Capcom Vs Tatsunoko: Ultimate All-Stars Review
Awesome, seizure inducing fighting action that’s EVEN MORE Japanese than you’re already used to!
 By Jeremy Azevedo |
Of all the games I’ve ever thought I’d see for sale exclusively on the Nintendo Wii, a hardcore Capcom fighting game, imported from Japan, featuring a roster of characters most people here have never heard of was not chief among them. |
It was with great interest, then, that I followed the story of Capcom Vs Tatsunoko: Ultimate All Stars, a game that may turn out to be exactly what the Wii needs for a number of reasons. The Wii is a hard system to develop for because you have two totally different audiences, the casual and the hardcore. Capcom Vs Tatsunoko appeals equally to both, thanks to a remarkably flexible control scheme. Veterans and purists will want to opt for a traditional joystick, or maybe even a classic Gamecube controller. Newcomers, on the other had, can use the wand and nunchuck for an experience that is less “Street Fighter” and more “Super Smash Bros.”.
When playing with the standard Wii controller, all of you basic attacks are mapped to the A button button. Likewise, all of your special attacks are mapped the Z button. All you have to do is move the control stick in the direction of the move you want to perform and pull the trigger, i.e. up for a vertical attack, back for a feint attack and so on and so forth. The question that this raises is, can you really play a fighting game with dumbed-down controls like this? Apparently, yes, you can, and yes, it’s also super fun.
I myself am a longtime fan of the Capcom fighter, and while I initially balked at the simplified controls, I soon found that it opened up a whole new level of fast and frustration-free gameplay. No longer reliant on quarter circle turns, that occasionally don’t register, I was free to focus on my combos, as were my less-experienced opponents. Essentially, the barrier for entry has been lowered for n00bs, wile still allowing hardcore players to flex their skills the old-fashioned way. And the more I think about it, the more I feel like I’ve done all the shoryken motions that I ever need to, and am totally fine with being able to pull off special moves without getting blisters on my thumbs. I’m over it.
Moving on from the controls, the most important aspect of a “Capcom Vs” is always the character selection. In case you’re wondering what a “Tatsunoko” is, it’s a Japanese animation company responsible for such beloved classics as Speed Racer, Robotech, Samurai Pizza Cats and Neon Genesis Evangelion… None of which are represented in the game due to licensing rights, I’m assuming. Instead, we get a bunch of unknown characters from the 70s wearing skintight jumpsuits. Thankfully, what the Tatsunoko side lacks in distinguishing features, they more than make up for in wildly disparate fighting styles. Yatterman-1, for instance, looks like Vince Noir from “The Mighty Boosh” and bounces all over the screen kicking the shit out of you with a ball-in-a-cup. Meanwhile, Casshern plays defensive while his dog, “Friender”, eats your face.
The Capcom side of things is equally obscure; Mega Man Volnutt from the excellent (but unplayed) “Mega Man Legends” series, Batsu from the forgotten fighter “Rival School”, the dude from “Onimusha 4: Dawn of Dreams”, some chick with a machine gun that I swear I’ve never seen before, ever, and a giant mechanized robot from “Lost Planet”. Oh! And Frank West from “Dead Rising”. Seriously the weirdest bunch of characters they could have picked, and yet it totally works. Like the Tatsunoko fighters, no two are even remotely similar in play style, which leads to some really awesome teams (all matches are two-on-two). The big characters are an especially interesting inclusion. They’re not big like Zangief is big, they’re big like a boss, two stories tall and unbelievably overpowered. The only saving grace you have when fighting against one is that they don’t get a partner. Expect to experience a lot of cheap deaths fighting these guys online until everyone figures out how to counter them properly.
So essentially the name of the game here is fan service, in terms of character selection. The only real problem that I have with this is that, compared to “Marvel Vs Capcom 2”, the roster seems awfully slight. I’m not sure that I understand how Capcom could go from having 56 characters in a game to having 26. It’s easy for them to say it was for balancing issues or localization, but I’m not buying it. MVC2 was my favorite fighter of all time, and if they could do that 10 years ago, they should be able to do it now. That having been said, Capcom Vs Tatsunoko is, at the very least, pretty fair and balanced so far as I can tell. So at least that excuse does sort of hold water.
Whether you are a casual fighter or a hardcore online competitor, Capcom Vs Tatsunoko will not disappoint you. It looks great, especially during the hundreds of super specials that you’ll be busting out several times per match. It’s beautifully animated, controls great, and offers a lot of variety in challenge and control options. The mini games add a lot of fun to the experience, from the awesome PTX-40A top down shooter to the weird bicycle game you play during the credits. Plus, if you only have a Wii, it’s not like you have a lot of options. It’s either this or “Castlevania Judgment”!
CraveOnline Rating: 8.5 out of 10 Unicorns Fighting a Robot Dolphin
+1 if you have an arcade joystick for the Wii at home.
-1 if you already have Marvel Vs Capcom 2 on your Xbox 360.
