Its hard to believe that X-Men vs. Street Fighter came out 30 years ago. X-Men vs Street Fighter was a legendary crossover arcade fighting game that does not get nearly enough credit that it should. X-Men vs Street Fighter was a game that took characters from two very popular franchises during the mid 90’s and put them in one game in an effort to appeal to causal gamers. The gameplay for X-Men vs Street Fighter felt like an extension of the Marvel Super Heroes from ’95 along with mechanics that resembled the Street Fighter Alpha games in relation to super gauges and super moves. X-Men vs. Street Fighter was a game that had no real in-depth story other than the fact that Apocalypse from X-Men was the main antagonist. The game was loaded with iconic characters from both X-Men and Street Fighter including Ryu, Cyclops, Wolverine, Ken, Magento, Storm, Chun-Li, etc. X-Men vs Street Fighter has been often viewed as a game that revolutionized the 2D fighting genre of gaming.

Before the mid 90s the idea of a 2D tag-team fighting game was almost unheard of. Being able to switch characters mid fight was an amazing feature that eventually lead to the growing popularity of the Marvel vs Capcom series. Also, everything about X-Men vs Street Fighter looked great including the gameplay, graphics, voice overs and even the character themes which are considered to be timeless. X-Men vs Street Fighter was a title that could be credited for revitalizing the 2D fighting genre of gaming during a time period where people were starting to lose interest. During the mid 90’s 3D gaming was new and starting to become more popular on consoles like PS1, N64 and Sega Saturn.

In the mid 90’s 3D fighting franchises like Virtua Fighter and Tekken were still within their primitive stages in terms of polygonal graphics. X-Men vs Street Fighter looked more polished as a fighting game during the mid 90’s because how much 2D gaming had evolved. X-Men vs Street Fighter came out during a time period where Capcom was doing their some of their best working in relation to the fighting genre. In fact, despite having a story-driven arcade mode X-Men vs Street Fighter was far more fun than Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite from 2017. X-Men vs Street Fighter may have been a commercial failure during its release but its still one of the most memorable arcade fighting titles of the 90’s decade.