SwitchArcade’s Latest Reviews: Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection, Yars Rising, and Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland

Background: The 1990s Properties That Shaped This Review Batch

SwitchArcade's latest grouping of retro-driven Nintendo Switch reviews traces back to three separate 1990s touchstones: Capcom's Marvel-based arcade fighters, Atari's Yars' Revenge from the 2600 era, and the Rugrats cartoon brand.

The Marvel/Capcom line began with X-Men: Children of the Atom, expanded to the wider Marvel Universe through Marvel Super Heroes, then moved into Marvel and Street Fighter crossovers, Marvel vs. Capcom, and the wildly over-the-top Marvel vs. Capcom 2.

Yars Rising reworks the ancient single-screen shooter premise into a Metroidvania starring a young hacker with a bare midriff code-named Yar.

Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland takes a familiar licensed cartoon property and turns it into a platformer.

Development: How Each Game Was Built for the Switch Market

Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics ($49.99) appears to have been handled by the team behind Capcom Fighting Collection. It includes seven games, and it also includes Capcom's Punisher belt-scrolling beat 'em up as an extra.

The package offers visual filters, gameplay options, extensive art, a music player, rollback online multiplayer, and new NAOMI hardware emulation, which makes Marvel vs. Capcom 2 look and play great. Its main limitation is a single save state shared across all seven games, a problem that is especially awkward because the collection also contains a beat 'em up that may need independent progress.

The reviewer also notes missing home versions: the PlayStation EX versions of the tag-team based games, the Dreamcast version of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 with its extras, and Capcom's two Super NES Marvel games. Still, the collection's Arcade Classics name is accurately applied, and the game plays great on Switch.

Yars Rising ($29.99) was developed by WayForward. The review begins with skepticism because the original Yars' Revenge is a favorite Atari 2600 game, while the new premise centers on a young hacker with a bare midriff code-named Yar.

WayForward delivers a good game that looks and sounds nice, plays well, and has acceptable map layouts, although its bosses can drag on too long. The game includes Yars' Revenge-style sequences fairly often, abilities that evoke the original, and a connection to the relatively fleshed-out lore.

The bigger design challenge is linking an ancient single-screen shooter to a modern Metroidvania. The review notes that Atari's classic library can only be Recharged so much, which makes this kind of long pass necessary, but also leaves the game feeling torn between two audiences with very little overlap.

Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland ($24.99) opens with crisp visuals, the Rugrats theme, awkward control placement that can be adjusted, Reptar coins, simple puzzles, and basic enemies.

The deeper gameplay reveal comes when players swap characters: Chuckie has a high but hard-to-control jump, Phil has a low jump, and Lil can float. Enemies can be picked up and thrown, blocks can be picked up and piled up, stages have verticality, and sand-digging sequences call on Phil's strength.

The result is a Super Mario Bros. 2 (USA)-inspired platformer. It also allows players to switch between modern visuals and soundtrack or NES-level 8-bit renditions, includes a filter, supports multiplayer, and has interesting boss battles. The reviewer still wishes the cut scenes had voice acting.

Latest Progress: SwitchArcade's Scores Put the Value in Focus

SwitchArcade Score: 4.5/5 for Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics. The collection is described as another must-have compilation from Capcom, with superb games treated with care and a good suite of extras and options. The only serious complaint is the shared save state.

SwitchArcade Score: 4/5 for Yars Rising. The verdict is that the game is enjoyable and worth a weekend-sized playthrough, though it is not the finest in the Metroidvania genre. Its conceptual reach is ambitious, and its future follow-ups could make the premise feel more natural.

SwitchArcade Score: 4/5 for Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland. The review calls it a quality platformer in the style of the Western Super Mario Bros. 2, with extra elements that keep it from feeling too close to its source. It is a bit short and simple, but creative, fun, and a good use of the Rugrats license.

Current Stage: Retro Brands Are Being Preserved and Reinterpreted

The current stage is one of careful nostalgia, not blind revival.

The $49.99 Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics preserves a major arcade lineage with rollback netcode and NAOMI emulation, while its single save state shows the limits of a collection-first design.

The $29.99 Yars Rising shows how a classic Atari property can be stretched into a modern Metroidvania, but the audience split remains visible.

The $24.99 Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland shows how a cartoon license can become a short, clever platformer by borrowing a specific 8-bit-era formula.

Together, the three SwitchArcade reviews point to a market where retro properties are most effective when they are either faithfully archived or thoughtfully rebuilt.