Although the Marvel vs. Capcom series is one of the most iconic in the fighting game genre, many details of its development have remained unknown in the West due to the language barrier or due to loss over time.
That’s why it’s always cool and fascinating when an original developer from the 90s comes out and talks about what contributed to the games developing into what they are today.
A Japanese X/Twitter user recently posted online wondering what the upcoming Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics plans to do with one of its new features.
The upcoming MvC collection will allow players to select the previously boss-only characters Magneto and Juggernaut as playable fighters in X-Men, Children of the Atom, which just released its own trailer. But what happens to the colors if both users select Magneto?
This question apparently caught the attention of Atsushi “Tomichin” Tomita, who has worked as a planner on all MvC games from X-Men to Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes.
He offered some insight into why the first few entries in the series lacked color options on the front, which seemed to be due to difficulties in getting approval to use alternate palettes.
2P, X-MEN, OK, OK
1P
I’m a little nervous about it
X-MEN VS. ストリートファイターでは全然違う色でも通るようになった
あきまん氏に色を作ってもらって
For more information, visit https://t.co/rpFGXJXDCk— Tommy_tin (@tommy_tin) 13 August 2024
“For the 2P colors, Marvel didn’t really give us the OK for any of our suggestions back then,” wrote Tomita, translated by our own Nicholas ‘MajinTenshinhan’ Taylor. “Only the smallest deviations from the 1P colors passed their tests, but they’re gradually becoming more lenient.”
“By the time of X-Men vs. Street Fighter, we were allowed to use completely different colors. I remember Akiman being the one who drew them, and I distinctly remember sitting next to him and falling asleep while we discussed which ones to use.”
Alternate colors were introduced by Capcom back in 1992 when Street Fighter 2: Champion Edition added the ability to play mirrored battles with the same character. In SF2 and the other games of the era, this feature was continually expanded upon.
However, if you go back to X-Men: Children of the Atom, which came out in 1994, technically there are different colors for Player 1 and Player 2, although as the previous developer pointed out, these are mostly minor variations.
Wolverine wore a darker shade of blue, Sentinel had reduced the contrast, and Storm had increased it.
The only ones who really looked a bit different were Colossus, who swapped his red for orange with a different shade for his metal, while Cyclops and Psylocke swapped their blue for purple.
Click on the images to enlarge them
Since this was Marvel’s first time working with Capcom on a fighting game and breaking new ground together, it’s understandable that the comic book publisher was reluctant to allow the Japanese developer to drastically change the look of its legendary heroes and villains.
Of course, they relaxed their practices in the years that followed, but the need to get multi-party approval is still a challenge with collaborative projects/IP, especially at Marvel.
If you look back at the Marvel Super Heroes, there was more of a mix of variants and complete palette changes, and then X-Men vs. Street Fighter were finally able to go wild with their picks, like gold Storm, pink Rogue, and blue Magneto.
However, it would take until the Sega Saturn and PlayStation entries for these games to add more than two selectable colors, which will not be included in the MvC Fighting Collection.
Marvel vs. Capcom 2 goes one step further and includes six colors for each fighter.
What’s weird is that Tomita doesn’t really answer what happens if you choose two Magnetos in Children of the Atom.
As far as we know, he and Juggernaut only have one color each, so they might look the same on both sides.
It would be technically possible that the developers are trying to add a color from a future title, but we highly doubt that for a variety of reasons.
If anything, the team behind the collection might just apply something like a different shader or option to make them look at least somewhat different.
Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection does not yet have a release date beyond 2024, but it is currently in development for PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and PC, with Xbox not included.
