Marvel vs. DC Crisis Wars

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When two worlds clash, nothing will ever be the same!
Marvel vs. DC Crisis War, or just Marvel vs. DC or MvDC for short, is a fighting game developed by Arc System Works in collaboration with 8ing, published by Bandai Namco and supervised by Disney and Warner Bros. This marks the first proper crossover between Marvel and DC since 2004 with the JLA/Avengers comic run (not counting indirect crossovers where both franchises collab with a particular product but not with each other), this game tries to become the biggest celebration possible to the legacy of these two companies, and eventually, comics as a whole.
The game's systems are a unique and strange blend between each franchise's most recognized fighting game (Marvel vs. Capcom from Marvel side and Injustice from DC's) with the usual mechanics common in Arc System Works games guaranting a more distinctive style. Following the tradition of the developers, the game makes heavy use of cell shading to give a comic book aesthetics in the game's art style, using heavily stilyzed models for make them look like actual comics in motion, the selected style resembles (but its not the same as) the ones of Dan Mora and Marco Checchetto. Most character's base designs are original to the game, thought they are mostly a blend of their current comic design and (if any) their life action incarnations.
Gameplay<noinclude>
This is a 2D fighting game with a layout of 3 main buttons separated by strength (Light, Medium and Strong) while also having a fourth button named "Skill" that serves as an unique action for each character, some of them more tricky than others. Certain characters might also have "traits" that are passive abilities like unique types of movement or resistances to different types of attacks.
Special Moves are an important aspect of most fighting games and this one is not an exception, most commands are fairly simple with allegedly the most complex inputs being things like half circles, shoryukens and charge motions, thought there is a "Basic" type of controls for those who either lack the execution or just because you might find this type of controls more comfortable, the Basic type of controls adds an additional button that allows to execute most special moves (thought certain ones might still require an input) thought as a drawback, this button has a cooldown for each special move, even if its a short time its long enough to avoid spamming. Super Moves are easily input using short inputs (mostly quarter circle forward/back) and two buttons, fairly similar to certain Marvel vs Capcom titles. Crisis Attacks are the game's cinematic supers, the character's strongest moves, activated pressing all four bottons at the same time, they are mostly a "win plus" condition since they are very unsafe on block, but most of them are able to combo into to make them more viable.
Super Moves and Crisis Attacks makes use of the Power Meter, the main resource of the game, it can be stacked up to 3 times. Engaging into fight is the universal way to fill it, thought certain characters have their own special ways to both fill it and make use of it asides of the universal ones, this also includes the Burst that allows a defending character to escape of the pressure of an oponente pushing them away. Super Moves usually cost only one meter, thought certain moves will require two or even three; all Crisis Moves require 3 meters.
The game also has the called "Sidekicks", who resembles mechanics like the Kameo system of the recent Mortal Kombat 1 and Marvel vs. Capcom 1 Assists, they are separate of the selectable roster and most of them lacks a playable counterpart, they serve as assistance for the player with each of them having three skills to display and help in the fight, some sidekicks have "Affinity" with other characters, that usually translates with them having special lines or animations within each other thought doesn't actually have any significant difference in gameplay.
A certain event might trigger during the combat when two attacks of certain type collide (usually heavy attacks) against each other named Clash, there a small quick-time event happens where both characters have a confrontation to decide which one "wins" the clash with additional damage, this event will only trigger once per match. All stages have at least one way to interact with them, usually also allows to make transitions around the stage to continue the fight, both Clash and Stage Hazards can be desactivated at will at the game's main menu.
At the start of match both players starts with 2 health bars, with the second one being hidden behind the first one, rounds ends when either of each character's health bar deplete, having a quick transition to the next round without restarting the neutral, thought giving both players free control during the countdown to move around before the proper start.
Certain characters have skins named "Heroic Aspects", these skins are special because they practically change the character for another, including voice lines and sometimes animations (more notoriously their Crisis Attack since all of them are cinematic and cuz changing their animations doesn't make them different to their base character gameplay-wise).
Story Mode: Crisis Wars<noinclude>
The villanous Darkseid was looking through the Source Wall, a construction that divides the multiverse; Darkseid was attracted to this place after finding traces of a essence similar to the Anti-Life Equation, apparently outside the Observable Multiverse. At the same time, the crazy titan Thanos was looking through the same place but from the other side, looking for this same energy (thought without knowing its name), thinking that might be able to bring enough death satisfy his beloved Death. While searching their respective goals, both villains attempted to destroy the Source Wall, leading to a breach that started to merge both multiverses of Marvel and DC into one, notoriously with both versions of the Earth in the "prime" universes of each realm turning into one at force.
At start, most characters where unaware of these changes, thinking that the world was always the way its today, but those with enough power and understanding of the multiverse like Doctor Strange and Doctor Fate knew that something was wrong and started to look through all the universe to team up and find a solution, thought the current world might also have some problems that would require to be resolved first.
During the story, once most heroes have recovered their memories, they discover that Thanos and Darkseid merged into a single entity named "Thanoseid", who now has both the Anti-Life Equation and the Infinity Gems in his power, and now his objective is the Heart of the Universe itself, whose power combined with the Infinity Gems and the Anti-Life Equation will bring destruction to all the multiverse from both dimensions.''
The story mode is divided through 28 chapters, plus a prologue that doubles as a tutorial and the "Side Stories", smaller campaigns that expands the stories of certain characters during the merge giving additional challenge to the player. With the exception of a pair of moments, most of the time you will be forced to play with predeterminated characters, thought all the characters of the base roster would be able to be played at least once.
Certain sections of the story mode aren't 1vs1 fights like most of the game but beat'em up-like sections where the character fights against foot soldiers of different types. There are also 2 bosses outside Thanoseid that the player will fight at certain point of the game, those being Amazo and Fing Fang Foom.
Versus<noinclude>
The main mode for fight against either the CPU or other players, each side selects their prefered character and sidekick, pick a stage and starts the battle. The play can make some configurations to the fight for a better experience, such as toggle on/off certain mechanics, change the maximum time between rounds or activate "custom rules", that allows certain additional settings that will completely obliterate the balance but it will probably increase the fun so it might be worth the try, examples includes have passive recoverable health/power meter or even infinite amount in the case of the later, increase the speed of all fighters (know as "Turbo"), tweak specific gimmicks of certain characters to make them stronger, between others, note that such rules aren't able in Online Mode asides of private rooms.
Characters have pre-fight dialogue at the start of the match, as well to victory dialogue after win (thought unlike the first, not all characters have completely unique victory quotes for each other with some of them only having generic quotes). You can see more of these dialogues here.
Playable Characters<noinclude>
The roster features the total of 60 characters at launch equally divided between the Marvel and DC sides, 8 of them being unlockable in the game's Story Mode (thought you can unlock them earlier either buying the first Season Pass or buying them with in-game currency).
Sidekicks<noinclude>
There are a total of 30 selectable Sidekicks at the start of the game, 15 from each franchise. Sidekicks have palette swaps but not skins. Note that all assists are considered "multiverse variants", so there it might be overlap between them and the playable roster.
W.I.P.
 	
Shocker 	Lois Lane
Crimson Dynamo 	Poison Ivy
Falcon 	Captain Boomerang
Taskmaster 	Killer Moth
Nova 	Krypto the Superdog
Bob the HYDRA Agent	Killowog
Dormammu 	Bumblebee
Valkyrie 	Stargirl
Lockjaw 	Etrigan
Mantis 	Black Lightning
Professor X 	Hourman
Colossus 	Aqualad
Emma Frost 	Red Tornado
Elsa Bloodstone 	Big Barda
Sentinel 	Killer Croc
Stages<noinclude>
At base, the game counts with 24 scenarios (with four unselectable scenarios only used for the story mode), once again equally divided between both franchises. As mentioned before most stages have interactable items, some of them are just funny easter eggs but others have useful functions during the match like being able to hurt the opponent or giving status advantages to the player. Multiple characters might have cameos on these stages either looking at the fight or minding their own business.
