*stares at box art*
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…
…
…Short answer: yeah, it’s good.
Less short answer: yeah, it’s good, but.
So. There’s
no way around it at this stage: Marvel
vs. Capcom: Infinite is a controversial game.
It’s been a PR nightmare for Capcom. Its visuals haven’t impressed, and neither
has its roster -- leaked months in advance to fanfare about as triumphant as a
wet fart during a wedding. Fans have
assumed -- probably rightly -- that legal issues and executive meddling have
warped this storied franchise into a cash grab.
It’s a new fighter that’s coming off of Capcom’s other marquis title,
itself mired in controversies and suspicions that it’s basically unfinished. And on top of all that, it’s a new entry in
an era where Capcom seems like it’s more focused on business and profits than
pure artistry -- partially because, given the slate of high-profile failures
they’ve released, one would think they have the financial acumen of a donkey
stuck in a puddle of mud.
The house that Mega Man built needed a
miracle. They needed a savior. They needed to win back the crowd, and prove
to fans that they were still worthy of their unflinching loyalty. What they gave us instead was a game that had
a mandatory, 10GB, day one patch -- no doubt to fix some of the nightmare-freakazoid
faces that now litter the annals of the internet. But at the end of the day, does it really
matter? Is Infinite good in spite of its controversies? Did it go past its limits to become a worthy
inheritor of the Mahvel name?
The answer is yes.
But the answer is also no.
But I still like the game.
…But I’m
still disappointed by it.
I’ve put a fair amount of time into the game so
far. By the time you read this, I’ll
probably have put in significantly more.
The issue is that, as a disclaimer, I’m not what you’d call a master at
fighting games. I’m okay, I suppose; if nothing else, I’m not the “scrub” you’d see on
the bottom rungs of online play. My
skill level, such as it is, puts me in a weird place; I’m not the beginner that
a lot of companies and games are trying to bring into the fold with gameplay
concessions, but I’m not the expert who you would root for (or bet on) in the
tournament scene. I’m in the nebulous
middle.
So in some ways, I get what Infinite is going for. I
can’t do everything that Infinite asks
of its players -- I’m terrified at the prospect of wave-dashing to complete
combos, and eight-way air movement sounds like witchcraft that demands, at a
bare minimum, a virgin sacrifice -- but I can do some of it. Even if execution is an important part of
fighting games, I’ve always argued that the real key to the genre is situational
awareness. You have to know what to do
and when to do it, not just memorize ultra-long combos. Fundamentals triumph over all.
And fundamentally, Infinite is a vastly different game from Marvel 3. (How different it
is from Marvel 2 or 1, I’ll leave up to people who know
those games better.) You take a team of
two characters into battle, and fight it out with every punch, kick, and
special move at your disposal -- many of which lead to some high-flying,
screen-filling dynamics. The much-touted
Infinity Stones play a pretty big role here; see, when you pick your character,
you can also choose one of the six to be used as an individual input
mid-match.
So for example, if you pick the Soul Stone, then
you can give any character a far-reaching attack that steals health from an
opponent (if it connects) at the press of a button. On top of that, once you have enough meter
for it, you can activate a stone-specific Infinity Surge to get a massive
advantage; with the Soul Stone, you can fight with two characters at once --
and actually revive a downed partner
with a smidge of health for a last-chance assault.
I think that the Infinity Stone system is pretty
strong -- simple, but effective.
Choosing the right one compensates for the lack of assists in Infinite, and in the best way possible. The flexibility allows you to bolster your
characters’ strengths, compensate for their weaknesses, or just give them a new
option mid-battle. Or, alternatively,
you can pick the Stone that’s best for you, or
a Stone that you know (or suspect) will cripple an opponent and his/her
strategy.
As an example?
I didn’t ask him beforehand, but somehow I knew that in our first session with the game, my brother would opt
for the Time Stone, which gives fighters a high-speed dash with a single button
tap. I expected as much, because I know
the crux of his play style revolves around high mobility, which lets him swarm
and overwhelm foes in seconds. I
completely shut him down by choosing the Space Stone, which at a base level
draws foes in closer -- which means that you immediately make characters with
command grabs like Haggar that much more lethal.
