Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom Review

Capcom has a long tradition of fast-paced, flashy beat-em-ups adored by fighting game fans. Most of these require a great deal of practice, timing, and memorization if you want to excel at them. If you don’t believe me, load up an online bout of Street Fighter IV and see how far button mashing gets you. With Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, the company is going with a different approach. They’ve combined kicking and punching into the same button press, allowing for some more wiggle room in terms of combo memorization. Traditional fighting game fans may scoff at the simplification, but it makes the experience more immediately fun for those wanting to just jump in and land some Hyper Combos.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that the Wii remote isn’t held in the highest regard amongst fighting game fans. Even with Smash Bros. Brawl, many gamers preferred to play with the nearly 10 year-old GameCube controller than with the awkward remote and nunchuk option. Thankfully, TvC features complete support for both the GameCube pad and Wii arcade sticks. With just three attack buttons, it’s incredibly easy to pull off all your frequently used moves, especially if you go with one of those two options.

Offense is the name of the game, with little to no focus on parries or reversals. Combat is heavily focused on stringing together special moves, with many displaying arbitrarily ridiculous damage stats (12,000,000,000 damage!!!). Aerial combat occurs on occasion, but it’s hardly a frequent occurrence in this combat system.

Fighters on the Capcom side of the fence feature more traditional Street Fighter-esque button inputs. You’ll be performing Shoryuken uppercuts, decimating your opponents with Hyper Combos, and throwing every kind of projectile you can imagine with the standard half-moon and quarter-moon inputs that have become a staple in the company’s fighters. This is mostly true with the anime characters from Tatsunoko, but some characters like Polimar and Doronjo have unconventional attack methods, including the latter’s spawning of her henchmen Boyacky and Tonzra. Most Americans won’t recognize a healthy amount of the roster, but that shouldn’t stop them from enjoying the calculated style of Karas or the ludicrous size and novelty value of Gold Lightan (essentially a gigantic 200-ton golden lighter).

Fighting genre fans who spent countless hours mastering the intricacies of the Street Fighter Alpha, Guilty Gear, or King of Fighters series may find Tatsunoko vs. Capcom's control layout to be too forgiving and easily-learned, but at the very least it gives casual fans a taste of the maniacal action that they never experienced with the more hardcore titles.