W.I.P.
 	
Avengers Tower 	Hall of Justice
Daily Bugle 	Smallvile
Asgard 	The Batcave
Wakanda 	Themyscira
Knowhere 	Oa
Krakoa 	Arkham Asylum
The Bar With No Name	Danny the Street
Sakaar 	Atlantis
Helicarrier 	Tower of Fate
Hell's Kitchen 	Phantom Zone
Danger Room 	Fortress of Solitude
Doomstadt 	Apokolips
Arcade<noinclude>
A solo mode where the player fights against a number of foes one after another before reaching the final fight against Thanos (if you are playing as a DC character) or Darkseid (if you are playing as a Marvel character), and if you have score high enough, you get a final extra fight against Thanoseid who is even stronger than his story version. At the end, each character is recompensated with a special ending that works as some sort of "What If?" of the main story, all of them illustrated as comics.
 	
Spider-Man 	This wasn't Peter's strangest week, but it might on the top 10. Either way, it seemed that all was bout to normal this time, that's what he thought at least until he was hearing at the radio police, it seemed that a group of super criminals had banded together to rob a bank, nothing unusual except that when he finally arrives to the scene, a freezing gun shoots at his feets making him fall; it was no other than the Rogues, that somehow managed to stay in this universe, it seems that the job continues...
Superman 	Superman seals Thanos and Darkseid away at the Phantom Zone, not before retrieving the infinity stones of Thanos' gauntlet. Such power made him reflectionate about the fragility of the world and how there are threats that not even him might be able to fight. Is during this moment that Blue Marvel approaches him, telling to him that he has the same thoughts, but that he has a solution. Some time after we see Superman gathered with heroes from all the multiverse (including but not limiting to Jay Garrick, Mister Terrific, the good Luthor Jr. from Earth-3, Spider-Man 2099, America Chavez, the previously mentioned Blue Marvel and more), reporting their duties while Superman explains that now with all these heroes from all the reality, there it might be a beacon of hope.
Iron Man 	Tony has been looking through some of the greatest minds in this new DC Universe, one of them had gathered his attention, so he is now driving to meet Mister Terrific, both have a discussion related to their inventions until they are interrupted by Iron Monger who is also looking to adquire the technology of Terrifitech, both Iron Man and Mr. Terrific gather forces to fight against him, and after a succesful defense Iron Man has an idea. Some months later Stark Industries announces alongside Terrifitech the creation of the ST-Spheres, the revolution of defense is now.
Batman 	Gotham is the home of Batman, but sometimes he needs to do some visits to people from other cities, this time is for a favor to pay. The Kingpin came back to his penthouse after a party, before he turns the light on Kingpin pulls a gun and shoots at the darkness, but a Batarang makes him drop his weapon, the silhouette of the bat gives him the message that "the Devil sent him". Then he glides with his silhouette over the moon. Fisk seems annoyed and finally turns the lights on, inspecting the place to see what was Batman's bussiness there. After some checkout, he looks through his papers, only to see that the information he had paid about heroes and criminals from the worlds is now gone, Fisk only gives an exasperated look and pulls a cigar.
Captain America 	Cap was supervising the return of all heroes to their respective Earths, but something catches his attention: the dubious Earth-X (the one from DC), a world where the Nazis won the war, not only that, but the register points that Red Skull went there too. With that in mind, Cap teams up with some old friends like Bucky, Falcon, Namor and the original Human Torch alongisde new ones like Uncle Sam, Hourman, Phantom Lady and Midnight; forming a new group of Freedom Fighters ready to fight.
