I remember the very first time I ever saw this game. I was a young kid(probably around 6 or 7 years old), walking into the local card/game shop for the first time to satiate my burgeoning Pokémon card interest. I gradually hanged out more and more there over the next several years, becoming at one point probably my biggest free time sink, where I would make a lot of friends(and briefly compete, and make some money, in competitive Pokémon and Yugioh TCG in the tournament hotbed of Southern California that was close to where I lived). But anyhow, more to the point, I very quickly spotted two arcade cabinets in the front row of the shop:Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 and Street Fighter III:3rd Strike. Both games looked awesome but my mind was drawn to the one that let you build teams and had names I recognized(Mega Man and Iron Man in the same game!?). As a young kid my parents usually didn’t have quarters to give me, so I would just watch the mostly teenagers and adults play what was at the time probably the most graphically advanced video game I had ever seen(my point of reference at the time was playing Pokémon Sapphire on my GBA). Occasionally I would beg the adults for quarters and get rebuffed, sometimes in nicer ways than others. I remember one time in particular I saw a guy get closer to beating arcade mode on his first try than anybody else I had seen so far. On the one hand, I was really exhilarated by his play style and wanted to see the ending screen, but on the other hand, kid me definitely wanted to get a cheap kick out of watching the guy who told me to f-off when I asked for some quarters lose to the final boss. So when he lost to Abyss’ final form, I didn’t say anything out loud but (I will not lie) inside I was laughing so hard.

A couple years passed and eventually I had some spare change of my own to exchange for quarters and start playing the two arcade cabinets for myself. When that happened I learned two things:1)I found the fast pace style of fighting games to be utterly thrilling regardless of my actual skill level 2)Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 was unlike anything I had ever played even within its own genre. It eventually grew into a larger love for the Versus series as a whole, and fighting games in general. I loved everything about this game and I still do:the fighting, the controls, the beautiful spritework, the massive roster with so many options, the atmosphere of the final boss fight that gave you such satisfaction for finally beating it. I even found the cheesy jazz soundtrack that everybody else hated to be very endearing. It’s one of the few games I would categorize into the category of transcending the video game medium and becoming an “experience” unto itself.

In retrospect, the game has a lot of flaws(mainly the character balancing), and at the end of the day it is not the best video game ever by a long shot, but it’s my personal favorite(with a few runner-ups). And I can tell you why:at this point years will pass between my various returns to this game, but whenever I do come back to it, within a couple minutes of booting it up again I can instantly associate a game with an entire era of my life. It’s a time capsule from that late 90’s/early 2000’s era for games that doesn’t exist anymore. Not a better time, but a different time. And it’s fun to reminisce sometimes.