"Capcom's Vs. series is finally back in action!"

It’s hard to believe it has been an entire decade since the last new entry in Capcom’s popular Vs. series. While Tatsunoko may be one of the biggest anime companies in Japan, very few people are familiar with the majority of their work here in the states. This, combined with the more complex licensing issues of the Tatsunoko properties overseas has made Tatsunoko vs. Capcom‘s localization a delightful surprise.

And, thanks to a smart move by Capcom, this localization is not of the original version we missed out on, but the next iteration with a larger character roster, balance tweaks, and a near-simultaneous, international release.

People familiar with Marvel vs. Capcom and other Vs. games will feel right at home with most of the gameplay found in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars. You’ll start by choosing a two-person tag-team from the game’s twenty-six character roster. You’ll then engage in classic 2D combat, but this time with all new 3D graphics.

One of the game’s most controversial changes is its simplified control scheme. The game only uses four buttons: light, medium, heavy, and partner. While stripping punches and kicks of their exclusive button sets might seem shocking at first, let’s not forget that Marvel vs. Capcom 2 did a similar simplification in removing the medium attack.

I found that the four button setup made learning a large number of characters far easier without sacrificing their unique feel. Ryu, for example, can still perform his Hadōken and Tatsumaki-Senpū Kyaku (read: that spinning kick), but now the only difference between pulling them off is directional input since there are no longer different buttons to determine whether your attack is a punch or a kick. There are still three different strengths of both moves (which is actually one MORE than MvC2) depending on whether you use the light, medium, or heavy button, but when using unfamiliar characters it becomes much easier to guess the input for special attacks.

There’s plenty of depth to the fighting. Besides switching to your second character to regenerate small portions of health, you can also call them in for an attack. You can send enemies flying into the sky to perform an “air combo” and even spend a bar from your Hyper Combo Gauge (HCG) and have your partner come in for a “cross-over air raid”. You can push enemies back a bit when your cornered with the “advancing guard” technique, have your partner interrupt them with a “cross-over counter” or, if you don’t mind sacrificing a bit of health and HCG, you can knock them far away with a “mega crash”.

By sacrificing the red part of your health bar (the portion that can regenerate), you can perform the “baroque combo”. This will cancel the current attack allowing you to create extended combos. All characters have a variety of special moves, two regular Hyper Combos, and one extra powerful Hyper Combo that consumes three HCG bars instead of one. Besides performing them individually, there are actually two different ways you can get your partner in to help. The “cross-over combination” allows two characters to perform their Hyper Combos simultaneously and the “team hyper combo” let’s you interrupt your current Hyper Combo with your partner’s, swapping characters when it finishes.

For as complex as some of this sounds, the controls are very responsive and I managed to get all of the various actions working in battle without too much trouble. All of these extra techniques combined with the four button control scheme strike the perfect balance between “easy to learn” and “tough to master”.

One of my favorite aspects of Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All Stars is that out of all 26 characters, there is not a single clone to be found. Where MvC2 would fill its roster with sets like Ryu/Ken/Akuma and Iron Man/War Machine, TvC manages to completely avoid this. There were several character pairs such as Yatterman-1/Yatterman-2, Ken the Eagle/Joe the Condor, and Tekkaman/Tekkaman Blade that I thought for sure would end up being clones. To my surprise, each one had a completely unique move set and play style.

Even characters that you think will be copied from earlier games are sometimes different. Mega Man Volnutt (the Mega Man Legends version of the character) plays almost nothing like Classic Mega Man from MvC. Roll, who used to be a Classic Mega Man clone, sports her own unique (and adorable) move set utilizing her cleaning supplies. Chun Li, while mostly familiar, has her Spinning Bird Kick back (which was disappointingly absent from MvC) making what is quite possibly my favorite Chun Li version to date.

While I’m not familiar with 90% of the Tatsunoko characters, using them is a delight. Each one feels fresh and there’s a lot of variety between them. Those of you who imported the original game (myself included) will be happy to know that the new characters are some of my favorites and I don’t miss the cut character. Zero’s moves not only feel great to use, but consists of pure fan service. Tekkaman Blade has a lot of awesome teleportation-based attacks.

While it’s difficult to give an accurate representation of a game’s online mode before it hits shelves, I did manage to get into a match. I played several times with no noticeable lag. You can play free or ranked matches with local or worldwide players. Winning will award you Battle Points similar to Street Fighter IV and as you play you will unlock new avatars. You and your opponents will also be marked with a fire, ice, or lightning badge depending on whether you’re an aggressive, defensive, or evasive player.

Besides all the fighting game mode staples such as Arcade, Survival, and Time Attack, you can also unlock an Extra Game entitled Ultimate All-Shooters. It’s a four-player top down shooter similar to Ikari Warriors. While it’s pretty short and simple, it’s a nice little diversion and is actually more fleshed out than I expected it to be.

While the new ending artwork provided by Udon is cool to look at, I am a bit disappointed to see the removal of the animated endings featured in the original game. Also, character themes during play have been replaced in favor of stage themes. However, these are small gripes about what is, in fact, a game that is superior to the original.

While the game supports a variety of setups, I would recommend either grabbing a Classic Controller or, if your budget allows, an arcade stick to play the game “properly”. With more balanced gameplay (no Cable), stages that actually make sense again (no creepy clown faces), and the complete absence of cloned move sets, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars is the best Vs. series game to date, and is an easy recommendation to fans of the fighting genre.

This review is based on a copy of Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All Stars provided to us by Capcom.

Tags: 2D Fighter, capcom, fighting games, Marvel Vs Capcom, Marvel VS Capcom 2, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All Stars

This entry was posted on Monday, January 25th, 2010 at 9:00 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.