Filmhouse ended the first day of their three day FabFest on Friday with a late night screening of Takashi Miike’s crazy but fun superhero movie Yatterman.
Why do I mention that here you ask? Well it seemed like a good excuse to go back and review a game that was released a few months back and deserves all the publicity it can get.
Tatsunoko VS Capcom
Developer/Publisher: 8ing/Capcom
Review copy: Wii
Link: http://tatsunoko.vscapcom.com/home_uk.html
Do you wish Street Fighter IV had been released for the Wii? Well, you’re not the only one, and Capcom has not forgotten you. But rather than just port over last years awesome beat-em-up revival they have given you something much more special; a Wii exclusive that wasn’t even supposed to be released outside of Japan.
Tatsunoko VS Capcom is the latest game in Capcom’s VS series (some of you may have fond memories of Marvel VS Capcom or Capcom VS SNK, among others) and this time around they have teamed up with anime powerhouse Tatsunoko Productions. For those that haven’t heard of Tatsunoko before, you may have heard of one or two of their creations such as Speed Racer, Casshan (both of which have been transformed into live action movies in recent years) or Battle of the Planets. The company itself is the Japanese equivalent of Hanna-Barbera, since they have been making cartoons for television since 1962, and have plenty of characters to lend to this game. Capcom on the other hand is a games developer and this title borrows from some of their older games such as Mega Man to their latest offerings like Lost Planet and Dead Rising. For those of you who haven’t heard of these, other popular games they have made are Resident Evil and the aforementioned Street Fighter series.
With introductions over let’s talk about the game itself. An explosion of bright colours and over the top special moves, you choose two characters to play as and take on the others in a tag team battle to the end. The only exception to this is that there are a couple of massive robot characters that can be chosen that give you an advantage in power and size, but doesn’t give you a secondary character to rely on.
Although Street Fighter IV was designed with beginners in mind, Tatsunoko VS Capcom is far more accessible from the get go, allowing you various different control schemes to play the game. If you chose to use just the Wii remote or the remote and nunchuk combo the controls are simplified, allowing even a first time player to pull off the special moves without much more skill than button mashing, but for those more experienced players you might prefer one of the other control options, such as the classic controller, Gamecube pad or even an arcade stick if you can afford such a luxury.
If you’ve never played a fighting game before then do not worry, you can either just jump into the game and mash buttons or, if you prefer to know what you are getting yourself into, there is a training mode that will allow you to try out your moves.
The game is enjoyable in single player mode, allowing you to unlock additional characters, artwork and more. However the real fun in any beat-em-up comes from multiplayer and this game has it in two different modes. You can either play with the person sitting next to you or go online and play against others across the globe. Playing the game with a friend is great fun and if WiiSpeak support had been added online play would have been even better, but as it is it plays pretty solidly so long as you have a good internet connection. Even then I would recommend sticking to the European server as going wider than that can lead to games that lag a little easier and as any pro will tell you lag in a fighting game is unacceptable.
Graphically this game is also excellent, with great character models that complement one another well. Some of the backgrounds can be a little bland but others, such as Yatterman’s workshop, more than make up for this. Most of the special moves, especially the Hyper Combos, have phenomenal graphical flair and when an animation routine for one of these starts up and you are on the receiving end it will have you shouting at the screen until damage has stopped being dealt to your character.
Variety is what this game is all about and anyone that picks it up will find favourite characters, even if they are ones you had never heard of prior to booting up the disc. If you take a shine to some of them it is well worth digging into the history of ones you like. Many of the classic Capcom titles can be found on the Wii Shop Channel and it’s worth at least typing the name of a favourite character into Google just to learn a little of their background. On the Tatsunoko side, as previously mentioned, several films have recently been released based on their franchises and are well worth checking out if you want to give some context to this game. It certainly helped me understand some of the crazy special moves the characters from Yatterman pull off and why Casshan has a dog help him out.
Despite being such a bizarre release, it is not that difficult to find in the wild. At the time of writing a walk along Princes Street revealed it in most shops that stock games, so there is no excuse for you not to pick it up!
I am a great believer that above anything else games should be fun and there aren’t many more enjoyable experiences than the madness that is Tatsunoko VS Capcom. It’s one of those titles that is easy to pick up but difficult to master and has more depth than its bubble gum stylings might suggest.
