looking back at the 2018 hype for this shit i think marvel 3 might be the most misunderstood fighting game of all time. in comparison to the literal screen tearing positional tug of war of marvel 3, where dashing to take your assist out of the screen is a fundamental offense strategy, movement in this game feels like a weird mix of kof hyper-hopping, melty blood's importance of constricting your opponent's aerial movement, and maybe like any given 2D fighter franchise weird entry where they added assists (i.e. kof 99/2000 or now MK1 I guess). i've been playing this game on and off for closer to 5 years now and been exercising mid 30s salarymen dedication to watching stray replays during lunch hours/work down time and the neutral
movement here has never looked slick tbh. the reliance on super jumping and holding 2/8 to control momentum and fall speed means that say, hopping over a beam to punish the recovery feels genuinely awkward on a pad. in a way that saying magneto holding up hitting a dash micro and pressing S doesn't. absconding to pockets of the safety on the screen feels way harder than it should for a game based off flying aliens. dead horse but i wish they took more from arcana heart than blazblue.
speaking of, as a fighting game designed for beginners i actually think this might be the most frustrating game to play for beginners/intermediates, on par if not worse than tekken 7 (tekken 7 having a higher playerbase and somewhat more reliable netcode offsets the knowledge gap i think. also a far worse matchmaking/lobby system. look i get it playing an arcsys game past 2004 and going "ooooo the lobbies suck not the lobbies 🤓🤓" is low hanging fruit, but like, its still true). i think the autocombos suck because the grounded versions do not lead to a knockdown like most other fighting games autocombos, i would not show this game to someone to demonstrate the get a hit -> knockdown -> run some oki flowchart of anime 2D fighters. superdash as a whole mechanic is more tilting for new players to counter than any superarmor/invincible reversal super/comeback system possible. granted inputs and learning any given character is easier, but if im at a function and somebody was like "matt bring one of dem fighters around" i'm still reaching for soulcalibur, tekken, or kyanta first u kno.
but having said all that, this game can be rlly cool on occasion. the attention to detail is rlly outstanding, and seeing any of the lvl 3 closeups or intros looks rlly good when u haven't seen it in a while. there's also some characters who diverge from the boring fundamentals here: zamasu, ginyu, krillin, nappa, gotenks, & baby are beacons of light, possessing the creativity and uniqueness of something more in line with p4a than p much what every other character is doing. they can actually like, run oki, besides guessing a tech direction and going for a meaty. crazy. in spite of how simple the building blocks are it's wonderful the type of synergy in blockstring/combos you can explore. i just wish this game had a more even experience & design, the xenoverse 2 level dedication to updating this shit without planned DLC down the line is rare, it's doing justice to a property that hasn't seen a W in like 7 years, it's in conversation with a pretty vaulted subgenre of 3v3 fighters, it's just too frustrating and awkward to deal with long periods of time...this was always gonna be true and technically has been true for a while but budokai tenkaichi 4 will truly be better
movement here has never looked slick tbh. the reliance on super jumping and holding 2/8 to control momentum and fall speed means that say, hopping over a beam to punish the recovery feels genuinely awkward on a pad. in a way that saying magneto holding up hitting a dash micro and pressing S doesn't. absconding to pockets of the safety on the screen feels way harder than it should for a game based off flying aliens. dead horse but i wish they took more from arcana heart than blazblue.
speaking of, as a fighting game designed for beginners i actually think this might be the most frustrating game to play for beginners/intermediates, on par if not worse than tekken 7 (tekken 7 having a higher playerbase and somewhat more reliable netcode offsets the knowledge gap i think. also a far worse matchmaking/lobby system. look i get it playing an arcsys game past 2004 and going "ooooo the lobbies suck not the lobbies 🤓🤓" is low hanging fruit, but like, its still true). i think the autocombos suck because the grounded versions do not lead to a knockdown like most other fighting games autocombos, i would not show this game to someone to demonstrate the get a hit -> knockdown -> run some oki flowchart of anime 2D fighters. superdash as a whole mechanic is more tilting for new players to counter than any superarmor/invincible reversal super/comeback system possible. granted inputs and learning any given character is easier, but if im at a function and somebody was like "matt bring one of dem fighters around" i'm still reaching for soulcalibur, tekken, or kyanta first u kno.
but having said all that, this game can be rlly cool on occasion. the attention to detail is rlly outstanding, and seeing any of the lvl 3 closeups or intros looks rlly good when u haven't seen it in a while. there's also some characters who diverge from the boring fundamentals here: zamasu, ginyu, krillin, nappa, gotenks, & baby are beacons of light, possessing the creativity and uniqueness of something more in line with p4a than p much what every other character is doing. they can actually like, run oki, besides guessing a tech direction and going for a meaty. crazy. in spite of how simple the building blocks are it's wonderful the type of synergy in blockstring/combos you can explore. i just wish this game had a more even experience & design, the xenoverse 2 level dedication to updating this shit without planned DLC down the line is rare, it's doing justice to a property that hasn't seen a W in like 7 years, it's in conversation with a pretty vaulted subgenre of 3v3 fighters, it's just too frustrating and awkward to deal with long periods of time...this was always gonna be true and technically has been true for a while but budokai tenkaichi 4 will truly be better
4 Comments
4real, soulcalibur is just v easy to understand and its easy to have a fun gameplan without even glancing at a characters movelist--cant rlly think of any other franchise that can claim that. in comparison theres like no intuition to any characters here without outside studying, lame asl
Yeah the final versions of Ginyu/Nappa/Buu/Beerus/Baby/Gotenks made me bump it up a star, I can see myself playing them for years like my Marvel faves
yea thats super real, its so crazy how cool those characters are because they are definitely on like the less popular side of characters both for casual appeal and for competitive players lmao. though i think garlic bread is kinda showin everyone how cracked baby's gameplan is, esp. now that rollback has made learning his optimal & flashy shit reasonable.
majin buu is also another character i forgot to mention in that cohort, think he's by far the most unique character here just in combo routing alone & how much he lives off his weird zoning/restand hybrid game. the fact that he has an autocombo tick throw setup is also hilarious. i rlly hope the inevitable sequel builds off those types of characters this game is sooooo close to greatness despite how frustrating it is.
majin buu is also another character i forgot to mention in that cohort, think he's by far the most unique character here just in combo routing alone & how much he lives off his weird zoning/restand hybrid game. the fact that he has an autocombo tick throw setup is also hilarious. i rlly hope the inevitable sequel builds off those types of characters this game is sooooo close to greatness despite how frustrating it is.
poisonpink
6 months ago