Marvel Vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics is a monumental compilation of the original collaborative titles from these iconic companies. Although Marvel Vs Capcom 2 is the entry everyone’s most wanted, we do get to see the magic from prior games in the series. And a majority of them feature secret characters! We’ve got the details on how to find them all.
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Some of the secret characters here are palette swaps, with just a few differences from the character they’re based on. Others can be entirely different fighters, such as bosses or even guest characters. I’ll be going over how to play as every one of these hidden fighters in this guide, in addition to providing a small breakdown of what makes each one unique.
Where to find character unlock instructions in-game
This may come as a surprise, but the necessary steps to play as nearly every secret character are available in the game. They’re just a little bit buried within some menus.
Head to the main menu, and then select Fighter Awards. You’ll then need to press the button labeled Toggle Player Progress Page in the bottom right corner. This will take you to the specific awards for each game, which are simply to complete a run with each character. Scroll through and you’ll notice some awards with “???” on them—these are the secret fighters. Press the How to Use button to find specific directions for unlocking them.
As helpful as it is to have these hints readily available, you can only access them from the main menu. Feel free to return to this guide if you need a quick refresher while you’re choosing your characters!
What does Easy Select mean?
Whether you’ve looked at the instructions on the Player Progress Page, or went straight to the Game Settings to tinker around, you likely noticed that most six games have a setting called Secret Characters. They’re all set to Easy Select by default, which is what this guide will be assuming you’ve left enabled. However, you might be a little confused about what that or the other options mean.
Easy Select means that you can choose secret characters without needing to use any complicated inputs. There might still be some extra-simple inputs, but you’ll usually just need to move off the character select portraits.
Original Select means that it functions similarly to later releases, or a different setting back on the arcade version. Only some secret characters might be selectable, and even then it will likely require a complicated input.
Disabled is the last of the common options, and it means there are no additional fighters available to choose from. You’ll be limited simply to what’s available on the character select.
X-Men: Children of the Atom Secret Characters
The first and earliest game in this compilation is X-Men: Children of the Atom. Its three secret characters include two bosses and a guest from the Street Fighter series.
- Juggernaut – Highlight Cyclops and press up for the Juggernaut. He’s incredibly slow, but makes up for it with specials and supers that take out huge chunks of an opponent’s life bar.
- Magneto – Highlight Omega Red and press up for Magneto. As the final boss, he’s the cheapest character by far. Strong moves, a shield super that nullifies most attacks, and a regenerating super meter are just some of his highlights.
- Akuma – Highlight Wolverine and press up for Akuma. He doesn’t have a sprite image of his face, so you’ll know you’re good once there’s no face image on your side. This version of the character is pretty close to how he is in Super Street Fighter II Turbo, only with a unique counter super and the debut of his Tenmakuujinkyaku dive kick. One glaring caveat is that his health is very low, so be sure to keep note of that.
Marvel Super Heroes Secret Characters
Next on the list is Marvel Super Heroes. Just like the previous title, this game’s hidden characters include two bosses and one character from a Capcom series.
- Doctor Doom – Highlight Wolverine and press up for Doctor Doom. As the sub-boss of this game, he’s naturally very powerful. His specials and supers deal incredible damage, and he can fly too.
- Thanos – Highlight Magneto and press up for Thanos. He’s the final boss of the game and you’ll feel like one when playing him. Thanos has six different supers, one for each Infinity Gem he wields. You’ll be able to use them pretty often too because he builds up his super meter very quickly.
- Anita – Highlight Spider-Man and press up for Anita. Based on a side character from the Darkstalkers series, Anita is a test character that was initially only available in the Japanese version. She’s unfinished and pretty broke, with plenty of rough animations and a super that can take out nearly all of your opponent’s health.
X-Men vs Street Fighter Secret Characters
There’s only one hidden character in X-Men vs Street Fighter and it’s someone from a previous game in this compilation. There’s no Easy Select option for this title, but that’s fine because it’s easy to play this elusive fighter.
- Akuma – All you need to do is press up while looking at anyone on the top row of the character select screen. He’s based on his appearance in Street Fighter Alpha 2, so you have all the typical fun Akuma tools and the legendary Raging Demon super. His trademark low health is also here, so I suggest playing offensively but carefully.
Marvel Super Heroes Vs Street Fighter Secret Characters
Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter has the highest number of secret fighters, although most are palette swaps. A couple of them don’t change anything gameplay-wise, but the rest offer unique properties.
- U.S. Agent – Highlight M. Bison and confirm the character while holding the start button. He’s a palette swap for Captain America who plays the same.
- Armored Spider-Man – Highlight Spider-Man and confirm the character while holding the start button. He has one hit of armor and doesn’t jump quite as high, but otherwise plays the same as the web crawler you know.
- Mephisto – Highlight Omega Red and confirm the character while holding the start button. He’s a palette swap for Blackheart and the primary difference is that his attacks set opponents on fire. That being said, this is purely a visual change and the fire doesn’t do any extra damage.
- Dark Sakura – Highlight Hulk and confirm the character while holding the start button. This is much more than a simple palette swap for everyone’s favorite spunky shoto. She ends up borrowing some moves from Akuma, including air fireballs, and even gets her own Raging Demon variant.
- Mech-Zangief – Highlight Blackheart and confirm the character while holding the start button. If you hate playing defensively, this is the character for you. Mech-Zangief gains permanent hyper armor at the cost of blocking and an acceptable jump height.
- Shadow – Highlight Dhalsim and confirm the character while holding the start button. Following what happened in his ending in X-Men Vs. Street Fighter, this is a souped-up version of Charlie. He’s faster and his supers hit a lot harder.
- Cyber-Akuma – Highlight Akuma and confirm the character while holding the start button. The final boss of the game is pretty much a busted version of Akuma, so you can have a lot of fun playing Cyber-Akuma. All of his moves come out quicker and in most cases a lot stronger too. He can even perform a Raging Demon in the air for some ungodly reason.
Marvel vs Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes Secret Characters
Every secret character in Marvel vs Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes except for one is a palette swap. Even then, that one outlier still shares moves with someone else on the roster.
- Hulk (MSH Version) – Highlight Ryu and press up to use Hulk (MSH version). Commonly called Orange Hulk by fans, this version is meant to play similarly to the big green guy in Marvel Super Heroes. It’s not the same though, as there are some obvious changes to move properties. Other notable differences include no super armor and faster movement.
- Hyper Armor War Machine – Highlight Zangief and press up to use Hyper Armor War Machine. Just like Mech-Zangief from the previous title, this palette swap of War Machine has hyper armor but can’t block or jump that well.
- High-Speed Venom – Highlight Chun-Li and press up to use High-Speed Venom. Commonly called Red Venom by fans, even though he’s obviously orange, this palette swap is the most precarious to play. His movement and attacks are incredibly fast, which is balanced out by him taking nearly double the damage from attacks.
- Roll – Highlight Mega Man and press right to use Roll. She’s the only one who isn’t a palette swap and has her own sprites, but her moveset is technically the same as Mega Man. To be more precise, she’s worse than Megaman due to low damage and lengthy delays for her attacks. Roll is a gag character in this game like Dan Hibiki, only less viable and a lot cuter.
- Shadow Lady – Highlight Gambit and press down to use Shadow Lady. Arguably the most distinct hidden fighter, Shadow Lady is a visual palette swap of Chun-Li with unique robotic moves. This includes a triple jump, an air dash, missile attacks, and turning her hands into a giant drill.
- Morrigan (Lilith) – Highlight War Machine and press down to use Morrigan (Lilith). The only reason to use her will be if you want a team with two succubi. Aside from a more accessible air dash, this palette swap suffers from a worse fireball and worse supers.
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Marvel vs Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes Secret Characters
The original arcade release of Marvel vs Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes required characters to be unlocked through an experience system. While that isn’t replicated within this collection, settings to unlock them through groups are. That is what the Secret Characters setting changes for this title. The default setting is “All groups enabled” and I recommend leaving it at that.
That covers every secret character in Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics. There unfortunately aren’t any secret characters in The Punisher, but you should still play that anyway.