Wonder Woman 	Diana is back to her home after the fight, she was a little tired but she knows that as the Princess of Themyscira she was obligations that she can't avoid, so with the best spirits she lands in the land of the Amazons. Her family and army were waiting her, thought much of her surprise, her mother Hippolyta had news to tell her, and it was that her "friends" came here sooner; Diana didn't understanded at first, but then once she goes to the courtyard she founds various heroines like She-Hulk, Monica Rambeau, Black Widow, X-23, Ms. Marvel, Shuri and Jane Foster (as Thor) waiting her, telling to she that they are here to learn from her how to battle like an Amazon. With a proud smile, Diana accepts and escorts them to the training room to start their lessons.
Thor 	The mighty Thor is back to the realm of Asgard, but he has a bad feeling of the ambient. Quickly, Sif appears who was searching the God of Thunder to inform him: an usurper had appeared; Thor first ask if is once again his cunning brother Loki, but Sif quickly denies it, telling that its like him...but nothing like him at the same time. Thor annoyed by the trouble goes right to the center of the reign to find...Thor? Well, a different Thor from another world thats it, this other Thor is actually quite more confused than agressive, and once he looks to the Thor of this realm, he quickly changes his mood and ask for help. Thor doesn't doubt when is about helping a fellow god, and the both of them departs to the adventure.
Flash 	Flash has been waiting for a while, 36 seconds to be more exact, for a speedster like him it sometimes feels like an eternity, but after that, he arrives. "Ah! Here you are!" exclaims Barry while looking to the man who invited him to a race, it was Quicksilver, thought he doesn't come alone, as Speed comes behind him; Barry was confused, but another seconds after Wallace West, the Kid Flash, comes behind him. Wallace explains to Barry that he and Thomas wanted to participate in this race too, Barry accepts, thought he remarks with quite a smug face that nobody of them will be able to match him, all the others gets fired up after this statement and with all this adrenaline builded, the four speedsters starts a race across the world.
Hulk 	Hulk was looking at the horizon in the desert, minding his businness, until an army appears behind him, at the front, Major Force, a villain of Captain Atom serving to the military. Amanda Waller communicates with Hulk from a speaker telling him to submit to the army in this instant, Hulk exclaimed that he wants to be left alone, so Waller gives to Major Force the order to defeat the Emerald Giant and bring him to her. Hulk furiously rams against Major Force in something that will quickly scale into a gruesome battle.
Aquaman 	Aquaman is at his throne in Atlantis alongside his wife Mera, it was a quiet day after the events, but it gets interrumpted when the kingdom fells under attack. It was the forces of Namor who proclaims that this Atlantis is nothing more than a mock and an insult to the true kingdom of Atlantis and their real ruler (himself). Aquaman doesn't doubt what to do so he quickly grabs his trident and starts a fight against the Sub-Mariner.
Black Panther 	W.I.P.
Green Lantern 	W.I.P.
Captain Marvel 	W.I.P.
Shazam 	W.I.P.
Doctor Strange 	W.I.P.
Martian Manhunter 	W.I.P.
Ant-Man & The Wasp	W.I.P.
Green Arrow 	W.I.P.
Store<noinclude>
The game's store is managed by an original character named Chazz who mostly resembles a typical comic book seller, nerdy and skinny. He sells different class of goods for credits. The most common things that one is able to unlock with credits are the color slots 9 to 16 of each character, certain skins and Heroic Aspects and artworks and concept art of the game. Looking deeper you can also unlock DLC content with this method, while this is quite easier than other games that offers this option, as a drawback you need to individually purchase all the content of the DLC, while buying it with real money unlocks all at once. There are also collectibles in the form of "Action Figures" and "Trading Cards", the former can also be obtained after completing the respective character Arcade Mode and are basically the character's models with a plastic-like texture to make them look like toys for the Diorama Mode (you can also turn off the filter if you prefer the normal models), the later are more important in the mode Card Wars (see below) where they have gameplay functions, but here you can either buy individual cards or buy "packs" with 8 random cards.
