On Characters As Functions

Oh god, remember this whole debacle? And here in big $CURRENT_YEAR, it doesn’t matter because Marvel vs Capcom Infinite and Beyond exists. As a Magneto player, Ultron gets my seal of approval.

So, Peter “Combofiend” Rosas said some surprisingly inflammatory stuff about characters in Marvel vs Capcom during an interview with GameSpot about the upcoming Marvel vs Capcom Infinite.

“If you were to actually think about it, these characters are just functions. They’re just doing things. Magneto, case and point, is a favorite because he has eight-way dash and he’s really fast, right? So our more technical players, all they want to do is triangle jump and that kind of stuff. Well guess what, Nova can do the same thing. Captain Marvel can do the same thing. Ultron can do the same thing. Go ahead and try them out.

It’s just the function that people are associating with the character, and there’s no shortage of that. We made sure that all proper play styles can be represented with our current roster. The design team has been looking at that very closely. We wanted to make sure that if a legacy character doesn’t happen to make the roster this time, that play style would still be represented. That somebody who has associated themselves with Magneto wouldn’t be lost coming into this title.”
– Peter Rosas, 2017

Pretty much everyone and their mother has seen the comment from the interview in question, as well as posited some kind of thoughts on the matter, usually in opposition to Combofiend’s position. I’m no different, but I’ve decided to consolidate my thoughts here so that no one’s twitter feed has to be clogged up with my massive tweet threads for the fiftieth time, for the love of god please shut up Sleepmode.

Now, here’s my hot take: both sides of the argument are correct in a way. Who’d have thought?

You see, the issue with Combofiend’s statement is not the content of the statement itself, but rather the tone with which he inadvertently took. I mean, this is pretty much marketing spin ordered by Disney. There’s no way Combofiend can just pass off his beloved Whackbot from MVC2 and mean it.

Which brings me to my point. It’s very easy to argue “characters as functions” — there are a ton of competitive fighting game players (myself included, most of the time) that pick characters based on their toolsets, and whoever has the specific toolset the player is looking for is going to get picked, with very little thought going into the character surrounding the kit. Thinking of characters in this way is valid.

Of course, aesthetics can play a major role in character selection, especially in the case of a franchise with enormous pedigree such as Marvel vs Capcom. This situation in particular is somewhat tricky, because the legacy of Marvel vs Capcom (MVC2 in particular) has caused the functions of Magneto to be inextricably tied to the character of Magneto in the collective conscious of the FGC. Marvel vs Capcom Magneto has become his own separate entity from the Magneto from the comics or the movies. And while character function is the priority for many players, aesthetics are the priority for an arguably equal number of players, especially within the Marvel vs Capcom sub-community. Listing off a bunch of characters with eight-way airdashes is all well and good, but calling “curleh mustache” when Nova does some sick trijump instant overhead into unfly combo just doesn’t quite have the same effect.

Combofiend would have upset far fewer people by just omitting the first part of his response to the interviewer’s question. The second paragraph makes his actual point very clear — while they can’t guarantee Magneto himself being in MVCI, the development team has tried to give many characters tools similar to Magneto, so that Magneto players from previous games won’t come in feeling completely lost, and the spirit of the character remains, at least a little.

The problem with Combofiend’s initial response is that it disrespects the legacy of the franchise, as well as the people that love it. While I’m sure this was unintentional, and spurred almost entirely by corporate meddling on Disney’s part, but the entire situation could have been handled a lot better, and taking issue with that handling is more than justified, even though the core of the point is made with the noblest of intentions that Capcom and their corporate overlords are capable of. Probably.