Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Ryota Niitsuma interview and list of known cards

Q - Any chance of DLC stages?
A - Right now we aren't really thinking about stages as DLC.

Q - When can we see an update on Rocket Racoon and Frank West since there isn't a big show between now and when the game is released?
A - There's not much time before the game comes out we're looking at hopefully the beginning of November.

Q - When will we see other Phoenix Wright alternate colors and will they be shoutouts to other games like his Miles Edgeworth color?
A - The other ones will be shoutouts to things related.

Q - What does the Heroes and Heralds DLC entail?
A - It will be available post launch as free DLC, we wanted to add something different to the fighting game elements of Marvel vs Capcom. So what it's this card battle game, you have to collect these cards and they will assist you in fighting. The more you win the more of these cards you get, you can use three different cards in one match and you'll gain special abilities that you normally don't have. So you'll be able to play the game in a different way than you'd normally play, the more you win the more cards you get and then you can use those cards in the battles online. Basically this mode will be an online, there will be offline elements but mainly it's an online mode where you go online and split into two teams and you battle each other, these cards are going to make it more interesting.

Q - Is there some sort of prize or bonus for winning the week battle?
A - There will be bonuses for the team that wins and your results will be posted on the leaderboards.

Q - Does Niitsuma-san have a preferred team with the current build in Ultimate?
A - It's really hard to narrow down a good team. So I'm going to try to restrict it to what my favorite team is using the new characters in Ultimate. It's really hard but it goes down to my personal preference, I like using Dr. Strange, Ironfist and Vergil.

Q - When going online with Heroes and Heralds mode is there a way to play with friends or just random people online.
A - Basically because the mode doesn't really work like that, since you're breaking up into the two factions and fighting it's not like you're on the same team, but you and your friends can choose to be on the same side then you and your friends are working together along with everyone else on that side to become the winner.

Q - Do the cards have a timer before you can use them again in a match or are they always active?
A - That's a good question we're actually fine tuning that now, more information soon.

Q - Can you give examples of some of the cards?
A - The fans probably didn't get to see the video we showed at the panel but some of the things we showed were like X-Factor burst, invisiblity, speed increase, super armor and projectile invincibility.

Q - Is there a way to fight your friends online?
A - There will be something like that we'll have something you can go online and fight your friends to see which persons card combination wins.

Q - Has there been any reaction from the show floor about Nova or Phoenix Wright?
A - The reaction has been great, Nova is kind of like your standard all around balanced fighter. People seem to be liking that you can use his red life for more damage on his hypers. The reaction for Phoenix Wright has been pretty good for the people who played him, especially for the fans of the Ace Attorney series with all the in jokes and stuff in there so the people that know the series like him.

Q - How did you go about deciding how Phoenix Wright plays, were there any challenges in decided his different modes or if the idea of gathering evidence in the middle of a fight would slow it up?
A - When we were thinking about Phoenix Wright all the movements and animations wasn't something you had really seen in Ace Attorney so we really had to think through them all on our own to figure out how we wanted them to work. We looked at the Ace Attorney games and we looked at flow of the game, it's a very story driven game of course with him gathering evidence. So we wanted to incorperate that into the game so it was the Phoenix Wright that people know. We looked at the source material and tried to ease it into a fighting game to see how that'd work. Since he's not much of fisticuff character didn't want to show him punching and kicking as much, so we hit on the idea to use what he does in the series.

Q - Stream users say Asura from Asura's Wrath would be a good fit in the game.
A - Asura is pretty over the top and I think he'd make a good fit, but it'd be a real pain to make him fit in the game and his own game hasn't come out yet.

Q - How many missions will be in the mission mode?
A - It won't be that much different from the original Marvel vs. Capcom 3 but we did create new missions based on the new characters and of course we fixed and tweaked a few things from the last game.

Q - Any Marvel characters you first saw and didn't think was very interesting then once the game progressed you were interested in?
A - We didn't really think while we were making that any of the characters were boring, when Marvel gave us the list of characters a lot of them we didn't know much about so we had to research them. Doing that research gave love to the characters, once we started doing research we were like, "Oh yeah we like these characters," but there was nothing during the dev process.