The real hotness comes from the Infinity Storm,
which works exactly as I hoped it would.
Activate it, and you trap foes in a box they can’t escape from. So yes, that means they’re much more
vulnerable to a level 3 from Haggar. But
more importantly? Their offensive
options almost drop to zero. Even a
basic combo in the game means you’ll launch a foe sky high -- but if you’re
trapped by the Space Stone’s Storm, you’ll barely rise a few feet if you sneak
in a launcher.
Praise be to the Shame Cube.
I’ve found in my online adventures that the Shame
Cube isn’t perfect, of course. Even if
you trap an opponent, there’s still the question of how you’ll open them up for
damage; Haggar can pile drive them, sure, but characters like Captain America
aren’t so good at breaking through enemy defenses on their lonesome. You also have to be wary of when and where
you activate the Storm, because if you pin Chris Redfield while he’s on the
other side of the screen, he’ll gladly continue to zone and wear you down. And while I haven’t been on the receiving end
of one yet, I’m pretty sure it’s only a matter of time before I’m hit by a
panic-induced Level 3 while making my approach.
Apparently, the
Reality Stone is strongly favored among the FGC experts right now -- and I
don’t blame them for it, given its screen-filling, time-delayed
shenanigans. Still, I’d think that each
Stone brings with it strengths and weaknesses that players need to be mindful
of as they put together their strategies.
Can the Soul Stone give you a second chance at life? Sure, but it also makes it that much easier
for an opponent to get a two-for-one beatdown -- the infamous “Happy Birthday”
in a 2017 skin -- with the right timing or attack. Does the Mind Stone’s Storm let you land a
command grab that instantly stuns an opponent?
Yeah, but considering how heavily the damage is scaled afterward, you’d
better plan on how to maximize your output beforehand. So yes, there’s a lot to think about before
you even leave the character select screen -- maybe before you even get there.
Still, the Stones alone don’t determine a
match. It all depends on the characters
you choose -- and as always, you’ll duke it out until there’s only one team
left that can stand. Again, assists have
been dropped in this game, so you won’t have to worry about Sentinel popping in
to deploy drones, or Doom locking you down with a missile barrage. Well, I say
as much, but there are ostensibly ways to recreate assists. In the same sense that there’s a dedicated
Infinity Stone button, there’s also a tag button that lets you switch between
your two characters in a second or two. Marvel 3 had something like that through
its Delayed Hyper Combos -- use a super move with one character, then input
another super command to switch to the next character on your team for his/her
super -- but here, your options are much more expansive.
As an example, I’m trying to make a team of X and
Hulk work. I don’t know which Stone I’m
going to use with them, but I can see the possibilities I can make real. X can toss out two different projectiles at
once (and mix and match them), including a pair of boomerangs that sweep in a
circular arc behind opponents. So fling
them out and hit the tag button; now Hulk is in, but thanks to X he has the
cover to get in since the foe is forced to stand there and block. And, theoretically, you can use that time
while the foe’s worried about boomerangs to sneak in a command grab. If they try to fight you off, they’ll get
clipped by boomerangs and be open to your attack. If they stand there and block, they’ll eat a
Gamma Tornado.
When you switch, pretty much the only thing you
have to worry about in terms of resource management is a brief cooldown
period. You don’t have to spend any
meter to tag out (unless you do so as a combo breaker). You don’t have to land an attack, whether you
hit or get blocked. You don’t need to
assume you can only switch during supers.
You can just stick to
switching during supers -- which means you’re manually doing DHCs -- but you
can tag out during normal moves, special moves, hit confirms, whiffed attacks,
on the ground, in the air, and the like. It’s a safe bet that that’s where the
“infinite” in Marvel Infinite comes
from.
The general rule for combos is that you’re allowed
one wall bounce, one ground bounce, and one off-the-ground attack in a single
sequence; anything else, and it won’t connect.
