Capcom's suite of Marvel arcade fighting games is considered to be absolute classics, yet its journey to home platforms has been a rough one. X-Men: Children of the Atom was missing a few animation frames on the Sega Saturn, while the problem was much worse on the more popular Sony PlayStation. The same thing happened with Marvel Super Heroes, and while both X-Men vs. Street Fighter and Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter were worse on the PlayStation since they omitted the games' signature tag ability and were missing animation frames, it was all fine on the Saturn if you were willing to import the games and buy the RAM cart. North American players would finally experience arcade-perfect ports with Marvel vs. Capcom if they invested in the then-new Sega Dreamcast, while Marvel vs. Capcom 2 would finally solidify arcade perfection on all platforms. Twelve years after the re-release of some of these games on the PS3 and Xbox 360, Capcom has brought together all of its arcade Marvel games in a seven-game compilation with Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics for Nintendo Switch, PC and PS4.

Of the seven games, The Punisher sticks out as the odd one out since it's a beat-'em-up instead of a fighting game like the rest of the lineup. Then again, it makes sense to include it since it is the first Capcom game to use a Marvel license. The game sticks to the genre conventions but takes on some of the features of Final Fight by letting you see health bars for all enemies and even naming the foes. Weapon durability is displayed by a number that tells you how many times you can use it before it disappears. What stands out — aside from the copious amounts of blood for a game in this genre — is the use of guns. You can pick up firearms with limited uses, such as an Uzi, but whenever you encounter enemies that brandish any kind of gun, The Punisher or Nick Fury whip out their own pistols and start firing away with infinite ammo. You can still get close to enemies and punch them to death, and you can only keep the gun out at designated parts of a stage, but it changes the dynamic enough to prevent the fights from becoming stale.

X-Men: Children of the Atom is the first of the fighting games, and it follows the conventions of most fighting games of the mid-1990s. Since superheroes and villains are duking it out, things are amplified to make everything more explosive. Super meters are present, with three levels available to produce new special moves for big damage. Levels are dynamic in that floors can break to reveal new areas, the stages feature moving backgrounds, or the levels themselves change in nature by the next round. You can perform long combo strings in the air, and you can execute a high jump that goes beyond the normal screen height, adding verticality to any bout. The game also lets you break falls, and some projectile moves can be aimed 45 degrees up or down, taking some of the features previously only seen in hacked Street Fighter II arcade machines and making them official. Even though the roster isn't large when compared to other fighting games of the time, it still made the case for how good a superhero fighting game can be.

Next on the list is Marvel Super Heroes, which takes everything seen in X-Men: Children of the Atom, swaps out most of the X-Men for other Marvel characters like Doctor Doom and Spider-Man, and drops them in new backgrounds. It remains a very fast fighting game in terms of gameplay speed, but the big mechanic is the Infinity Gems, which come from the Infinity Gauntlet storyline. While you don't need to get every gem during a fight, possessing any of them can let you get some buffs for a short time, like extra attack power or defense. Having certain characters possess certain gems also gives them special abilities. If Wolverine, Spider-Man, or Psylocke get the Power gem during a fight, they can create clones of themselves to produce more hits; giving Juggernaut the Space gem essentially makes him invincible. It's a neat mechanic, as it makes each bout feel more dynamic, but sadly, it wasn't something that carried over to future iterations.

X-Men vs. Street Fighter is the game that started the crossover series and greatly amplified the fighting game mechanics. The big thing is the ability to choose two characters to make each match a tag-team match. At any time, you can pull back your chosen fighter and let your partner jump in with an attack of their own before you take control of them. Aside from forcing your opponent to mix up their strategy, it gives your fighter the chance to recover some health until they get tagged back in. The game also introduces the ability to have both fighters come in and unleash their super moves at the same time. Defeating one opponent automatically tags in their partner and vice versa, and what makes each fight more distinct is that there's only one round instead of the standard best of three. If you're coming in from more traditional fighting games, this can be quite chaotic the first time around, but it is undeniably fun.

