Capcom have been doing very well lately with their core franchises of Monster Hunter, Resident Evil and Street Fighter and thanks to their successes, we’re also seeing them bring back many of their beloved franchises that have been sitting on the bench for too long, with Onimusha set to come back this year, Mega Man finally returning in 2027 and even Okami set to get a brand new title, though currently with an unannounced release window.
This is perfectly in line with polls Capcom ran a few years ago asking fans which franchises they wanted to see come back and one of the top placers was the Vs. series, whether that be Marvel vs. Capcom or Capcom vs. SNK or perhaps even a completely new spin on it. With that in mind, I had a thought — what are some characters Capcom have produced in recent years that would make great fits for a returning the Capcom vs. games?
Although both Marvel vs. Capcom and Capcom vs. SNK are wild in their own ways, my personal favorite title in their Versus game history was Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, so when I’m picturing these characters that’s roughly the kind of gameplay I’m imagining, so it’s worth keeping that in mind as you look through my candidates.
Also, to be perfectly clear this is focusing specifically on characters who were too new to ever be in any of the previous titles. As much as Proto Man is my guy, he’s an oldie and had plenty of opportunities to make the roster which just never came to fruition. So this list will largely be focused on characters who didn’t even exist as of 2017’s Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite. Now, without further ado, let me introduce you to my picks.
Okay, so technically Simon Blackquill is kind of an exception because he debuted in Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies which came out in 2013, earlier than Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, but let me make my case.
Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite had a lot of issues which led to its support being cut short quite early and the fact that they didn’t prioritize Phoenix Wright himself for the base roster makes me feel like you can make an argument that Blackquill never stood a chance despite existing at the time.
If Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite had faced less issues than it did both internally and with its reception, then maybe there would’ve been a world where Blackquill could’ve had a chance to join, but as things turned out here in our reality, I’d argue that he never really had any chance of being eligible.
Now, with the technicalities out of the way, who exactly is Simon Blackquill?
Well, he’s the main prosecutor (that is to say, antagonist) of the fifth Ace Attorney game and more than just being a prosecutor, he’s also a convict.
With his hands constantly shackled, he is still a massively menacing presence and is heavily based on the classical ronin samurai archetype, paradoxically being focused on honor and justice despite his convict status and he will metaphorically slash you in court at any opening you leave him.
On top of that, he has his trusty hawk Taka with him to help him with tasks like delivering evidence or attack insolent defense attorneys, so I think you could make a very creative and fun moveset for him that doesn’t really encroach on the one Phoenix Wright himself was already given in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3.
If we posit that a new Versus game was on the horizon, do I think Blackquill is a likely candidate? No, no at all.
His time in the limelight has passed and Ace Attorney itself has been strangely dormant as well for quite some time now, so including a character from it at all would be a bit doubtful and if they did, there’s very little reason to expect it to be Blackquill.
But even though his timing window has probably been missed for good, he’s my favorite character in one of my top five favorite video game franchises. I legitimately couldn’t make a list like this without giving him the shoutout he deserves.
Menat is an interesting character from Street Fighter 5’s roster because due to her complexity and general gameplay style, she had a fairly low play rate during Street Fighter 5’s lifespan, with most months seeing her in the bottom 3 despite not being a weak character.
That said, play rate is not everything when it comes to popularity. Menat was definitely a well-received addition by most for her uniqueness, personality and just general presence in the game as something unlike what we had previously seen in Street Fighter.
It’s also worth noting that Menat’s zoner type playstyle along with an orb she can place or withdraw as well as her V-Trigger 1 which spawns several extra projectiles she can use to extend her combo is an absolutely perfect fit for something as chaotic as a Versus series game.
Her play rate might still be limited in this scenario, but I do think that it would help her shine even brighter than she already did in Street Fighter 5 to be placed in a more chaotic domain like that. She’s one of the most creative characters Capcom have made for their fighting games in the last decade and it’d be awesome to see that expanded upon further in an even more crazy environment.
Let’s be honest here, I couldn’t make a list like this without including Lady Dimitrescu. This girl basically broke the internet back during the hype train for Resident Evil 8, and while I personally wasn’t all too fond of that game itself, Dimitrescu definitely delivered on what was expected of her.
A large, towering presence who overpowers you effortlessly is a great archetype for a fighting game and it’s also something you rarely see from a female character which would make Dimitrescu stick out even more in a roster than earlier fighters of this archetype did.
It’d also be an easy way to incorporate more Resident Evil characters without having to try and separate between human characters wielding similar weapons.