But if I remember right, the single attack-type limit is broken when you
use your other character -- meaning potentially, you can squeeze in two instead
of one. The bigger picture here is that
you can and should use both characters and the tag mechanic to extend combos
whenever you have an opening. As an
example: Haggar’s heavy Violent Axe causes a wall bounce instead of a ground
bounce in this game, so once you send them flying, you can smack them with a
pipe for that ground bounce.
Potentially, you can transition into an air combo with the Mayor of
Earth -- or, potentially, you can switch to Captain Marvel so she can use her
Strike Flurry special to relaunch and keep up the assault.
The possibilities are there. The question is whether or not you’ve got the
will -- or the reason -- to explore them.
For me, it’s a thin line. Up until release day for Infinite (demo notwithstanding), I’m pretty sure it’s been roughly
five years since I’ve played Marvel. Tell that to my fingers, though, because
muscle memory still forces me to try and perform some of the same combos I did
back in the day -- and failing. Even if
they are there in some capacity, the
deeper issue is that a lot of the characters have seen some noteworthy changes
in their time since the last game. On a
more basic level, though? The inputs
required are dramatically different. Infinite may also be a six-button
fighter like its predecessor, but Marvel
3 had light, medium, heavy, and launcher.
This one has light punch, heavy punch, light kick, and medium kick -- so
basically, like King of Fighters. On a standard pad, Marvel 3 would have you draw a diamond shape to create your basic,
standard combo. Infinite has you draw a lightning bolt instead.
Based on the tournament footage that’s floating
around, the experts and pros have already acclimated to the changes. So have a handful of online players; you can
mash one button for an auto-combo, but I’ve effectively been vaporized by guys that play like the
game’s been out for years. I’m partly
playing this game so I can keep pace with my brother and his Spartan training
regimen (and the inevitable beatdown he’ll dish out when we play together), but
the main idea here is that there’s a lot of work ahead for anyone who plans to
venture in. If a Capcom employee --
Combofiend, an exec, the director, the company president, or anyone on the
ladder -- were to argue that this game is easy for beginners to pick up, I
wouldn’t believe them for a second.
Look over all the stuff I mentioned earlier. Two characters. An Infinity Stone. Four different attack buttons. A tag mechanic. Meter management. Multiple attack states. And on top of all that, you have to nail the
timing for each move so you don’t drop combos -- meaning that if you want to be
even remotely competent, you have to spend some serious time grilling into your
mind how to attack…irrespective of learning how to actually play the game, not just practice against
a stationary training dummy. Is it
possible? Certainly, and I’m not about
to imply that Infinite is too complex
for normal humans to touch. But given
that I’ve felt like I’ve had to un-learn and re-learn everything from Marvel 3 -- let alone how much time is
needed to become just slightly, mildly capable -- it feels less like a game and
more like I’ve been drafted for military service.
So I have to be honest. There was a point where I was playing this
game -- where I was in the training room, trying to learn some good combos for
my Captain Marvel/Haggar team. And as
soon as I made a breakthrough on what they could do, I sighed and thought “Oh
man. I’m so tired.” All of a sudden, I
didn’t want to play anymore. I didn’t
want to keep practicing and perfecting my execution. I didn’t want to train up for the battles to
come. I didn’t want to explore the
possibilities that were available to me.
I didn’t want to put in the hours, the effort, the work -- largely because there’s
just so much work to do.
I think that, frankly, I wanted to go back to BlazBlue.
That might be a controversial opinion -- sacrilege
in the face of Capcom’s latest being out and about. But it really is how I felt…arguably. There’s also a pretty strong case to suggest
that I was eager to play a slew of other games, Sonic Mania well among them.
Still, BlazBlue did, and still
does, feel like the more appealing option in terms of pure fighting games. I’m more interested in bumbling around with
Litchi and learning how to play Naoto than I am in figuring out how to use X or
re-learning Captain America. As a
reminder: this game has barely been out for a week (as of writing), and I’m
already feeling the fatigue. Why?
I acknowledge that Infinite’s gameplay is good.
