Should You Buy Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3? Yes.

Didn’t we just buy this game back in February? No sir and / or ma’am, this is Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, a re-release of the recent release packed with a dozen new fighters from both sides of the battle and enough gameplay tweaks and extras to keep fans fighting until Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3: Hyper Turbo Edition comes out sometime next month (probably not true).

Are the twelve new characters powerful enough to defeat the feeling of being burned by another Capcom retail update? Let’s ask our gut.

Michael Fahey, who single-handedly led the failed movement to have Squirrel Girl added to Marvel Vs. Capcom 3: If you had asked me this question in July when Ultimate Marvel Versus Capcom 3 had first been announced — a mere five months after the original game — I wouldn’t have said no. I would have laughed in your face for picking up the original game in the first place and not waiting until you were certain Capcom wasn’t going to screw with anything else. This is hardly a new pattern, ladies and gentlemen. There were three different versions of Street Fighter II released for the Super Nintendo in as many years, and they never dropped the price 30 percent back then. You poor, poor fools!

Yeah, I bought it too, and I was furious. But I got over it. You know what helped? The realization that to the best of my knowledge Capcom has never released a bad update to an existing fighting game. They can never seem to leave well enough alone, but is that a bad thing?

It also helps that I’ve spent several days fooling about with the retail version of the game, putting each of the twelve new characters through their paces (Rocket Raccoon more than most) and checking to see if the new balance tweaks are noticeable to a casual fighting game fan like myself (not really). Overall I’m impressed with the new selection (except for Doctor Strange, who should be off hovering somewhere mystically), and the addition of the new card-powered Heroes and Heralds single and multiplayer mode appeals to both the Marvel fanboy and the rampant collector in me (or it will once it’s available). And hey, it’s $20 less than the original, which is a damn good deal. You can still be outraged while you’re getting your ass kicked by an anthropomorphic raccoon. Yes.

Evan Narcisse, who’s probably bought that Mark Gruenwald Hawkeye mini-series about five times now: Games like Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 are like catnip to a lifelong comics reader like me. They’re interactive ways of having those classic, nerdy “who’d win?” conversations. Yes, we got the vanilla version of this game around seven, eight months ago but the work that’s gone into Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 feels truly additive. I’m not talented enough to feel all the rebalancing in my bones but I do know that getting six characters and new modes on top of all the tweaking agrees with me greatly. Heinous business practice to essentially re-sell an already extant game? Maybe, but go ahead and recycle that old MvC3 like old newspapers. Hawkeye, Iron Fist, Phoenix Wright and Strider all make me say Yes

Brian Ashcraft, the ultimate MvC3 non-player:.The plan was to play Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 at this year’s Tokyo Game Show, but I ended up on a boat with raw fish, Seth Killian, and no Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Shame because I was looking forward to seeing what exactly makes the game ultimate. I did talk to Seth, which is always lovely. He’s a lovely dude.

Capcom, never one to look away from a spin-off, a sequel, or an update, is supposed to have rebalanced MvC3 with the ultimate iteration. I’d imagine that for those who had issues with vanilla Marvel vs. Capcom 3, this is something they’d want to pick up. I’d also imagine that those folks aren’t reading this and have already made up their minds. They are extra characters and whatnot, but… Me? I can’t help but feeling that this is fighting game minutia, and so my gut ultimately says this: Nope.

Gut Check is an off-the-cuff impression of what we think of a game: what we’d tell a friend; how we’d respond on Twitter or Facebook or over a beer if someone asked us “Would you buy this game?” Our lead writer, who has played a lot of the game, decides. Other writers chime in for additional points of view. Stay tuned for our full review.

You can contact Michael Fahey, the author of this post, at [email protected]. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.