A long Time Coming

Wow, the posts certainly have dried up this week, every one must be glued to their TV's playing RE5 or something.....I know I am.

Anyways, a little while ago I said that I would write a short article about my history with Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter. Well, I finally decided to stop procrastinating......

I'm a huge Street Fighter fan, I've probably spent enough money in the arcades over the years playing SFII to actually buy a SFII arcade cabinet...I'm talking about a shit load of quarters. After playing the World Warrior, Championship, Hyper, and Super versions of SFII, the transition to the Alpha series was a little it weird. At first I thought the anime style graphics were too different, and being able to counter, air-block, pull of multiple super moves, etc. was all just a bit too much for me....at first anyways. I picked up "Warriors Dreams" in '96 for the Saturn and played it..a lot. By 1997 I was into other Saturn Games like Resident Evil and Tomb Raider, and basically stopped following the SF series.

In 1998 I started university, and lucky for me, there was a half-decent arcade on campus. There were some pretty good games like Tekken 3, Virtual On, Virtua Striker, King of Fighters '97, and Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter. I had seen X-Men vs. Street Fighter in arcades a year or so earlier, and never really thought much of it. I would say that I am a purist when it comes to a number of different things, and this was no different for the Street Fighter series. So to see non-SF characters fighting in a SF game.....well, you get the idea. After passing by the machine a few times I decided to give it a try. "Welcome to the adventure" the voice said. I have to say it took me a while to get used to the play mechanics of the game; tag team style play, super jump, fire balls in the air, cross-over combos etc., etc. After a few weeks of play I had become accustom to the new style and found it very entertaining. Like....holy fuck...70 hit combos...hell yeah. I love to see Spiderman take a fireball up the ass from Ryu & Akuma at the same time. Anyways, I really started to enjoy the play mechanics and overall feel of the game. My fondness grew, and grew, and grew......."damn I totally love this game".

It was a long walk up a very long hill from the dorm rooms to the arcade, but sometimes I found myself, alone , in the arcade at 1:00am (since the arcade was on campus, it was accessible 24h/day)....in my pajamas none the less. I would consistently make the night-trek to the arcade, in all types of weather just to have a few plays. There was something very serene about being in the lone, quite arcade, all by myself rocking fireballs and shoyou-reppa uppercuts. My friends would ask me where I was going, and thought that it was a bit weird that I would want to play this game when every one else was sleeping, but maybe that's what made it special.

After a while, I decided that I had to have this game at home. Lucky for me, it was available as an import for the Saturn, but the cost (I was a starving student at the time remember), was too much, and I was unable to procure the precious game. Knowing that it was out there, but I couldn't have it just added to the pain!

Time passed, and eventually the game was removed from the arcade, and eventually the arcade left as well. I had sold my Saturn, but I would never forget about the time I spent with MSH vs. SF. I purchased Marvel vs. Capcom for DC, but the game just didn't have the same 'feel', and I was still left longing for MSH vs. SF. Basically every other 2D fighting game I played since that time I compared to this game....and all left me feeling kind of empty inside.

Present day: I decide to rebuild my Saturn collection and finally get a copy of MSH vs. SF........HELL FUCKIN" YEAH. 12 years old, and this game still kicks major ass. The first time I popped it in and watched the start up screen I had a huge smile on my face, and felt so giddy...all of those good old memories rushing back. It still amazes me that the Saturn can rock such an awesome 2D game. It was a long wait, but well worth it! On a side note, I did pick up X-Men vs. SF as well, and that is a truly awesome game too (see my earlier post about that title). I'm a huge fan of SFII, the Alpha series, SFIII, and Capcom vs. SNK, but MSH vs. SF will always hold a very special place in my game library. I think I'm going to play a few matches right now.