It’s the game’s strongest suit -- which is kind of important for a video
game. Even if there are controversies,
it has enough potential to satisfy fans and make new ones happy. Yet there’s this sense of weariness and
disdain I have for myself and the game, respectively -- a dark cloud that hangs
over it, and makes me want to turn right back around. What’s the issue? Have I been brainwashed by the hate train? Am I being subconsciously influenced by
months of bad press and fan outcry? Possibly.
Probably, even. But it goes
beyond that. Yes, the much-touted
problems do factor in -- the less-than-stellar roster chief among them. But the more I play the game, the more I
realize something crucial: its gameplay isn’t as new and dynamic as I hoped.
This is basically just Street Fighter X Tekken. X
Marvel.
It’s not a one-to-one comparison. The tag mechanic doesn’t work exactly the
same way, nor do the gems from SFxT sync
perfectly with the Infinity Stones. But
it’s dangerously close. It’s almost as
if the two games were made by the same company, and in the years since the
first one’s release they tweaked the formula for future endeavors while taking
advantage of the time gap between the two.
Fundamentally, both games have you using two characters as one,
switching out and extending combos as per your pre-planned synergy. Both games have you relying on the gems
you’ve equipped to bolster your power or game plan. Both games have had a shaky reception.
So Marvel
Infinite occupies this strange space where it’s both the new hotness and
the same old, same old. Does it do
things that are new to the franchise?
More or less. But there’s still
the fact -- the lingering sense that shrouds it like a block of molded cheese
-- that the new is built on the corpse of the old. The saving grace is that it’s still Marvel, but the problem here is that
it’s still Marvel. It’s a game, and franchise, half-built on the
utter frustration caused by the shenanigans possible.
Didn’t block Ultron’s attack from his eight-way
dash in time? Say goodbye to a huge
chunk of your health. Dante catches you
with a random hail of bullets? Now Frank
West can get to Level 5 and all you can do is watch as he powers up. Don’t like zoners? Break your controller preemptively so you
don’t have to deal with Chris, Doctor Strange, Hawkeye, and more. Want to fight -- or even press a single
button -- without impunity? Good luck
when you’re dealing with relentless, seemingly-safe pressure from Strider and
Gamora. And when you factor in
conditions like human error, online lag, and general randomness, you know
exactly what you’re getting into. What
good is all that training when you can get blown up for a single mistake, a
Hail Mary, or netcode that basically turns every fighter into King Crimson?
(That's how it works, right? I hope that's how it works.)
I won’t deny that Infinite has a breadth of options.
Those who dive in have plenty of tools to play with, and I’m happy for
those that go deep into the watery caverns within. But there are two questions that orbit around
the game. Sure, you can do this and that and this, but will you? And sure, you can
do that thing there and this thing here, but why should you? You can find
ways to dish out dozens, and potentially hundreds of hits, but will you? If you’re a normal player, I have my
doubts. And why should you? Even without a single tag to another
character, guys like Captain America can do massive amounts of damage with some
slightly-beyond-basic stuff. No need to
break your hands over fly combos or shred your brain by relying on sneaky
shenanigans. Land one light attack and
you’re golden.
There’s a real sense of futility to fighting games
that can’t easily be dealt with. That
would probably explain why it’s still a niche genre, and why so many people
continue to back away from them with cries of “I’m not good at fighting
games.” Is there really a point in
learning combos? Is there really a point
in earning points in ranked matches? Is
there really a point in winning? Is
there really a point in playing?
Ideally, every game in the genre should do its best to satisfactorily
answer those questions, or at least provide reasons why someone should hunker
down and train (even if it does just mean holding them psychologically
hostage). So the question then is
simple: does Infinite do that?
To put it a different way: if this game wasn’t a Marvel game, or if I didn’t have to play
to keep up with my brother, or if it wasn’t a new release, or if I didn’t just
want to do some blog posts about it, then would I even bother? Would I have dropped it after a cursory look?
I want to say no.
But I also want to say yes -- because there’s so much about it that’s
disappointing. And you’ll feel it as
soon as you turn on the game.
See you next time.
*sigh* Fuckin’ shit.
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