Outside of Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. franchise, the Capcom Vs. series is one of the most iconic crossover properties to grace the fighting game genre. Pairing characters from Capcom-owned properties such as Street Fighter with a wide range of franchises, games within the Capcom Vs. series are traditionally fast-paced and combo-heavy team fighting games.
As the franchise dates back as far as 1996, it has included several entries that have crossed over with a variety of franchises. So today, let's examine the various entries in the Capcom Vs. Series and see which are the best!
10 Marvel Vs. Capcom Infinite
Oh, Marvel Vs. Capcom Infinite. One of the most notorious Capcom fighting games of all time, Marvel Infinite was rife with problems before its launch, with various aspects of the game’s visuals and the lack of characters such as the X-Men being brought into question before the game’s release.
While Marvel Infinite features an impressive combat system that allows a player to augment their team with an Infinity Stone, the aforementioned problems as well as the disappointing roster dug the game’s grave as soon as it was released. It should really say something when Marvel Infinite was the only newly released Marvel Vs. Capcom game to not be featured at Evo the year of its release.
9 X-Men: Children Of The Atom
The oldest entry on this list, X-Men: Children of the Atom is an X-Men fighting game with systems and gameplay reminiscent of those of the Street Fighter Alpha Series.
While the game paved the way for the Marvel Vs. Capcom series by introducing the X-Men sprites that would later be integral to the franchise’s development, Children Of The Atom itself is already something of a crossover. This is because the game features a secret playable character in the form of Street Fighter’s Akuma.
8 Marvel Super Heroes Vs. Street Fighter
Marvel Super Heroes Vs. Street Fighter is the second title released as part of the Capcom Vs. Series, combining assets of Street Fighter Alpha and Marvel Super Heroes to create a tag team fighting game. While the first installment in the series was a game characterized by absurd combos and excess, Marvel Superheroes Vs. Street Fighter attempted to tone this down for the sake of balance.
Unfortunately, all this did was remove much of what made the previous game in the series so fun, leaving little reason to play this entry in the series.
7 X-Men Vs. Street Fighter
While X-Men: Children of the Atom helped pave the way for what was to come, X-Men Vs. Street Fighter got things started for the series with a bang. Featuring two-on-two team-based combat and a cast of iconic characters from the two respective franchises, even at first glance, one could tell there was something special here.
X-Men Vs. Street Fighter’s fast-paced combat that featured devastating combo damage greatly helped influence what would come from the series down the line.
6 Capcom Vs. SNK: Millennium Fight 2000
Rather than stay bitter rivals and fellow veteran fighting game developers, SNK joined forces with Capcom in 2001. This union allowed Capcom to use SNK characters and produce Capcom vs. SNK: Millennium Fight 2000.
A fundamentals-based fighter rather than a combo-heavy game like X-Men Vs. Street Fighter, Capcom Vs. SNK truly felt like a blend of Street Fighter and King of Fighters mechanics.
5 Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom
Only released outside of Japan for the Wii, Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom is a hidden gem within the Capcom Vs series. The game’s roster is filled with a plethora of Capcom characters alongside icons of the Japanese animation studio Tatsunoko, some of which date as far back as to the 1970s.
While many Marvel Vs. Capcom games use a three-versus-three team system, Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom’s two-on-two combat provides additional emphasis to the individual characters. The game uniquely features two characters, Gold Lightan and the PTX-40A that are so large and powerful that they take up an entire team by themselves. As the first 3D entry in the Capcom Vs. series, the risks taken with this game helped pave the way for Marvel Vs. Capcom 3.
4 Marvel Vs. Capcom
The first game to officially use the “Vs. Capcom” moniker, Marvel Vs. Capcom was released in arcades in 1998 and it would later be re-released as Marvel Vs. Capcom Origins in 2012.
Returning to the excess of X-Men Vs. Street Fighter, Marvel Vs. Capcom featured several secret characters that functioned as augmented versions of members of the roster such as a fast yet fragile Red Venom and a Chun Li that can shoot missiles called Shadow Lady.
3 Capcom Vs. SNK 2
While Capcom Vs. SNK was a great game in its own right, Capcom Vs, SNK 2 took everything that made the game work and made it even better. Additional characters were added, bringing the final roster size to an impressive 48 characters.
Additionally, while players could make teams of up to three characters, they could further play how they wanted through new options available through the game’s groove system. With excellent options for offensive and defensive players alike, the game is still among the best fundamentals-based fighting games ever made,
2 Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3
Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 is one of the most genre-defining fighting games of the 2010s. While Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 initially debuted in February of 2011, in less than a year the fully upgraded version was released, adjusting various aspects of gameplay and significantly increasing the roster size.
Additionally, Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 is a game that is synonymous with the Evolution Tournament series, appearing on the main stage every year between 2011 and 2017, garnering a reputation as one of the most hype fighters on the market.
1 Marvel Vs. Capcom 2
Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 is easily one of the most iconic and influential competitive fighting games of all time. A long-time mainstay of Evo, Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 is a three-versus-three team fighting game in which a significant portion of the cast has access to incredibly over-the-top damage potential and “touch of death” combos.
With a massive roster of over fifty playable characters, players had a great degree of freedom when it came to expressing themselves through the team they played. Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 has had a profound impact on the fighting game genre, influencing a myriad of games such as Dragonball FIghterZ and Skullgirls.