As a follow-up title, Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter is something of a reskin of X-Men vs. Street Fighter, especially since many of the backgrounds are shared between both titles. It also doesn't help that the Street Fighter side only added two characters, while the number of returning characters on the Marvel side was much fewer. Aside from the roster change, this game is still important since it introduces the Variable Assist mechanic, which allows the player to call on their tag partner to unleash a special move before leaving. The reward is a move that comes out of nowhere and extends or starts a combo, but the risk is that your partner can still be hit and has some depleted health but is in a recoverable state until they tag in. Aside from that, while the presentation hasn't changed much, finishing a match with a Hyper Combo has the announcer announcing the name of the move, and that's a neat little touch.

Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes takes what the other vs. Street Fighter games did and experimented with the formula. The game remains a tag-team fighter, but you can no longer call in your partner to pull off the Variable Assist. Instead, you call upon a third non-playable character to do that. There's no real penalty of having them get hit, aside from them not being able to execute the move they came out for. The game limits how many times you can call upon them in a match, so you can't spam their move throughout. While the game takes away the ability to call in your partner's special move, it still has their hyper combo. The game also gives you the chance to call upon them temporarily while you still control your character, effectively placing four players on the field at the same time if both players perform the maneuver. It's a harder thing to pull off but well worth seeing just for the chaos alone.

Those two changes are big enough to warrant the sequel, but the main appeal of the game is seeing Capcom go nuts with characters appearing in a fighting game for the first time. People like Mega Man and Strider Hiryu seem like naturals for the fighting space, and the same goes for Captain Commando, but the more surprising thing is seeing who's there for the support characters. Arthur from Ghosts 'n Goblins is nice and nostalgic, but it's simply wild to see Capcom go for deep cuts with the likes of Michelle Heart from Legendary Wings, Unknown Soldier from Forgotten Worlds, and Pure & Fur from Adventure Quiz: Capcom World 2.

Finally, there's Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes, perhaps one of the more requested titles from Capcom's fighting game library and the iteration considered to be the pinnacle of the series. It's also a significant addition since it was done on Sega's NAOMI board instead of the company's CPS boards, and that spruces up the game's backgrounds since they're now rendered in 3D while the fighters are still in sprite form. In case you're wondering, this is still the arcade ROM being used instead of the home conversions. That means you can't fight in the training level, and the game doesn't have the option to go for the widescreen version as seen in the Xbox 360 and PS3 copies. It also means that the backgrounds and other 3D elements aren't as sharp as before, but most players may not mind. Aside from the presence of 3D backgrounds and some non-sprite-based effects, the game differs from the other titles in the collection by not having any character-specific endings. No matter who delivers the final blow, the ending cut scene is always the same. Also, the game has a very jazz-inspired soundtrack that was ridiculed before but beloved now since it's such a distinct sound for a fighting game. Its unique qualities make it one of the more memorable soundtracks in the genre.

Mechanically, New Age of Heroes has quite a number of changes compared to past offerings that make this a more accessible game with some real depth. You've got teams of three and a total of 56 characters to choose from, giving the game a breadth of team combinations that is only rivaled by The King of Fighters series. Calling on characters for support and tagging them in for a fight are still a thing, as are other hallmarks of the Marvel games like dashes and high jumps and quick recoveries. Hyper combos with all three players are extremely flashy, and the ability to choose which kind of move your characters will perform when in support mode makes each fight feel different. The most welcome change is the move to a four-button setup instead of a six-button one. It doesn't mean much if you're on an arcade stick, but on a gamepad, it's a blessing to not rely on the shoulder buttons and triggers to pull off basic moves. It acclimates newcomers to the game since they have to contend with fewer buttons, even though that is negated by the gameplay speed and overall chaos of everyone jumping around and moves being thrown at a rapid clip. The game is still as awesome as it was when it was first released; don't be surprised if this game gets the most playtime in the collection.

