The Crazy Characters of Tatsunoko vs. Capcom (well, mostly Capcom)

CAPCOMTatsunoko vs. Capcom just came out for the Wii in the US. It’s a Vs. fighting game featuring some of your favorite Capcom video game heroes against characters from popular Japanese animation company Tatsunoko (makers of Speed Racer). So in this blog, I thought it would be fun to take a look at the characters in the game! Well, at least the ones from the Capcom side anyway! Warning: if you’re not a Capcom freak, you may want to skip over this blog, as a lot of the references may just go over your head.

 

It’s actually pretty surprising that this game made it to the US at all. Most Americans probably don’t know much about the Tatsunoko cast (I know I don’t), and it must’ve been pretty costly to get all the rights to use the characters in the US. You know what I think? I think Nintendo secretly helped fund the development of Tatsunoko vs. Capcom in the US. The Wii is lacking in 2-D fighters, so they would want to have this one in their library. When the GameCube came out, Nintendo helped fund the translations of Namco’s Tales of Symphonia game because the GC really needed some RPGs, I know that for a fact! So it wouldn’t surprise me if Nintendo did the same fashion for Tatsunoko vs. Capcom.

Anyway, here’s a rundown on the Capcom characters found in the game!

Ryu

He’s pretty much the mascot for the Street Fighter games. Just a karate dude who can throw fireballs. But other than that, he’s so BORING! He’s boring enough in the regular Street Fighter games, but put him in a fighter with a giant cigarette lighter and a zombie photographer, and he becomes even MORE boring-er. I think Ryu needs a makeover. Instead of throwing fireballs, make him throw cupcakes or hippos or something. Yeah I bet all you folks are thanking your lucky stars that I’m not making Capcom games now, huh?

Chun-Li

Capcom’s leading lady. She’s a pretty cool character, I guess. I like the fact that she looks like she can actually fight stuff with those big ol’ legs of hers. She’s not puny.

Alex

He’s from Street Fighter 3. And that’s all I have to say about that.

Morrigan

She’s one of the most popular fighters from Darkstalkers. It’s like a Street Fighter game with Halloween themes and characters. I don’t really like Morrigan, though. She’s supposed to be a succubus, but she reminds me of a vampire. And I hate vampires! They’re so gross! The only cool thing about Morrigan is that she has green hair. I would’ve rather them put Lei-Lei/Hsien-Ko as the representative from Darkstalkers. She has sillier attacks and I always used her in Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo.

Batsu

He’s a dude from Rival Schools, another fighter game set around a high school setting. There are characters from Rival Schools that I like better, though, like Tiffany or the school nurse with the clipboard.

Saki

She’s a cute young lady character from a game I’ve never heard of called Quiz Nanairo Dreams. I figure since it has ‘quiz’ in the title, it must be a quiz game. But I’m not sure what a sci-fi lady with a big gun has to do with quizzes. But hey, far be it from me to question the logic of video games. I’d like to try that game someday, though. Maybe. I know she was also in Card Fighters Clash, my favorite Neo Geo Pocket Color game (too bad the DS one sucked). Card Fighters Clash was better than Pokemon, I thought. At any rate, Saki’s attacks in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom remind me of Mega Man’s, with her long range gun and all.

Mega Man Volnutt

And speaking of Mega Man, here’s the version of him from Mega Man Legends, a 3-D title on the old PlayStation. Volnutt also plays differently than the original Mega Man in Marvel vs. Capcom. He has projectile attacks with his mega buster, but he can switch out the other arm for a shield weapon and a drill. Only problem I had was I would accidentally switch weapons when I didn’t want to. I wish I could always set it as the drill weapon, as it has a powerful attack.

There’s also a background stage from Mega Man Legends, on the deck of villain Tron Bonne’s flying fortress, the Gesellschaft. In the background you can see those cute little Servebots running and dancing around. Another version of this stage is in a storm, and all the Servebots are running around in a panic! Sometimes I end up getting distracted in this stage watching the Servebots and the opponent gets a few hits in on me! Hopefully, putting Mega Man Legends characters in this game will drum up interest in the Legends series. I’d like to see Mega Man Legends 3 someday (will Mega Man ever get off the moon?). Or better yet, a sequel to The Misadventures of Tron Bonne!

