X-Men Vs. Street Fighter
  

 

First off, X-Men VS Street Fighter is a very pretty & very colorful fighting game. It was definitely one of the best-looking arcade games around in 1996 (and years after). The music & sound effects were well designed and memorable. The icing on the cake is that the voice acting for the Marvel characters is done by the same voice actors from the popular X-Men animated TV series. This gave the game awesome authenticity for X-Men fans who know how their favorite characters should sound. The hand-drawn backgrounds were packed with detail and highlighted the charismatic character sprites, all of which were very well-animated for the time. And if that's not enough, master Capcom artist Bengus did all of the artwork for the game, presenting some of his best work to date.

 

 

X-Men VS Street Fighter uses a very similar gameplay style to Marvel Super Heroes, giving characters the ability to "super jump" for some epic airborne moments during the fight, and allowing for awesomely flashy air combos! Characters have a great selection of priority attacks, special moves, and can also unleash incredibly flashy and stylish super moves. X-Men VS SF is also the first Capcom fighting game and one of the first fighting games to feature "tag-team" gameplay. The action is incredibly fast paced and fluid, and fighting game fans certainly never experienced gameplay quite like this before. In addition to the solid and fun gameplay engine, X-Men VS SF had an extraordinary presentation for a fighting game in 1996.

 

 

The best console port of X-Men VS Street Fighter is on the Sega Saturn... it had nearly no slowdown and retained the same tag team gameplay from the arcade version. The PlayStation version was unfortunately lacking the tag team gameplay (your partner could only come in during a team super move), and it also suffered from slowdown... so if you've only played the PlayStation version, needless to say, you haven't played the real X-Men VS Street Fighter.
 
 

Click Here for all Character Artwork!

Page Updated: September 4th, 2024 Developer(s): Capcom Publisher(s): Capcom Artwork by: Bengus (CRMK) Platform(s): Arcade, PlayStation, Sega Saturn Release Date(s): Sept. 9th, 1996              Arcade Oct. 4th, 1996                Arcade Oct. 31st, 1997              Saturn Feb. 26th, 1998              PS1 June 11th, 1998             PS1 Characters:  Cyclops, Wolverine, Gambit, Rogue, Sabretooth, Storm, Magneto, Juggernaut, Ryu, Ken Masters, Cammy, Charlie Nash, Chun-Li, Zangief, Dhalsim, M. Bison, Akuma, Apocalypse Featured Video: Related Games: Marvel Vs. Capcom Fighting Collection, X-Men: Children of the Atom, Marvel Super Heroes, Marvel Super Heroes Vs. Street Fighter, Marvel Vs. Capcom, Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, Marvel Vs. Capcom: Infinite, Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom, Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom: Ultimate All Stars, Capcom Vs. SNK 2, Street Fighter Alpha 2, Street Fighter Alpha 3, Street Fighter EX, Rival Schools: United By Fate, Groove On Fight    Gameplay Engine  9.0 / 10 Story / Theme  9.0 / 10 Overall Graphics  9.5 / 10 Animation  9.5 / 10 Music / Sound Effects  8.5 / 10 Innovation  10 / 10 Art Direction  10 / 10 Customization  8.0 / 10 Options / Extras  8.0 / 10 Intro / Presentation  9.0 / 10 Replayability / Fun  9.5 / 10 "Ouch" Factor  9.5 / 10 Characters  9.0 / 10 BOTTOM LINE  9.4 / 10  Review is for Arcade version        Final Words: A massive success in arcades around the world... and a true "head-turner" in 1996 even if you weren't big into fighting games (and shame on you if that was the case)... X-Men VS Street Fighter was one of the defining 2D fighters of the era, demonstrating with flying colors just how far 2D fighting games had come since the early days, visually, and especially, mechanically. Incredibly animated characters, insane and lengthy flashy combos, beautiful stages & soundtrack, I can go on and I will. This game.  X-Men VS SF was easily one of my all-time favorite fighting games at its launch (and for years after).... Hell, it's still one of my favorite fighting games. For me, it really was a dream come true, since I grew up loving both Street Fighter and X-Men. Like many other OG 80's / 90's kids, this game feels like it was made for me. Capcom made a real connection with us. And to think... X-Men Vs. Street Fighter was only the beginning of what would later be the iconic Marvel Versus series. (In retrospect, if we only ever got this game. I think many of us could've died happy anyway.) Even to this day, it's XVSF is still incredibly fun and polished. Of course, overlooking the fact that there are a shitload of infinites (inescapable) combos that completely break the game in high-level play. Still fun, but very broken. In layman's terms, this fighting game is basically "who can get start their infinite combo first". As a player who came from a competitive arcade scene where everyone knew infinites — I have to admit and eliminate my "competitive bias" against this game. Therefore, I must raise my original score of 9.3 to 9.4. Indeed, it's a "frustrating" game competitively. However, it's more balanced than you think since every character can perform infinite combos. Also, the fact that such insane infinite combos exist in the first place is worth something. Side note: At my local arcades, players were known to use infinite combos, but would allow their opponents escape after a while (by hitting the taunt button) to keep the game fun, to please to the audience booing ... and to save money. We were all friends and didn't want to ruin anyone's day. I had such good times and good memories with this game. I'm pretty sure everyone who played X-Men Vs. Street Fighter did. This game is one point away from me calling it a "masterpiece" due to its balance quirks and broken-ness... but it truly is a masterpiece in so many other ways. ~TFG Webmaster | @Fighters_Gen    Click Here for all Posters / Box Art / etc. Click Here for all Animated Stages! Click Here for all Screenshots! FOLLOW    ON:                             TFG NEWS CHARACTERS GAMES