Like some of Capcom's past arcade collections, there's lots of stuff you can tweak and view. There's the choice of playing either the Japanese or English versions of each game, and that means more than just a language change. The intro cinematic for The Punisher, for example, is different in Japanese compared to the English release while Marvel vs. Street Fighter's Japanese version has an extra fighter in the form of Norimaro, a character created by Japanese comedian Noritake Kinashi in conjunction with Capcom. Every game also sports a ton of other options, like the ability to lock hidden characters since they are all unlocked by default and change each game's difficulty level. Control options can be changed so some moves can be done with a single button press instead. You can view the move cards that were plastered on the arcade machines to learn how to pull off the new moves.

Beyond the games, the collection also sports a jukebox mode that lets you listen to every song from every game in the collection. There's also a museum mode that lets you look at illustrations and character sketches from every game. It's extensive, but it doesn't go deep enough because there are no ads or promo videos for the games. Like the previous fighting collections, there's a training mode for every game, which is very welcome since only Marvel vs. Capcom 2 ever had that in its home release.

With Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics taking on the framework of old collections, there are two things that one needs to be made aware of. The first is that these are straight ports of the original arcade games, so the old arcade versus rules still apply. You can't change the number of rounds per fight, and you can't change the round timer or disable it. That also means that the loser needs to choose to continue a fight, and they're the only one that can change out their character or team for the next match. Considering how rare arcades are nowadays, most players are accustomed to the home console rules, where all characters can be changed up after every match so these old-school rules can be bothersome for those who are accustomed to fighting with different fighters after every bout.

The second thing is unique to PC users, and that has to do with controller compatibility. The store page mentions that the game is compatible with Xbox controllers as well as DualShock 4 and DualSense controllers. That is true of the Xbox controllers natively, but Sony's controllers only work properly if you have Steam Input activated. Turn that off, and both the DualShock 4 and DualSense start to act odd. The d-pad no longer works, so you can only navigate the menus with the left analog stick. The face buttons are flipped to where X is interpreted as O and Triangle is interpreted as Square, and vice versa. The shoulder buttons are also flipped, and the glyphs are the ones used for the Xbox. For the most part, players tend to leave Steam Input on, so they'll never notice this, but it is worth mentioning for those who are hoping for real native support for these pads and other controllers that mimic them.

When it comes to online play, Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics  performs well enough. When you have a good connection, the performance is smooth, and for those running a lobby, you can make it possible to change games on the fly instead of locking your room to one title, but it would be nice to have some clarity about some of those options. Searching for games also gives you a good deal of options, as you can look for more than one game at a time to increase your chances of finding a match. When you get hit with lag, the performance can stutter depending on what's happening, and while it can get bad once you are hit with spikes, at least the rollback means no inputs are lost. This is something that hopefully gets fixed when the game fully launches, as we were hit with some pretty bad lag spikes during the review period. One thing we wish were in the collection is cross-play, as it would ensure that PC players would get a bigger pool of players.

Steam Deck owners will be pleased to know that this compilation works flawlessly on Valve's handheld device. It's easy to achieve 60fps, and even though the game only sports a 1280x720 resolution on the device, few players will notice the loss of screen space. Using the heaviest game in the collection with Marvel vs. Capcom 2, the battery life on a full charge hits a little over four hours, which is average for a decent number of games on the LCD version of the device.

When playing through Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics, one is reminded of how good Capcom is at licensed games. Each of the games in this collection is a stone-cold classic, and even though more people will end up gravitating toward Marvel vs. Capcom 2 more than any other game, each title represents the kind of fighting game you wouldn't mind revisiting. There's still some tweaking that needs to be done, from the online performance tanking at times to having some more menu option explanations, but that doesn't take away this collection's overall quality. If you're a fan of 2D fighters, you need to have this game in your library.

Score: 8.5/10