X-Men vs. Street Fighter

X-Men vs. Street Fighter (known as XSF to Street Fighter fans) is an arcade game released by Capcom in 1996 and is the first game in the Marvel vs. Capcom series of fighting games. It features characters from the X-Men franchise and characters from the Street Fighter game series.

It was the first game to blend a tag team style of combat with the well-known Street Fighter gameplay, as well as incorporating elements from Capcom's previous fighting games in the Marvel Comics franchise, X-Men: Children of the Atom and Marvel Super Heroes. It was also ported to the Sega Saturn in 1997 and PlayStation in 1998. However, the tag team system was omitted from the PlayStation version due to memory limitations.

Due to insufficient beta testing, every character in this game has at least one infinite combo; ironically, it is nevertheless praised by some Street Fighter fans as being the most "fun" entry of the four Marvel vs. Capcom games for precisely this reason.

Gameplay
X-Men vs. Street Fighter uses a system similar to the style developed in Marvel Super Heroes, and adds the tag team gameplay feature. Instead of picking one character, a player picks two. The starting character can then tag the waiting one in at any time by hitting the Fierce and Roundhouse buttons, which activates the "Variable Attack"; the incoming player will jump in with an attack and taunt briefly. During their taunt, they are vulnerable to counter attack.

There are other ways to bring your other character in; the "Variable Counter", which replaces the Infinity Counter of Marvel Super Heroes, breaks your block to bring your teammate in with a counter attack at the cost of a level of super meter. Also, the "Variable Combination" is a two-character super attack which costs two levels, and will switch your character as long as neither character gets hit during their super moves.

Unlike some other tag team games such as Tekken Tag Tournament, X-Men vs. Street Fighter requires both characters to be defeated in order to win the match.

The X-Men characters come largely unchanged from X-Men: Children of the Atom and Marvel Super Heroes, with the exception of Rogue, Gambit and Sabretooth, who were new to the series. The Street Fighter characters used their Street Fighter Alpha forms and their moves were given upgrades to match the larger-than-life atmosphere of the Marvel games (for example, Ryu's Hadouken is much larger than it is in other games).

X-Men characters

 * Cyclops [[Image:Cyclops_breath.gif]]
 * Wolverine [[Image:Wolverine_breath.gif]]
 * Storm [[Image:Storm-better-stance.gif]]
 * Rogue [[Image:Rogue_breath.gif]]
 * Gambit [[Image:Gambit_breath.gif]]
 * Magneto [[Image:Magneto-hands-stance.gif]]
 * Juggernaut [[Image:Juggernaut_breath.gif]]
 * Sabretooth [[Image:Sabretooth_breath.gif]]
 * Apocalypse

Street Fighter Characters

 * Ryu [[Image:Ryu-good-original-stance-sfa.gif]]
 * Ken [[Image:Ken2.gif]]
 * Chun-Li [[Image:Chunny-original-stance1.gif]]
 * Charlie [[Image:Sf-charlie2.gif]]
 * Dhalsim [[Image:Dhalsim.gif]]
 * Zangief [[Image:Sf-zangief.gif]]
 * M. Bison [[Image:Bisonalphastance.gif]]
 * Cammy [[Image:Cammy-s1.gif]]
 * Akuma [[Image:Akuma4.gif]]

Version 1 (960909 in Japan, 960910 outside of Japan)

 * Ryu and Akuma are able to recover from their hop kick in midair.
 * Ryu's Hurricane Super will push the opposing player down, allowing the player to recover.

Version 2 (961004)
The most common version found in arcades


 * Ryu and Akuma can not recover from their hop kick.
 * Ryu's Hurricane Super pushes the opposing player up rather than down.
 * Sabretooth's Jumping Infinite is now a bit more difficult to time.
 * Dhalsim is no longer able to do a Yoga Drill the instant he leaves the floor. He actually has to jump a small distance before the Drill will come out.

Version 3 (961023)
Capcom released this version in an attempt to remove all the Infinites they knew of.


 * Storm cannot use her Lightning Attack multiple times without landing between attacks.
 * Cyclops' aerial Fierce and Juggernaut's aerial Fierce and Roundhouse pushes the player straight down.
 * Wolverine's Drill Claw does not throw the opposing player across the screen.
 * Storm's Lightning Attack no longer causes enemies to fall on their backs, so she cannot hit enemies with all three hits one at a time (separately), thus eliminating her Lightning Attack Infinite.
 * Storm's Jumping Fierce, when used as an Air Combo Finisher, knocks her opponents in more of a downward arc rather than an outward arc, making her repeating Fierce-Roundhouse Air Combo not possible anymore (though an equally effective alternate combo exists).
 * Magneto can no longer throw the enemy upwards with his kick throws, preventing him from Air Throwing the enemy upwards and then Hyper Graving them on their way down.
 * Chun-Li's recovery period from her Senretsu Kyaku is no longer invincible (she can be hit during her delay, whereas before, everything would go right through her).
 * Dhalsim's Drills all now have a half second delay before they come out after you hit the button. This delay was enough to eliminate his Drill Infinite Combo.
 * Dhalsim's Teleport Recovery is no longer vulnerable at the end, preventing all of the Dhalsim-only Combos from occurring.

Home Versions
X-Men vs. Street Fighter was ported to the Sega Saturn in 1997 and the Sony PlayStation in 1998.

For the Saturn version, the game required a 4 MB RAM cart (which was packed with the game). This version is a 100% perfect arcade translation and retains all of the arcade's animation. It was released in Japan only.

For the PlayStation version, because of the PS1's poor sprite capabilities, as well as low system RAM, this version had to make sacrifices for the game to work on the PS1. Notable absences include several frames of animation being cut, slow gameplay, and the game's key feature, "true" tag-team gameplay, was removed (though a limited version of this appears via a code).

Reception
The PlayStation port of the game did not receive particularly favorable reviews, earning a "passable" 6.0 at IGN and a "bad" 3.6 at GameSpot.

The Saturn version received better reviews, getting a 7.4 "good" review at GameSpot.