With the Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics now available, the main designer of the first Marvel vs. Capcom, Atsushi Tomita, outlined some interesting tidbits about the game’s development process. Though X-Men: Children of the Atom and Marvel Super Heroes weren’t particularly popular in Japan, these sort of games started seeing more success with the implementation of more Street Fighter representation with games such as Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter.
Though the developers had more freedom with system mechanics during the development of X-Men vs. Street Fighter, there was a growing pressure that they wouldn’t be able to develop these crossover games anymore due to the perception that these sort of games simply shouldn’t exist. With development on the first Marvel vs. Capcom now beginning, the team worked with less pressure and apparently were given even more freedom than before.
“By now, the series had been accepted even within the company as popular which meant less pressure put on us and we had a lot more freedom,” stated Atsushi Tomita. “We were going to be able to create some new characters, so this time we wanted to not just have Street Fighter, but bring in some characters from other past titles within the company. We also thought the title was too long, making it inconvenient, so we decided to shorten it.”
As it turned out, there were some difficulties finding the right humanoid characters from the Capcom side. Of course, Mega Man seemed like an obvious choice. Eventually, the developers would also decide upon Sir Arthur, Strider, and Captain Commando as candidates.
“From home console games, we of course chose Mega Man, but Capcom had a lot of arcade games as well. When doing our research, we realized that there weren’t as many original humanoid characters as we thought, though,” continued Tomita. “We worked in the same building as the Ghouls ‘n’ Ghosts team so we chose Arthur, and Strider Hiryu was popular in our country so we added him based on that (not personal feelings). Captain Commando had the company’s name on him so we decided we could push him a bit.”
The reason why Tomita emphasized that he wasn’t just adding Strider due to any sort of personal preference is due to the fact that he would later act as the designer for Strider 2. Needless to say, Strider’s addition was simply due to the first game’s success in Japan.
While Arthur seemed like a good choice initially, the developers were unfortunately not allowed to use him. As it turns out, even Tomita himself isn’t entirely sure of why it was said that the character’s art style would clash with the rest of the roster’s.
“However, for Arthur from Ghouls ‘n’ Ghosts, my superior Funami-san didn’t allow it,” said Tomita. “I think he felt the art styles were too different, though we’d already put Norimaro in so I didn’t really get that complaint.”
Ultimately, Arthur had to be relegated as an assist character instead. On the bright side, this did result in Jin becoming playable.
“In exchange, we chose Jin from Cyberbots since he has a huge robot you can do a lot of things with,” stated Tomita. “Of course, the character being fun is a very big factor in whether we’d choose them.”
“Characters we had to omit during the selection process, such as characters that seemed difficult to make in a fighting game, we thought we could do something for as part of the assist function which we introduced in the previous game,” continued Tomita. “Arthur of course, but also the Unknown Soldier from Forgotten Worlds, Michelle from Legendary Wings, Pure & Fur from Adventure Quiz and Saki from Quiz Nanairo Dreams. We pulled off a lot of stuff that seemed impossible to put in a fighting game, which was fun.”
It wouldn’t be until Marvel vs. Capcom 3 when Arthur would finally be elevated to playable status. Had things gone differently, we might’ve seen Arthur exhibiting a completely different playstyle in Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, and Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite.