Also almost all assists only serve to extend combos.
^ That's why most assists suck. The assists that win games are those that fill the screen with hitboxes, those that give you a gtfo move, or Morrigan. The reason that Viewtiful Joe player won Final Round XV was because nobody could get around Rocket Raccoon's log trap, yet log trap certainly isn't much of an easy combo extender.
The "randomness factor" (First hit wins games) has always been a criticism of this title. I personally think that solid team building prevents it. The strategy is in getting that first hit. It doesn't matter if you can kill a character with one hit and I can only kill yours with three if I'm the one getting the hits 80% of the time.
It's why Morrigan is so damn good; with meter she can fill the screen with more bright projectiles than a Touhou character, killing you with the chip damage and preventing you from getting in.
Fight. Struggle. Endure. Suffer. LIVE.
"[T]he game becomes less of a strategy-fighter and more of a first hit wins game." Umm... it still takes plenty of strategy to get the first hit. Knowing all the one-touch kill combos in the game doesn't mean a thing if you don't have the skill to get the first hit.
I can understand why you don't like it. The game is brutal and unforgiving. Mistakes are heavily punished. But "random" is pushing it, and saying that playing the game lacks skill is just flat-out wrong.
I fully agree. I generally disliked Capcom's fighting games mainly because of the stupidly long combos. Literally, the only strategic element is in the beginning of the game where you're trying to get a first hit. Once you initiate the combo, you're pretty much set. I generally preferred fighting games like Mortal Kombat, where even if you initiate a combo, it's not going to be game over immediately, meaning there's more strategy than just getting the first hit and then make sure you don't screw up your timing. Yes, Mortal Kombat can have some really long and damaging combos as well, but most aren't going to drain your entire life bar, and you can still make a comeback.
BTW, another good game series that's relatively think-on-your-feet strategic is the Godzilla fighting game series by Atari. In those games, you play as giant monsters in a huge city, meaning that there's pretty much no chance in getting any long combo, and most of the fighting is focused on figuring out the correct move to attack at the correct time.
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Could have been great.
This could have been the best fighting game ever. When I first started playing the game, I was having a blast. It was flashy, colorful, insane! Aesthetically, I think it's the wildest game out there, the insanity could only compare to the Super Smash Bros games. The only thing I didn't like was the comic book motif in Ultimate MVC, it felt a little tacked on. (The character select screen and the menu screens are both in Comic Book style) Gameplay is good. I like being able to pick three characters, it felt like there was more strategy involved. Also almost all the characters plays very differently, if not, it was a slight variation on the character's. Even more insane is the assist type each character has (which is 3). This means that every team is different each time. One thing I don't like about fighting games are endless combos. I don't mind a short combo but Marvel VS Capcom 3 can go up to 100 combos. Sometimes even more. This is ridiculous, I remembered this one game I had with this person online who was obviously waaay better than me and as soon as the game started, he managed to hit my guy, and yup! That's it, my guy is dead from a 100-or-so hit combo. I don't consider this to be amazing or anything, I just consider it an over glorified KO that was blessed upon by what I assume is inhumane reflexes. I guess it's amazing, and this person should be very proud of himself, but it's just that this game has such a good concept, a 3-on-3 fighting game, that's genius! But unfortunately once you become insanely good at it, the game becomes less of a strategy-fighter and more of a first hit wins game. This game is for you if you are into pulling off long combos but for everyone else, I think you can do better. This is too bad, because I used to be a turned based Tactical RPG fan and to me, this fighting game was a think-on-your-feet strategy game, but that strategy was only an illusion, the real test is finding the longest combo (Read:Infinite) and exposing it.