Review: MARVEL VS. CAPCOM FIGHTING COLLECTION: ARCADE CLASSICS is Fantastic Except for One Thing

Capcom has been putting out a ton of games lately that I’ve been wanting to play including Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics.

This is a collection of seven classic games that include Marvel characters including the first console version of 1993’s The Punisher beat ‘em up. Other titles include X-Men: Children of the Atom, Marvel Super Heroes, X-Men vs Street Fighter, Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter, Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes, and the well beloved Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes.

I’ve never played any of these games before but have heard so much love for MvC2 that I was stoked to give all of these a try. Capcom was gracious enough to provide me with a PC code for this review, but all thoughts below are my own.

If you want to play this collection, you can purchase it digitally now on Nintendo Switch, PC, and PS4 with a physical version launching in November and an Xbox One version releasing in 2025. You can pre-order your copy from your favorite stores including GameStop (affiliate link).

So, I’ve decided that this review will not be about the included games, but rather the experience via the Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics provides. The games themselves seem to be fun and have legacies of their own that appear to be untouched in this collection. So is the collection a good experience?

I want to remind you that I received a PC code and therefore my review will not be a perfect representation of the PS4 or Nintendo Switch versions of Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics, but many of the points will be the same across the board.

First, the collection has a unifying UI and feel which is good. Whether you go to the Museum, Online Game, or Offline Game, you are then greeted by tiles representing each of the titles that you can rotate through. The menus look crisp and clean with no problems.

Games also have training modes accessible by pressing Start on the controller from the menu, not in the game. In addition, you can adjust various game options such as the number of rounds, the amount of damage hits inflict, etc.

You can even adjust video settings such as screen ratio (I personally like Full 4:3), border images, and filters (I think E is my personal favorite) to help the game look how you think it should. There is even a space for you to edit the controller layout. This was very important to me as for whatever reason they had Y and B default to light attacks with X and A as medium attacks and I personally prefer those swapped on an Xbox controller.

Everything added to this collection looks great and even feels great. There’s one thing that does bother me even though it probably shouldn’t. On the PC version, the iconography is based on the Xbox 360.

Whether I’m on the Steam Deck or my desktop with an Xbox Series controller, the buttons are pictured using Xbox 360 images. This means that they are the brightly colored A, B, X, Y buttons, the oval with a triangle for Start, the oval with an opposite triangle for back, etc.

That honestly makes Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics feel extremely dated to me. It just came out! Why is it not using updated iconography?

Another item that bothers me a little is that even when I have it set to Windowed Fullscreen, it seems to block some system hotkeys. For instance, I couldn’t use hotkeys to take the above screenshot while I was focused on the game. I had to click on my desktop on my second monitor to be able to do that. I also can’t use the Windows key to open the Start menu. It’s not inherently a dealbreaker, but it is a nuisance sometimes.

Outside of the iconography, I cannot find any faults with Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics. The games are snappy, they use rollback netcode for online play, and it runs well on the two machines I’ve tested it on. If you are already a fan of these games, or have been wanting to try out these classic titles, I would recommend this collection and the MSRP is only $49.99.