Thanks to my good buddy Nicolas, I was able to play the Japan-Exclusive Tatsunoko vs Capcom on his Japanese Wii. I’m a huge fan of Capcom’s VS series and have spent endless hours on my Dreamcast playing Marvel vs Capcom 2 … in 2008 I was, however, quite pissed off when I learned that Tats vs Caps was going to have 3d characters instead of 2D sprites.

I’m a huge fan of anything 2D! In fact, 2 out of 5 of my top games of 2008 are 2D: Castle Crashers and Braid. Seeing as how there are WAY more 3D games out there than 2D, I’d say that’s a pretty big deal. Still, I was willing to give the game a shot anyway and I’m really glad I did.

I must admit, I didn’t really try the multiple mini-games included but I’m not a mini-game guy and only had the intention to check out the actual fighting system and visuals more than anything else.

To start, I did not know any of the Tatsunoko characters before hand, and since I don’t speak Japanese, I played without even knowing their names and so will not be referencing them directly. This is the biggest disappointment in my eyes when the inevitabe compairison is made between this game and Marvel vs Capcom 2. I am and have always been a huge Marvel fan. Tatsunoko vs Capcom could be superior in every other way butit still would not hold a candle to Marvel vs Capcom 2 in my eyes due to this fact alone. So I’ll stop compairing the two from this point seeing as how I’m unabashedly and proudly biased.

The first thing to hit me about Tatsunoko vs Capcom is the production value. Honestly, it looks like a lot of effort was put in to make it look great and all that effort was well spent. It’s a shame the Wii doesn’t support HD because that was all that was lacking. The screen is always full with huge, colorful, explosive, and overall stunning effects.The cel-shaded characters look great and almost look 2D most of the time anyways. Since this game isn’t about pixel-perfect timing and contact, the visual style was the right one for the job after all.

If you didn’t already know, there are only 4 buttons in Tats vs Caps. Weak, Medium, Strong, and Tag. Yup, a jab and a short kick share the same button and the same is true for the fierce punch and roundhouse kick. This did take a bit of getting used to but it honestly wasn’t as bad as I had imagined when Nick was explaining it to me. For the new characters this changes absolutely nothing since I didn’t go in with any move expectations but I often got an unexpected move with Ryu, Alex, Chun Li, and Morrigan. Once I got used to the simplified moves, I started playing as I would more play Rival Schools than a true Street Fighter game.

In fact, this game can more closely be compared to Rival Schools than any other Capcom fighter in terms of polish, visual style, personality, fun factor, and target audience.  Rivals Schools is another game I enjoyed tremendously and spent countless hours playing as I could see myself doing with Tatsunoko vs Capcom if it ever gets released for the region-unlocked PS3.

Overall, Tatsunoko vs Capcom is definitely one of the better Wii games out there, but it’s not worth buying a japanese Wii just for it.If you already own a japanese Wii or have another way of playing it on your North American one, I would definitely recommend it though.

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3. Capcom Announces new VS game!
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5. Marvel vs Capcom 3′s Roster Request