X-Men vs. Street Fighter

What happens when the mutants from Marvel comics clash with the fighters from Street Fighter? You get X-Men vs. Street Fighter — a boisterous crossover that brought a tag-team system into the fighting genre with two characters on a team and the ability to swap them on the fly. With it, Capcom kick-started the whole line of its two-on-two brawlers, which later culminated in the legendary Marvel vs. Capcom series.

The game breathed the over-the-top energy the arcade scene of the time demanded — huge jumps, multiple super attacks, chained combos and effects filling the entire screen. The ability to switch between two fighters and link joint super moves brought a tactical layer as well as a spectacle that was fun to watch even just from the couch.

On home consoles this spectacle ran into hardware limits. While the PlayStation version had to drop the simultaneous presence of both characters on screen due to memory, the SEGA Saturn with an expansion RAM cartridge could offer a fuller and more faithful conversion closer to the arcade original. That is precisely why the Saturn became a renowned platform among fans of 2D fighting games for Capcom crossovers.

The developer was Capcom, which at the time dictated the pace of the whole genre and gradually built a universe of mutual battles among its own and licensed heroes. X-Men vs. Street Fighter is prized today as an important milestone — the moment when the formula that still entertains players today was born.

For collectors, the Saturn version represents a small treasure, because it offers the experience closest to the arcade of the home releases of that generation. It is a pure celebration of comic-book action, exaggeration and the joy of spectacular battles.

Why play it: The founder of the Marvel vs. Capcom formula in its most faithful home form — the Saturn version with a RAM cartridge is a feast for fans of 2D fighting games.