Marvel Vs Capcom 3: The Secrets

WORLD TOUR

The seven selectable stages in Marvel Vs Capcom 3 all are pulled from various sections of either world, and brim with nods to the wider histories of both universes. Here we break down each stage and what you should look for (aside from that incoming Hyper Combo):

Asgard

Home of Thor and the other Norse Gods. It exists in a different world than Midgard (what we call earth) but is connected via the Rainbow Bridge, which you can see stretching out into the distance in the background.

Demonic Village
Pulled directly from Ghost 'n Goblins series, this stage reflects the opening level of Capcom's tough platformer. You can spot the red gargoyle Firebrand sitting in the hills behind, who will then fly through the level following you. He was one of the bosses in the series, but was popular enough to get his own offshoot adventure series Gargoyle's Quest. Eventually you'll come past the mammoth blue-haired hulk of Asaroth, who is Ghost 'n Goblins main villain and boss.

Kattleox Island

The island is sourced directly from the Mega Man Legends franchise and is home to Tron Bonne and her family of pirates. If she's not part of a match that takes place on this stage she'll appear in the background alongside family head Teisei Bonne (the guy with large spiky hair) and robotic creation Bon. The family's various vehicles are dotted around in the background, and you can see the family airship Gesellschaft flying through the fireworks above the city.

The streets and building behind the fighters are overflowing with Servbots, another creation of Tron and a secret unlockable character in Marvel Vs Capcom 2. Tron build 41 of the little fellas in all - hence why if you fire off her Servbot-rammed Hyper Combo, you'll score exactly 41 hits; one punch from every robot.

S.H.I.E.LD Helicarrier

The Strategic, Hazard Intervention, Espionage Logistics Directorate is Marvel Universe's own US governmental law-enforcement agency, and who's headquarters is a massive flying aircraft carrier, the deck of which you're now duking it out on. S.H.I.E.L.D was run originally by Nick Fury (played by Samuel L Jackson in the Marvel films) until Tony Stark/Iron Man was promoted to agency Director.

Metro City

The streets of Metro City have seen all sorts of violence over the years with Capcom's Final Fight series. Representing the franchise as a player character is ex-wrestler turned Mayor Haggar, hence the inclusion of Metro City as a background. Dotted throughout the stage are members of the Mad Gear gang, who kidnapped Haggar's daughter Jessica in the original Final Fight in 1989. Members Hugo, Sodom and Rolento went on to be playable characters in Capcom's Street Fighter series.

Recognisable is the pink-haired Poison sitting atop a ruined statue of Haggar to the left of the stage, one of the gang's more (in)famous characters, as her character was altered to that of a transvestite for the Western release of Final Fight's SNES port, and subsequently has been the focus of intense speculation over her actual gender.

There's also a nod to the game's car-smashing stage right in the middle of the battlefield, as a gang member jumps atop a police car.

The Daily Bugle

This stage, named after Marvel Universe's most famous newspaper holds the most knowing winks to both worlds. Firstly, the Daily Bugle itself is the newspaper that Peter Parker works, selling his photos of himself as Spider-Man to Editor J. Jonah Jameson (there's a nod to this as one of Spidey's end match poses, as he pulls out a camera to snap a shot of the action).

J.J is notorious for his hatred of the wall-crawler, and one of his paper's most famous (and enduing) headlines can be spotted on a poster in the middle-left of the stage. "Spider-Man: Hero...or Menace?" is one of the paper's main campaigns, and there's another nod to the tabloid printing Peter's photographs in the strapline.

Other posters of note:

The Oscorp sign middle-left, a reference to the company owned and named after Norman Osborn, who's otherwise known as Spider-Man's nemesis The Green Goblin.

Heroes For Hire: a nod to the superhero team originally comprising of Luke "Power Man" Cage and the green and yellow-clad Iron Fist, who'd use their powers to fight more street-level criminals and drug pushers, and take up jobs for cash.

Coffee Bean: Another Spidey nod here, as its the logo and name for a coffee shop that has appeared numerous times in the Spider-Man comics under different guises.

Nelson & Murdock, Attorneys at Law: The law firm formed by two famous Marvel characters, Foggy Nelson and his best friend, Matthew Murdock, the blind lawyer who patrols Hell's Kitchen at night as the vigilante Daredevil: The Man Without Fear.

The Kerry Castle: A shout-out to the irish bar that featured in the Punisher comic series.

