Overview
Marvel vs Capcom 2 has seen many releases. Preppy's excellent "How to Get and Play MvC2" article explains a lot of the details, but here's a summary in order of ease of access of the many versions out there:
- Fightcade 2: Fightcade is a helpful front-end to a few key emulators, including Flycast. You must add in Fightcade JSON so that Fightcade knows where to download ROMs from. It is important to note that as of June 2024, Fightcade updated the Flycast build used for games, including this one, so it may perform better now than in the past.
- Flycast GGPO: A new and popular way to play is emulating the NAOMI Arcade version on Flycast Dojo's GGPO test releases for rollback netcode (or just delay-based netcode also provided by Dojo). A guide to setting up Flycast Dojo's GGPO support is on Mizuumi.
- NullDC BEAR re-implements Flycast's GGPO support & offers alternative delay-based netplay using the older, discontinued NullDC emulator.
- PSN/XBLA ports: Great ports with native GGPO and widescreen support. These were delisted in December of 2013, but the PS3 version remains accessible through unofficial means. Consult's Preppy's article for a guide.
- RPCS3: Uses RPCS3, a PS3 emulator, and RPCN, it's PSN equivalent, to run the PSN port of the game online with rollback.
- Dreamcast/NAOMI: The best way to play the original release is through the Dreamcast home port or a NAOMI arcade board.
- If you do manage to find a NAOMI arcade board Hagure has detailed how to configure settings for the best gameplay and unlock characters.
- If you are using a Dreamcast, it's easiest to start with a version using Jed's hack to unlock all characters. If you don't have that, you can download a fully unlocked Save file and transfer that to your VMU. If you can't do that, your best option is to simply leave your Dreamcast running all the time in Training Mode and then exit and redeem the points every few hours and overnight until you're done.
- Xbox and PS2: These are largely inferior home ports owing to hardware limitations. You can emulate or play on real hardware but they're not representative of Marvel 2's de-facto gameplay. That said, they do offer some small advantages over the arcade and Dreamcast versions, such as having an in-game move list, so if you are willing to accept the shortcomings of these versions, they're still playable- they are simply not optimal.
- The Xbox 360 is backwards compatible with the Xbox port of the game, but it has some issues with sprites glitching out if played in this way.
NAOMI
Arcade Unlock Codes
The Marvel vs Capcom 2 Naomi cartridge when initially plugged only has a subset of the 56 possible characters unlocked. As the machine gains experience through either time passing by (100 pts every three hours) or a token is inserted (10 pts per token), characters and bonus character colors will begin to unlock. While fine when the machine first came out, this is sad for tournament usage. The following codes, gathered from CapCom and Forumer.com, allow the experience levels to be quickly ramped and all characters unlocked. These codes can only be entered if you are able to put the machine into service mode. If your arcade is unwilling to help you with this, your only option would be to feed tokens in, which will likely take you days of constant effort.
You will need to exit out of Test Mode each time in order for the just-entered level jump to apply.
USA Boards
| JUMP TO LEVEL 24 (unlock 16 characters) | Enter Game Test Mode. Move cursor to Demo Sound. Press in order: Assist 2, Assist 1, Roundhouse, Fierce, Short, Jab. Exit Game Test Mode. |
|---|---|
| JUMP TO LEVEL 48 (unlock 8 characters) | Enter Game Test Mode. Move cursor to Damage Level. Press in order: Roundhouse, Assist 2, Assist 1, Roundhouse, Fierce, Roundhouse. Exit Test Mode. |
| JUMP TO LEVEL 72 (unlock 8 characters) | Enter Game Test Mode. Move cursor to Continue. Press in order: Jab, Fierce, Jab, Assist 1, Short, Fierce. Exit Game Test Mode. |
| JUMP TO LEVEL 84 (unlock 4 characters) | Enter Game Test Mode. Move cursor to Difficulty. Press in order: Fierce, Short, Assist 1, Jab, Assist 2, Jab. Exit Game Test Mode. |
Japanese Boards
| Code #1 | Highlight "Sound Mode" and push the following buttons in order. LK HP A2 A1 HK LP. Exit Game Config. |
|---|---|
| Code #2 | Highlight "Difficulty" and push the following buttons in order. HK HP A1 A2 LP LK. Exit Game Config. |
| Code #3 | Highlight "Damage" and push the following buttons in order. LP HP HK A2 A1 LK. Exit Game Config. |
| Code #4 | Highlight "Timer Speed" and push the following buttons in order. HP LK A1 HK A2 LP. Exit Game Config. |