They already did a good job with that Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 between Chris, Wesker, Resident Evil 5-styled Jill and Nemesis T-Type, and Dimitrescu could add yet another diverse option to that pool, although she definitely would be closer to Nemesis than the others.
Beyond that, she’d also be something of a “new era” pick for the franchise. The character roster was great for Resident Evil in previous titles, but let’s face it — these are all characters who have been around for roughly 30 years at this point, so adding some fresh blood would be a nice palette cleanser.
Given her iconic status among Resident Evil fans, the narrow archetype she could fill and just being a grand representative of modern Capcom, I think she basically ticks all of the boxes and would be a perfect addition for a theoretical new Versus game.
Somewhat similarly to Lady Dimitrescu, Marisa just fit a fairly rare mold and I think that’s a big part of what makes her an interesting prospect for a Versus game.
In her case, she’s already in Street Fighter and has a proper fighting game moveset attached to her and a lot of it is based around armoring through moves or punching through the opponent’s armor (more specifically Drive Impact in Street Fighter 6’s case) which could make her a patented heavy-hitter similar to how Hulk played in the Marvel vs. Capcom series.
Again, this is an area which is fairly unique for a female character which adds that extra flair to her that would be cool to see, especially in team games.
When you’ve got a large roster and are meant to pick multiple characters, you want a wide variety of different characters and playstyles more than ever. There are more than plenty of characters available who you could easily put into a speedy and mixup heavy role, but Marisa is one of a somewhat more unique class that would instead be punching you really, really hard but not need as many openings to do so.
I will admit that when looking over Street Fighter 6’s newcomers, A.K.I. was another candidate I thought would be a fantastic fit for a Versus game, but in such a title I’d expect A.K.I. to be a lot more focused on zoning and doing elaborate poison setups and it felt a bit too similar to Menat, who I already recommended from the Street Fighter franchise, which nudged me further to choose Marisa instead.
While it would’ve been even nicer to have all three, given the sheer wealth of Street Fighter characters available, it feels a bit too much to expect so many new ones to make the cut when we already know and understand that several of the old ones would have to make the cut too.
So in the assumption that we could only get one Street Fighter 6 newcomer, I’d opt for Marisa just because her archetype is a lot more rare and I like having a wide variety of playstyles, especially in more chaotic titles like the Versus games tend to be. But A.K.I. would be a very cool pick too.
Obviously, this one is very much a theoretically cool pick. Pragmata isn’t even out yet! For all we know, it might end up being terrible (though pre-release footage has been looking really good).
For the sake of argument, I’m going to assume that Pragmata delivers and becomes another one of Capcom’s hit games instead of the next Exoprimal, and if we’re operating from that assumption, Hugh and Diana could offer a very unique prospect as a playable duo.
If you haven’t been following the news around the game, Pragmata is a is an action-adventure game where you control Hugh, who comes equipped with lots of weapons and a jetpack (which already sounds perfect for a Versus fighting game — just saying).
The extra twist here, though, is that many of the enemies are robots whose plating can’t be pierced by Hugh’s bullets, which is where Diana comes in.
Diana, an android who is built to look like a young human girl, has the ability to hack into security systems which means that to defeat enemies, you need to activate Diana’s hacking to clear puzzle sequences while simultaneously dodging attacks as Hugh before you can harm your foes.
Now it goes without saying that something like this could probably not be entirely replicated in a fighting game, let alone in a way which would make the duo very fun to play, but you could easily put some fun spins on it which could lead to a very creative playstyle.
Solving puzzle sequences mid-combo via hacking or using hacking sequences in neutral to cause buffs to Hugh or debuffs to the enemy could be a very interesting way of making them work and still stay true to the core concept of their source game Pragmata.
All of this of course hinges on Pragmata actually turning out to be a good game and we won’t really know if that’s the case until it releases on April 24th of this year, but based on the footage we’ve seen so far I’m going to go out on a limb and think that Capcom have something pretty cool on their hands.
Hopefully, that turns out to be the case and we can see this cool duo make a splash in a Versus game once Capcom decides it’s time to revive that series. Onimusha, Mega Man and Okami all placed high in their polls and they’re all coming back. Versus was right behind them in the rankings so… hopefully?
Whether it ends up being a new Marvel vs. Capcom, a Capcom vs. SNK, something unexpected or even just a straight up Capcom vs. Capcom, I just want some of that wild gameplay with crazy moments back.
I really hope Capcom have something cooking and to be honest, all of their recent moves seems to suggest that they very well might be hard at work in the kitchen.