Along with poster nods to Iron Man, Hulk and Captain America, there's also nods to Capcom mainstays with posters too - you can spot Morrigan's from the start, and as your fighting platform begins to raise you can spot Chun-Li's as well. Ryu's is on the left, with a reference to his continuing battle with Akuma and the darker side of his powers: "I feel the power inside...what lies ahead?"

About mid-way up in the middle background you can spot the Fantastic Four headquarters - its the skyscraper with the massive '4' atop it.

Hand Hideout

The Hand are an order of ninjas that practice the dark arts,(you can see some kneeling and bowing in the middle background) and have mostly featured in the Daredevil comic series. Their old leader was the red-clothed assassin Electra, who was at one time involved with Matt Murdock. if you move to the left of the stage, you'll see a painting of Akuma and Ryu mid-fight.

Tricell Lab

Essentially Umbrella's successor to the title "evil pharmaceutical company" in the Resident Evil series, this lab is kitted out with cages and holding tubes for a range of biological experiments in an attempt to make the ultimate super-weapon. The most iconic of these being the Tyrant, which was the end boss in the original Resident Evil and has featured prominently throughout the rest of the series. It can be spotted dead centre of the stage's background.

Danger Room

The training sessions take place in the X-Men's very own training room, the Danger Room. Its powerful computer is able to run lifelike simulations of any battle logged and recorded in its databanks, letting the merry mutants practice team strategies. For your time in it with MvC3, you're stuck with the green-glow of a Danger Room in waiting.

ALTERNATIVE COSTUMES

While most characters generate a generic colour palette to distinguish multiple versions of them in a fight, a few from Marvel's side have specially-created alternate costumes in a nod to past garbs.

Spider-Man

Tap Light Attack when selecting the wall-crawler to fit him out in a black and white version of his suit. It first appeared in Marvel's massive crossover event Secret Wars when Spidey's normal duds were ripped in a brawl, only for the web-head to discover the 'costume' was in fact an alien symbiote. Tap Medium Attack for the red and gold Iron Spider costume, a high-tech suit designed by Iron Man for Spidey, which could monitor police bands and extend mechanical spider legs from the suit's back. Hit the Partner 2 button for the black and green Stealth Suit, one of the latest variants of his costume, and lets him be invisible to visual and audio sensors.

Captain America

While one of the more recognisable Cap designs has been limited to the DLC pack - the maskless Steve Rogers: Super Soldier look that the character now carries in the comics, but wielding the World War version of his shield - you do get a cool little extra on the disc. Tap the Partner 2 button to garb Cap in Punisher variant duds - the costume Frank Castle wore to commentate Captain America when Rogers was thought dead a few years ago.

Wolverine

Light Attack for Logan will kit out the X-Man in his black and white black ops suit he wears as part of the shadow team X-Force, who do the dirty work the X-Men can't publicly be seen to do. Medium Attack will deck the Canuckle-head in his classic brown and dark yellow spandex that he wore during the 80s and 90s.

Iron Man

Likewise Iron Man's coolest alternate costume is DLC only - the Iron Patriot design, with its painted on American flag, was worn by Norman Osborn when the former Green Goblin seized all of Tony Stark's assets and Iron Man suits in recent past. But tap Light Attack to wear the silver concept Iron Man armour, before Tony spray-painted the iconic red and gold colours on it. Medium Attack will grant you the same darker colour palette of the Silver Centurion design from the 80s, which was part of the Armour Wars storyline, when Stark discovered his tech was being copied replicated by his rogue's gallery.

Hulk

Hulk as had many different appearances over the years as the gamma radiation that first created him has mutated him further. Before he was his iconic green colour, Hulk had a more grey shade to his skin, as a nod to his Frankstein-style parallels. You can select that with a tap of Light Attack. A few years ago his longtime adversary General "Thunderbolt" Ross underwent experimentation to match Hulk's brawn, and ultimately became the Red Hulk. You can chose the white-eyed monster with a tap of Partner 2 button.

She-Hulk

Like her cousin Bruce Banner, Jennifer Walters has numerous changes over her years as the gamma-enduced she-Hulk. She joined the Fantastic Four for a time, noted by her FF costume with a tap of Light Attack. She's even had a red counterpart, same as the Hulk. Hit the Partner 2 button to turn her into the Red She-Hulk, who was secretly Betty Ross, Thunderbolt's daughter and ex-wife to Bruce Banner and once thought dead. Honestly, its worse than Eastenders at times.

