot Ultron makes his fighting game debut and he plays a major part of the story.

A feature that many fans wanted in Marvel 3 was a story and we finally get that in Infinite. Ultron from the Marvel Universe and Sigma from the Megaman X series have joined together using the Space and Reality Stone and become Ultron Sigma bringing both universes together to destroy biological life. This brings the heroes from both universes together to stop Ultron Sigma. Now a lot of the fights in story mode have the players fight against robots that don’t have a lot of health so you really don’t many epic fights. The cutscenes in the story are really nothing to talk about. I mean you see some chemistry between some characters but everything else are just oh my goodness. The presentation is just bad. Characters like Dante and Morrigan look really bad and some characters don’t have necks which look very awkward. Story feels like there wasn’t any heart towards it and it also felt like the story went fast as well meaning that the heroes already knew each other. There wasn’t any scene that showed them introducing them to each other. Once you finish story mode you won’t play it again.

Online returns in Marvel Infinite and surprisingly it's pretty good. Most of the time when Capcom release their fighting games there's always early bugs with the online mode. You have the ranked match, casual match, online lobbies and the new beginner league where new players play against other new characters similar to their rank so they won’t have to face anyone at a very high rank.

In the end Marvel vs Capcom Infinite is a fun game. I really love the gameplay with the ability to tag in your partner anytime you want and it really have the study the chemistry between your team you have to find out when is it a good time to tag in your partner to extend the combo. I really had to study every combo opportunity. It makes it kind of difficult but that's what you want in a fighting game but if you’re a new player don’t worry Capcom has a made simple mode for new players to perform a combo by pressing one button but if you really want to have the full experience with the game that off simple mode and you’ll perform longer damaging combos. I honestly think that Marvel Infinite might be the least cheapest game of the versus series. Players can’t hide behind their assist are forced to fight.
Now with all that said about the gameplay I feel as though Capcom took a step back. The roster is very small with majority of it being returning characters and a few new characters. Not having any X-Men characters is huge loss. You can’t have a Marvel game without the mutants. Story mode is okay it really isn’t much to talk about. Online is good but a big thing that Capcom failed to do is have a couple of offline modes. Marvel was criticized heavily barely having any modes offline. In Infinite you only have Story, Arcade mode which has no character endings and you have Mission Mode that has players play the tutorial and complete combos for their favorite character. There are people that don’t like playing online and want to play offline but they don’t many options. It just seems like Capcom hasn’t learned from their past mistakes which is why I give this game a 7.5 out of 10.