Marvel VS. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds (Signature Series Guide) [ペーパーバック]

This is one of the best guides ever written for a fighting game, especially for one that hasn't been out very long.

I am a proficient tournament player of Street Fighter 4, but I have never been able to get the hang of the VS. series. The beginning of the guide is filled with info on the basics of the game. From terminology to specifics about the rules and system of the game, this guide is perfect for newer players. This guide really helped me to understand how I should be approaching the game, and for the first time ever I feel like I can stand my ground in a VS. series game.

Each character is also given a number of pages to themselves detailing their combos and how best to use the character. The guide gives a great overview of how the game system works and then tells you how to manipulate said system with each character.

If you like fighting games, but have never been able to get good at them, this guide may actually help you if you devote enough time to it.

First of all I usually buy guides for their collectible purposes (art and whatnot), but never read from them unless they're for RPG games that hold some secrets. Let me tell you folks I was nearly a level 50 in Halo 3 (46) so I'm really darn good at shooters, but I am really terrible at fighting games. I played MVC3 and though it is the craziest and difficult fighter I have ever played, It's also the most fun I've had with any game. Yes, more than Halo guys and that's where this puppy comes in.

After getting Marvel vs. Capcom, I won a couple matches (3~4) on the first day of release due to simple attacks (and mashing ><) only to get creamed by the pros over AND OVER AND OVER again the next day (loss of 50 straight matches). I love this game but due to having very little exposure to ANY kind of figting game I just couldn't hold my own for more than 10 seconds. Until I read this book I had no idea of what a cancel, crossover, wakeup, stun, link, etc (seriously the list goes on for 3 pages). Hell looking back I would have to say I barely knew how to throw a punch. Now after reading just a small portion (and when I say small I mean small because this book is friggin HUGE) I amped my win rate by a factor of 3 and loss ratio reduced by a factor of 10!! I even beat a 9th legion or whatever they're called and took his rank, and had a huge smile came on my face.

How this book helped. (pros)

+It has every kind of fighting lingo in here fully explained, examined, and tutorialized with tons of pics so you know if you're doing it right. Also all combos have step by step pictures for each key press and it even tells you how many frames (time) your moves, defense, combos, will last so you can strike back. The book as well has damage rankings, which moves cause cancels, and oh my god the list goes on.

+It has every character listed with stats such as health, strength, speed, stamina, and much oh much more. It even tells you the way to play with each character and what combos/strategies to use to fully bring out each and every characters "true" potential. From the game itself you also learn what kind of player you are and with this book you'll know what characters "best suit you" for the style of play you like. long range and fast is me so I like characters such as Ryu (great offense and range), Akuma (corner killer), and Trish (range and aerial combo maker) on my team or X-23 (fast, great combo maker and breaker, love her), wolverine (surprisingly got some long range using drill claw appropriately), and C-viper (love her unstoppable offense). Utterly fantastic

+The book has even characters that aren't out yet such as Shuma-Gorath and Jill Valentine, so you know this book is also pretty future proof for at least a little while.

+The book has all kinds of nodes of information such as some history of marvel vs capcom, small anecdotes about characters, etc.

+It also covers the final boss for the arcade mode too and how to beat him if you care about arcade and things of that nature.

+Lots of cool art pictures for the front, back, inside cover and what not.

Has everything. Period.

Cons

-It took me too long to write the pros and I still didn't write all of them.

This book literally confirmed my suspicions on the inside with the first page that MVC3 is indeed one of the most complex fighters, but unlike other guides it makes you a "better" player. However if you don't study, memorize, and practice with this book (never thought I'd say that for a game) you will get nowhere. Prepare to practice on dummies for many MANY hours.

To preface, I never buy strategy guides, especially not for fighting games where strategies and tactics evolve so quickly over the first few months to a year of play. Usually just hit up Shoryuken or Dustloop forums for all my fighting info. Despite that, I had heard a lot from Bucktooth (prominent member of SRK forums) about how he worked on this and how amazing this would be. When I found out it was over 400 pages of full colour guide with strats, move lists, combos, advanced tactics, assist recommendations and, most importantly, frame data, I decided to take a chance on the $10 through Amazon and had this on day 1. I was not disappointed.