Deadpool

The Merc with a Mouth also has a silver and black variant of his classic garb to signify his time as part of Wolverine's X-Force squad. Tap the Partner 2 button to use it.

DIFFERING DIALOGUES

The pre and post match banter between fighters will differ depending on whether the two starting combatants (and the finishing one) have had any prior history in the Marvel Universe, or if there's some connection between the fighters and their goals from both companies. There's a massive amount to discover, so we're not going to list every last one of them; but here's some of the most notable ones and why they differ from the standard call-outs.

Secret Identities are void
If their secret identity is known to characters in the comics, its reflected in the game. Teammates Captain America and Iron Man will call each other by first name - "Steve", "Tony" - if they're on your team and you swap between them. Likewise Wolverine, Storm and Phoenix will call for Logan, Ororo and Jean when tagging out to their teammates.

Team mates and bitter histories
Likewise, joining up characters from Marvel superteams will signal a different rallying cry come the match's start. Thor, Captain America and Iron Man together will herald the iconic "Avengers Assemble" rallying cry. Go against Galactus as the trio, and the world eater will mention you matter as little "as the Fantastic Four" did - a nod to the Marvel's original superteam who first fought and defeated the giant in their own comic.

Stick Wolverine, Storm and Phoenix together will sound out the more practical "Let's go X-Men, we've a job to do." Wolverine will also call X-23, the female clone of him, by her real name "Laura". Match the two against each other from the start, and X-23 rebuffs Logan's cocky "you don't need to hold back Laura" with a sinister "time to see if the apprentice has become the master."

If you throw Captain America against Iron Man, and set up their two allies to reflect the events of Marvel's Civil War, which pitted superheroes against each other over, the two will utter lines direct from their one-on-one battle from the comic series. Cap's "You think I'm going down to some pampered punk like you?" will be responded to by Iron Man the line "this armour knows your next move before you do." (Note, set this match up online and win and you'll earn an Achievement recognising the smackdown.)

In the same vein, if you set up Wolverine and the X-Men against a team with Master of Magnetism Magneto as the main, Logan and the first ever X-Men villain will acknowledge their twisted past. "Sorry Eric," Wolverine growls, using Magneto's real name, "you're not going to win this one. "How foolish to send a man with metal bones to face me," is the reply. It's a nod to a 90s event that saw Magneto literally rip Wolverine's adamantium, the unbreakable metal bonded to his skeleton, off his bones and through his pores.

She-Hulk and Hulk note their history as well - not only do they call each other Bruce and Jen in battle if on the same team, but opening a match with them facing each other, and She-Hulk remarks "you know what they say - the female is the deadlier of the species".

There's also a range of different call outs between the Capcom characters - set Ryu against Akuma, or Chris Redfield against Wesker, as well as different dialogues between casts (set Captain America against Spencer, or Deadpool against Dante).

Marvellous Mentions

The first match against Galactus pits you against two silver replica versions of the cast, is a nod to one of the heralds of Galactus, the metallic-looking Silver Surfer. The world eater's chosen herald was the scout that would travel through galaxies seeking planets his master could eat.

Tony Stark is a reknown womaniser, which is reflected in the game. If he starts the match facing a female cast member, he'll cast aside smack talk and ask "hey...what are you doing after this?"

Both Iron Man and Magneto have had drastic changes to their voice-overs to make them sound more like their movie counterparts played by Robert Downey Jr and Ian McKellen respectively.

One of She-Hulk's Hyper Combos sees her dodging a fast-moving car, only for it to hit the opponent. It seems a bit bizarre unless you realise ties in with a long-running joke with the character, who always seemed to be involved in car accidents one way or the other.

Phoenix will constantly talk about not being able to contain her power (in one post-match comment she states there's "only one thing you can do for me...") Again, this ties into comic event in the X-Men series that saw Jean Grey eventually become submerged in the Phoenix power and turn into the Dark Phoenix (a version of the character that is playable in the game), only to eventually kill herself in remorse after she comes to again after she destroys an entire planet.

And in what may be one of the greatest nods to both the gaming community and one of the most iconic moments in fighting tournament history, if you defeat Magneto with the fourth wall-breaking Deadpool, the Merc with the Mouth utters the glorious finishing line "I just beat Mag-freaking-NETO. Where your curly moustache at?"

Don't get the reference? Check it out here.

There's plenty more little touches throughout MvC3, but that's for you to find. We'll see you online!