Q - When can we see an update on Rocket Racoon and Frank West since there isn't a big show between now and when the game is released?
A - There's not much time before the game comes out we're looking at hopefully the beginning of November.

Q - In Heroes and Heralds mode is there any cards that change a character aesthetically or is it all abilities and gameplay adjustments?
A - The cards won't change the way the characters looks, just the abilities.

Q - Thor's main attack in the comics, cartoons and movies is throwing Mjölnir, was there a reason why the act of him throwing his hammer wasn't integrated more?
A - I think it's just a matter of variation and stylistic choices. We didn't set out to avoid putting that into the game it's just for the type of character he is we felt the other moves seemed to fit better for him and of course Marvel overseen the creation of the Marvel characters, they liked what we had done with Thor and we didn't see a need to add something where he throws the hammer and I think it's a good choice.

Q - Why make it so you can't cancel Iron Man's airdash?
A - We wanted to make the game more balanced so we tweaked that in turns of overall balance. In terms of gameplay the team thought if you're going to do an air dash you have to commit to it.

Q - Is the netcode any different?
A - In addition to spectator mode we overhauled the online features so matching is much easier than before things like that. We made sure to go and improve the overall online aspects of the game.

Q - Will there be a change list released and if so when will it be released?
A - We aren't going to list up everything, it'd take away some of the fun of finding things and we want to keep that element alive. Before the game is out, we want to release some information on every character so fans can see some of the major features that have been changed.

Q - At Evolution 2012, do you see a character really standing out?
A - I actually think it's too early to tell, I think all of the characters have an ability to stand out but it all depends on the players.

Q - Will the preorder costume packs be available as DLC later?
A - It will be made available to everyone else at a later date.

Q - Any bonus for the people who purchased Marvel vs. Capcom 3?
A - There's going to be a little something, it's not going to be a major thing.

Q - What's the likelyhood of adding some of the obscure assists from Marvel vs. Capcom 1 into Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3?
A - There's so many of them it's hard to even think about who everyone was from that game. A lot of those characters will be making appearences in the ability cards though.

Q - Why doesn't Dr. Strange have an air dash even though he can fly?
A - When it comes down to decisions like that it comes down to balance. I'm sure we looked at it at one point but we decided it wouldn't work with the overall game.

Q - Is there plans for new costumes not counting the preorder ones?
A - Definitely it's not just limited to the costume packs that come with the preorder, we plan on having costumes for all the characters.

Q - Were characters like Hayato and Jin ever considered for Marvel vs. Capcom 3?
A - I think the simple answer comes down to balancing the overall game. We didn't set out to avoid characters but there were a list of characters we wanted to include in the game and as you include those characters the list of remaining characters we could include got smaller. We didn't set out to say these characters aren't going to be in.

Q - Was Loki (Thor's brother) ever considered as a character?
A - He was never in the planning stages where we were considering him. We just had a bunch of Marvel characters.

Q - Will Hsien-Ko be a better character?
A - We tried to go back and tweak all the original characters for Ultiamte so we did change some things to her.

Q - Why was Dr. Doom buffed when he already so good?
A - It's hard to say what vantage point who's gotten stronger and what not. In fighting games it's about technique and not power per se, it's hard to say if Dr. Doom's going to get stronger this time out. We did make some tweaks to him just like everyone else especially in terms of balance for the overall game.

Q - Are there any characters that you wanted to put in that didn't fit or come about?
A - There's a lot of characters you'd want to put in but for whatever reason you just can't put in. I'd like to put more Dalkstalkers characters in cause I really like the series. There's so many Mega Man characters I'd like to put in too, but due to moves overlapping or balance issues, you can't put them all in obviously. On the Marvel side there was quite a lot of characters from Marvel vs. Capcom 2 that we wanted in, but Marvel had a priority on certain characters for whatever reason.

Q - Have you thought about yourself and Stan Lee in the game?
A - I've been getting that question since the original Marvel vs. Capcom 3 came out, instead of putting me in the game I'd rather put in two more characters for the fans.

Q - Since there's a perfect screen now, is there a possibly a tie or draw screen as well?
A - I think there was a draw screen the problem is, sorry even though I work on the game it's something you actually don't see very often but I'm pretty sure there was one.