ADEPTUS CRITICUS GAME REVIEWS

Developer: Capcom

Publisher: Capcom

System: Nintendo Switch

Paid for the game on the Nintendo store.

Growing up I remember having friends come around on a weekend and hours would fly by playing beat em ups of all kinds.  I have always been a massive superhero fan and Street fighter fan (although I am useless at the newer street fighter games when it comes to PVP). So, imagine my happiness when I saw that a compilation of games, I used to play many moons ago were going to be bundled together with the bonus of The Punisher (One of my favourite comic book characters).

The games that are included in this package are X-Men-Children of the Atom originally released in 1994, Marvel Superheroes originally released in 1995, X-Men vs. Street Fighter originally released in 1996, Marvel Superheroes vs. Street Fighter originally released in1997, Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of the superheroes originally released in 1998 and finally Marvel vs. Capcom2: New Age of Heroes originally released in 2000 and of course not forgetting the one and the only The Punisher originally released in 1993.

Firstly, I will start with X-Men – Children of the Atom – You have a decent array of characters, Akuma, Colossus, Cyclops. Iceman, Juggernaut, Magneto, Omega Red, Psylocke, Sentinel, Silver Samurai, Spiral, Storm and of course everyone’s favourite the Wolverine.  The game play is a traditional 1 v 1 formula with the hyper combo attacks and all the good stuff you expect with a recovery roll system.

Now onto Marvel Superheroes This game has Thanos as the antagonist and is basically based on The Infinity Gauntlet saga. (Go read it if you haven’t) where you can infinity gems by beating your opponents, each gem gives you different powered up states and special abilities. This game boasts 13 playable characters who are Anita, Blackheart, Captain America, Doctor Doom, Hulk, Iron Man, Juggernaut, Magneto, Psylocke, Shuma-Gorath, Spider-Man, Thanos, Wolverine.

Now we move onto the first crossover title between Street Fighter and Marvel: X-Men vs. Street Fighter. This game has some returning characters from X-Men Children of the Atom and some new characters such as Gambit and Rogue with the addition of the Street Fighter cast consisting of Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, Cammy, M. Bison and others, this game also bought in the tag team battle mechanic where you are encouraged to tag in and out as much as possible to allow your characters to regain some health over the one round battle. The fight mechanics still have the hyper combs, Super jumps etc and with the added tag mechanic allows you to possibly extend the Hyper Gauge to dish out combined super attacks.

Marvel Superheroes vs. Street Fighter 1997 is more of the same as the previous title it utilizes the same tag battle system but with the addition of “Variable assist” this allows you to summon your off-screen tag partner to dish out a special move without you having to change your currently controlled character opening new possibilities for combos. There are several playable characters with the Marvel roster consisting of Armor Spider-Man, Blackheart, Captain America, Cyclops, Hulk, Mephisto, Omega Red, Shuma-Gorath, Spider-Man, U.S. Agent, Wolverine. And the Street Fighters roster consisting of Akuma, Chun-Li, Dan Hibiki, Dark Sakura, Dhalsim, Ken Masters, M. Bison, Mech-Zangief, Ry, Sakura Kasugano, Shadow, Zangief.

Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Superheroes. This title again offers more of the same as Marvel Superheroes vs. Street Fighter 1997,  with the Variable assist function now being removed and replaced with two new mechanics which are “Guest character/Special Partner” which are assigned randomly before each match and “Variable Cross” also known as a “Duo Team Attack” in addition to this the player has unlimited use of the “Hyper combo Gauge” This game like the other instalments boasts an array of characters the Marvel roster consisting of Captain America, Gambit, High Speed Venom, Hulk, Hulk (Marvel Superheroes version), Hyper Armor War Machine, Spider-Man, Venom, War Machine, Wolverine and Capcoms roster of Captain Commando, Chun-Li, Jin Saotome, Mega Man, Morrigan Aensland, Morrigan (Lilith), Roll, Ryu, Shadow Lady, Strider Hiryu, Zangief.

Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes. This game was released in 2000 and brings with it a new art style and 3D backgrounds. Created Sega’s Naomi (Dreamcast – great console I might add) arcade hardware, it was the last of the 2d sprites for this crossover franchise. The gameplay now adds to the tag team mechanic by adding an additional player and a massive roster of 56 characters who I will not listing this time around, the “Variable assist” function has now tagged back in for the tagged out “Variable cross” function (crap attempt at humour). Your team now has anti air, capture and enhance assists depending on the characters selected. This entry is widely considered to be the best entry of the series and in with a shout for being one the best fighting games ever made which is hard to argue against in my opinion.

Now I have saved the best till last The Punisher. This is a different entry to the other games as this not a standard beat em up this is a beat em up in the ilk of Final Fight you have two characters to pick between and they are no other than Frank Castle and Nick Fury.  The whole purpose of the game is to beat up every enemy on screen with either your fists or weapons to move onto a boss and give them a damn good thrashing to move onto the next stage to do it all over again to get the Kingpin who is massive. This game does not take long to finish as like it is an arcade game.

Online play.

Yes, there is online play but I will be honest I have not really tested it enough as I do not tend to play these type of games online anymore.

Conclusion.

This package is well worth with the asking price of £40 for 7 games in my opinion. This collection has brought back many fond memories for me and with the new quality of life enhancements these games are as fun now as they were back when I had originally played them. I fully recommend purchasing if you are a newcomer to these games and for the people like myself who had the original versions.