The most interesing part of the store however, is the "Legacy" category, that has multiple comics that you can read. While most of them doesn't have the complete arc (with the exception of the JLA/Avengers and Amalgalm runs, as well to a brand new comic made just for the game), there is a notoriously variated supply if you want to learn more of the characters in other ways asides of just looking at their bios.
Here is the list of the comics avalaible, note that not all the comics listed are buyable, with some of them requiring to be unlocked in the Arcade or Story mode instead, but you'll still need to go to the store to read them anyway.
 	
Amazing Fantasy #15 (1962) 	Complete Spider-Man's Arcade Mode.
Action Comics #1 (1938) 	Complete Superman's Arcade Mode.
Tales of Suspense #39 (1963) 	Complete Iron Man's Arcade Mode.
Detective Comics #27 (1939) 	Complete Batman's Arcade Mode.
Captain America Comics #1 (1941) 	Complete Captain America's Arcade Mode.
All Star Comics #8 (1941) 	Complete Wonder Woman's Arcade Mode.
Journey Into Mystery #83 (1962) 	Complete Thor's Arcade Mode.
Showcase #4 (1956) 	Complete Flash's Arcade Mode.
The Incredible Hulk #1 (1962) 	Complete Hulk's Arcade Mode.
More Fun Comics #73 (1941) 	Complete Aquaman's Arcade Mode.
The Fantastic Four #52 (1966) 	Complete Black Panther's Arcade Mode.
Showcase #22 (1959) 	Complete Green Lantern's Arcade Mode.
Marvel Super-Heroes #13 (1967) 	Complete Captain Marvel's Arcade Mode.
Shazam! #1 (1973) 	Complete Shazam's Arcade Mode.
Strange Tales #110 (1963) 	Complete Doctor Strange's Arcade Mode.
Detective Comics #225 (1995) 	Complete Martian Manhunter's Arcade Mode.
Tales to Astonish #44 (June 1963)	Complete Ant-Man & The Wasp's Arcade Mode.
Green Arrow #1 (1983) 	Complete Green Arrow's Arcade Mode.
Tales of Suspense #52 (1964) 	Complete Black Widow's Arcade Mode.
Police Comics #1 (1941) 	Complete Plastic Man's Arcade Mode.
The Incredible Hulk #181 (1974) 	Complete Wolverine's Arcade Mode.
Superman #158 (1963) 	Complete Nightwing's Arcade Mode.
X-Men #1 (1963) 	Complete Cyclops's Arcade Mode.
DC Comics Presents #26 (1980) 	Complete Cyborg's Arcade Mode.
Giant-Size X-Men #1 (1975) 	Complete Storm's Arcade Mode.
Teen Titans #1 (2003) 	Complete Raven's Arcade Mode.
The Uncanny X-Men #266 (1990) 	Complete Gambit's Arcade Mode.
Blue Beetle #1 (2006) 	Complete Blue Beetle's Arcade Mode.
Uncanny X-Men #200 (1981) 	Complete Magneto's Arcade Mode.
My Greatest Adventure #80 (1963) 	Complete Robotman's Arcade Mode.
Card Wars<noinclude>
Card Wars is a special mode where you can make use of your Trading Cards to fight against the CPU in multiple challenges. It has a small story with The Beyonder and Mister Myxlplyx deciding to play a game using the power of the inhabitants of the Marvel and DC universe for it. The menu's layout resembles a board game with sections inspired by the multiple worlds and dimensions of the comics.
W.I.P.
== Trivia ==
* While the proper game names both the main Marvel and DC universes as "Earth-616" and "Prime Earth" respectively, in the canon of both companies these are different earths to those of the main canon, notorious since the game takes interpretations of different versions of the characters.
*While Shazam's IRL first appearence was at Whiz Comics #2 (1940) under the name of Captain Marvel, the game only acknowledge his reintroduction in DC as Shazam in 1973.
**Even if Plastic Man has a similar story to Shazam, whose first appearence was by other company, his first appearence is acknowledged as Police Comics #1. 
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