Though the 2022 compilation, Capcom Fighting Collection, did a great job of showcasing the Japanese publisher’s absolute mastery of the arcade fighting game, there were some notable gaps in the games it featured. The Darkstalkers games, along with Cyberbots and Red Earth, demonstrate Capcom at their most outlandish and, at their creative height, with their own casts of in-house created characters, but there were some very important steps in getting to some of those games which were omitted.

Of course, the Street Fighter titles were covered in their own, separate collection, but Capcom’s Marvel-themed titles were nowhere to be seen, with licensing issues playing a part in their absence.

With the somewhat unwieldily titled Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics, however, those gaps are now mostly filled.

And what a collection this is. Kicking off with a 1994 X-Men game that brilliantly showcases each character with stunning pixel art and animation that has aged beautifully, we then head beyond the fully mutant cast into the fantastic Marvel Super Heroes, which was released the following year, with an extended selection of characters such as the beloved Spider-Man.

X-Men vs Street Fighter emerged in 1996, and pitted the mutants against the eclectic characters from Capcom’s Street Fighter saga. Almost unbelievably, the fourth game in as many years came out in 1997, with the superb Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter, and the following year saw the biggest crossover yet, with Marvel vs Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes.

Aside from the annual release schedule, the most impressive thing with the first five games is how they somehow keep upping the ante in terms of their artwork, animation and increasingly vertiginous,vertical stages and moves, as well as shifting from 1v1, to 2v2 and even 3v3 gameplay. For me, the peak of the series is Marvel vs Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes, which has the most beautiful pixel art and animation, not to mention an impressively large cast, and fantastic, screen filling super moves and sprites that are genuinely impressive to this day.

I’m no fighting game purist, or expert, but I was less enamoured with Marvel vs Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes. Arriving in 2000, giving the series a year off in between, it has 3D stage elements that have, in some cases, aged pretty badly and the character sprites can sometimes look like flat cut outs against them. The gameplay isn’t quite as smooth as in the first MvC game, in my opinion, either. Though it’s very far from a bad game, I just don’t think it quite reaches the height of the original Marvel vs Capcom title.

The last game to feature in this collection isn’t a fighting game at all, but it is a Marvel/Capcom collaboration. The Punisher, a classic, early 90s, side scrolling beat ’em up from the absolute masters of the genre at Capcom hasn’t been seen on a home console since an understandably cut down 1994 Mega Drive/Genesis port, so the inclusion of the full arcade game is most definitely welcome here.

All games benefit from accessibility options such as one button specials, and remappable controls; save states also feature to make getting through each game less of a slog.

A museum of production images and artwork also features, as do arcade marquees showing special moves and game information. Online play is also available for every game here too.

It’s a phenomenal collection of superb games; if you grew up frequenting arcades like I did, you’ll probably have an awful lot of nostalgia just seeing the attract screens play out; getting to play these titles in their original forms, with no concerns about poor ports to underpowered machines in relation to their arcade originals is pretty priceless in my opinion.

Once more, we have another collection of incredible Capcom games that demonstrate their mastery of yet another genre; in the 90s, they barely put a foot wrong when it came to their arcade games, and this was at the same time that they were dropping home exclusive classics such as the Resident Evil games.

Arcade and fighting game aficionados will already know what an essential collection this is, and it’s definitely one to add to the library alongside Capcom’s other, near-flawless compilations.

Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics is out now on PS4, Switch (though be warned that the Nintendo version is not on a physical game card; it’s just a download code in the box) and Steam.