The guide has proved invaluable to me at this point. While SRK and the like have copy and pasted many of the combos or frame data onto their forum posts, those are actually not the things I like the most about this (well, framedata is always great and to have it on hand early on is better than scribbling it down or running to the computer all the time). I'll just do a quick pros/cons on this:

Pros:

Frame data - Obviously. Knowing what's going to beat out what and what moves are best for given situations with each character as well as start up and recovery time is vital. However, this also lists what has super armor (like Hulk's st.H) and what has invincibility frames and what doesnt. Things like knowing Cap's lvl 3 hyper doesnt have startup invincibility is something you might not realize if it plowed through something after travelling a bit.

Strategies - Very detailed strategies for each character while on the ground and in the air as well as assists they should use and characters that make good assists for them.

Special move properties - Things like knowing about Dr Doom's moves (even normals) almost all being dash cancellable or MODOK's being flight mode cancellable or even how many of Iron Man's air attacks have beams that extend for damaging but how his hitbox stays back by his fist make a huge difference in playing early and many dont list these on forums/combo threads when cribbing from the guide.

Assists - Assists are so vital in this game that having each character's assists broken down, their properties and how they changed between point play and assist form, projectile durability and how hypers affect those assists (things like Arthurs gold armour or Heisen-Ko's super armour hypers) and knowing which characters benefit most from an overhead or projectile or low attack or OTG assist is nice to have from the get go.

Images - Every move and assist is shown in a large, full colour image of the move animating so you have an idea of what it does, the range and what not.

Combos - Almost all are easy to find online now that the guide is in the wild, but nice to have on hand. They also discuss timing of the combos, like if you should delay a move or super jump slightly. They are on hand and in good notation as well, making it handy for quick reference. I bring it over my friends when we play and there's no need for scribbled notes.

x-factor data - another thing you can find online, but quick and easy look up for how xfactor levels affect each characters' dmg and speed.

Hidden characters + DLC notes - The manual with the game doesnt even have move lists for Sentinel, Akuma, Taskmaster or Heisen-Ko. Nice to have the data on hand for friends that dont own the game to quick look up some stuff on them without while sitting out instead of having to pause and check command lists. Also nice to see them include data and information on Shuma-Gorath and Jill. There's disclaimer since those characters could change between now and their DLC release, but still wasnt expecting info on them at all.

Basic Gameplay info - Some very detailed information on basics, such as wave dashing (dash, press down, dash, press donw, repeat to dash much faster/cancel the recovery). Cant play the game if you dont understand the concepts. Lots of info on assists, crossover assists, xfactor.

Cons:

Grammar mistakes - Was surprised to find several grammar mistakes in the book. It's not every page or anything crazy, but Ive noticed several repeated words in a sentence (like The the) or two similar words where it's clear the author wrote something, changed his mind and forgot to delete the previous word. Other times there's an "an" before a non-vowel adjective where it's obvious they added the adjective later since the noun/verb after it begins with a vowel.

Online Cribbing - Many of the basic data has been stolen and put online within a day or two of the release of the guide. Might devalute it for some people. I usually write the combos down and bring the paper to my ps3/xbox, so it just saves me the hassle and time and mountains of paper stacked up nearby.

MOst likely outdated in a few months - While most of the strategies will be useful at all times, it is likely that newer, more efficient combos/strats will be discovered within a month or two of release of the game. Unless you are a tourney player with his own stick and attending evo and other high level stuff, it's likely not going to affect you in the least. The information should be viable for everyone at all times, just sub optimal in the months to come in some cases.

No Mission Mode info - Was surprised there's no real information about the Mission Mode (challenges for MvC3). Some of the missions have strict timing or require specific numbers of hits from multi-hit moves. As the in-game mission modes have no replays of how the combo is done like BlazBlue: Continuum Shift did, I had to check online for several videos of people doing the later missions to pick up timing for characters I have no experience with yet. A quick page or so on the more challenging missions would have been a nice extra.

Overall, I can't recommend the guide enough. Im by no means the best fighting game player on the planet, but running 60-70% win loss ratio at the moment in ranked. To me, this guide has been absolutely perfect in almost every regard. If you are just picking up the game at release, I believe it's an essential for all but the absolute best players who pick up every fighting game and dominate. The fact you are looking at reviews of this guide probably means you arent one of those people. For $10, this massive tome is the ultimate bathroom reading material and on-hand reference for the game. Even if it becomes outdated in a few months, theres lots of art and full colour images to make it worth the purchase. I just can't understand how it's so cheap for how ridiculously large the guide is. Buy it. You won't regret it.