Count How Many Times…

After playing through and witnessing hundreds of matches in the iterations of Marvel vs. Capcom 3 over the past year, I’ve come to a decision.  Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is a game about shenanigans.

You pick characters who’ll give you access to shenanigans, and use their abilities to create shenanigans in a match so you can win.  But in order to win, you have to defend against your opponents’ shenanigans -- and at the same time, you have to pass up their shenanigans to get them to fall for your shenanigans by creating a thin layer of mini-shenanigans.  Some shenanigans are low-risk, low reward.  Some are high-risk, high reward.  And then there are some shenanigans that are high-risk, low reward; the reverse is true for plenty of other shenanigans.  Whatever the case, if you’re smart you’ve already prepared your own special shenanigans -- an ace in the hole in case all your other shenanigans fail.  Your ace shenanigans combine with the in-game shenanigans to create SUPER SHENANIGANS, and all it takes is one quick, Hail Mary application of your shenanigans to overwhelm your opponent’s shenanigans.  And then you win!  Or…maybe you end up losing at the last second because the clock runs out.  In which case you stop calling them shenanigans and use a more suitable synonym, one commonly used as an exclamation of anger.  I just can’t think of the word right now…

So you stew for a while, hating the fact that you lost (or hating the fact that you won even more).  Sometimes you wonder why you play this game.  Other times you wonder why nothing ever goes your way.  And there are times when you think “What have I become?” or “Man, when did fighting games turn into this?” 

But that’s all right.  Because in spite of all that, you’ll keep coming back.  You’ll win by any means necessary, or lose with a smile knowing that you made it onto the stage with your favorite character putting on a show.  Complain and whine and cry all you want, but you know it’s a part of you now.

So eat shenanigans and die.  Or…live.  Yeah, living sounds better, do that.