this game is like if capcom tried to make a KOF style game since it's a team game but a per-round character swap team game rather than an "all the characters are there at once" team game. It's much more my speed since assists and whatnot go over my head a lot. The roster is a little weird, taking 4 characters from street fighter 2, street fighter 3, street fighter alpha, darkstalkers, and red earth, with one bonus original character who has never been seen of again so that's pretty cool. Doesn't seem like theres a whole lot of content beyond arcade and versus mode, so this game definitely kinda just exists. Could be fun with friends? I guess there are better options on the PS2 though. Not bad, just inoffensive.

Fascinatingly vibeless... The complete absence of a presentation layer exposes it to much harsher criticism than Marvel vs Capcom 2 and Capcom vs SNK 2, two similarly patchwork fighting games that were shielded by beautifully out-there post-millennium aesthetics, belovedly bonkers narration and gameplay so broken that it ultimately freed fighting game players from the shackles of balance. There's no announcer here rambling about the fact he Knows You'll Be Back To The Battle For Survival, and the music is so lifeless that there's nothing the beat can do to distract you from the fact that sprites from 1992 and 2002 are rubbing up against promotional key-art that's been cut out of an old Electronic Gaming Monthly's back pages with rusty scissors. This is NOT true love makin’.

I'm not gonna pretend I know what the balance issues with this game are - nor do I really care to find out - but I gotta admit I do fuck with the core 2v2 concept, which as far as I know is unique to the esteemed Capcom Fighting series: you pick two characters, but there's no obligation to use both - you can keep one as a backup or counter-pick on the second round of a fight, or simply wield them as an empty threat to stop your opponent from choosing one of their own duo. While this is hardly an electrifying concept in a fighting game starring Anakaris and some guy from Red Earth, it could in theory accommodate the appearance of up to eight characters in a classic best-2-of-3 tournament match, which imo is a great enabler of the old fighting game adage that the mind games begin as soon as the character select screen loads. Capcom should think about bringing this back for Street Fighter 6 or some other fighting game where they remembered to crop the versus screen portraits correctly.

As far as the actual fighting goes, it's worth emphasising how much characters handle like the game they belong in - you can straight-up play 3rd Strike Chun in this game with almost zero adaptation of the gameplan you've been sleepwalking with since 2006, but apparently I don't know shit because she's in F-tier along with Zangief (what's new lol) and Yun (whaaaaat?!) here. Apparently being able to parry all of Demitri's firebullshit doesn't count for much. It's funny that she even makes the exact same noises when you mash out bHP! It's almost as if these characters were dragged and dropped directly into the game without any real balance consideratio - no... it couldn't be... C-C-Crapcpom... lazily bashing together... a versus fighting game... to capitalise on a sales t-trend... n-noo... never...

I'll get the some positives in first.
1. The music is nice. I enjoyed that.
2. The ending artwork done by Udon is pretty good.
3. This was a step forward in Capcom's positive relationship with Udon.
4. This can be fun
This is all I have for positives.
The graphics are inexcusably bad. Outside from the alright UI and character art, almost nothing looks right. The backgrounds feel like they were thrown together with little to no thought put in. The background cameos can be hard to make out with how pixilated they can be. That is especially jarring when some appear clear as day. The sprite reusage is at it's most blatant and worst, with Ingrid being the only new sprite. It looks like MUGEN. And I don't mean that in a positive way.
The gameplay is lousy. Each team of characters has a meter that is true to their game. Which is neat, but also very limiting. You can't assign which system you want to use to your characters like in the CVS games. This is a weaker CVS game.
Do not play this unless maybe you're a Capcom die hard.