Roll

This is Roll from the original Mega Man series. She’s Mega Man’s adorable little sister who cleans and maintains Dr. Light’s laboratory. Just like Mega Man Volnutt, Roll actually plays differently here than what she did in Marvel vs. Capcom. Here she mostly uses her broom to attack; similar to how she plays in Mega Man Powered Up (she was a secret character you could download). She also tosses mop water at opponents and can put a bucket over their head! In the other Vs. fighter games, she was considered a joke character, but she’s able to contend very well here, even though she is so small. Her ending in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom is funny. She finds two giant robots and makes them help her clean the lab. The expressions on Dr. Light’s and Mega Man’s faces as they see two huge robots in frilly aprons are hilarious!

Zero

It’s pretty cool that we have three Mega Man characters in this game, but they’re all from different series! This is original Zero from the Mega Man X games. I bet he’ll be a favorite fighter for many here because of his quick movements and sword attacks that are great for combos.

Kaijin No Soki

He’s from Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams. I don’t really know anything about this guy or the game he’s from. I can’t even pronounce the name of that game, much less spell it! I know those are popular Capcom games, though. He has lots of good long range sword attacks, and his ending has Arthur from Ghosts N Goblins in it!

PTX-40A

This is a giant robot from Lost Planet, another Capcom game I’ve never played (nor do I have any interest in). Usually you can pick two fighters on your team, but there are a couple of giant characters that you can only be one of if you choose it. You have one big life bar and really strong attacks, but you’re an easy target. I don’t know if fighting game fans will like that, but I think it adds some variety and much needed silliness to the stage.

Viewtiful Joe

Ah, Clover, you made such cool games for Capcom. I miss you. Viewtiful Joe retains many of his crazy moves from his original GameCube and PS2 beat ‘em ups. Watch out, though, because his bombs can hit you, too! At one point, Viewtiful Joe was so popular that he had his own Saturday morning cartoon. Has anyone seen it? It’s REALLY crappy!

Frank West

Aside from the Mega Man series cast, I think Frank West may be my favorite character in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom. He’s the guy from Dead Rising, one of brother Jeff’s favorite Xbox 360 games. He has a lot of silly attacks. He can hit with a golf club or baseball bat. And just like Jill Sandwich (Valentine) from Marvel vs. Capcom 2, he can summon zombies to help him fight. Except his zombies are more versatile, yet unpredictable. He can make them appear from the left or right, or from the ceiling (they always fall on my head). Or he can make them zoom by in a shopping cart! Watch out because they can hit you, too!

I love his super moves. He puts a Servebot head on his opponent in one, and in another, he puts on the Mega Man X suit (you can find parts for it in Dead Rising), and then he shoots out a big beam from the Mega Buster! One of the background stages is the shopping mall from Dead Rising! Another funny thing about Frank West is that if you team him up with a female character like Saki or Chun-Li, he’ll try to hit on them in his win quotes. He’ll even do that to Roll! Ewww! I think that’s worth repeating in caps. EWWWWW! Does he pull that stunt in Dead Rising? I wouldn’t know, when Jeff plays it, he never bothers to save anyone, the little toot.

Yami

This isn’t a playable character, but it is the last boss in the game. And it’s from a Capcom game so I thought it was worth mentioning. It’s the last boss from Okami. Yeah, the last boss from Okami was kind of lame, just a giant ball. But I’m just glad that they made a reference to Okami in this fighter!

No Mini-Games = Very Sad Cary

So we know that there’s a great cast of characters here, and a fun fighting game to put them in. But there’s one thing about Tatsunoko vs. Capcom that I’m VERY disappointed in. In the Japanese version, there were nearly two dozen Wii-centric mini-games, based on each of the main characters. Now, I know they took some things out of the US version like some of the music and animated endings. And that really doesn’t bother me. But to take out ALL those mini-games in the US version is like taking out a big chunk of the gameplay. I can’t figure out why they would do that. It would’ve added some variety to the gameplay, and made it so even little kids can have fun with the game. And plus, I personally was looking forward to cleaning with Roll, kicking rocks into Ryu sculptures using Chun-Li’s kicks, and making Ryu hadoken Tron Bonne’s scrapped ships! Capcom removing the mini-games makes me very sad.

Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: All-Star Shooter

There is ONE mini-game that is hidden, though. It’s a shooter game that is supposedly really fun. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you all about it because it’s too hard to unlock. I know how to do it. You have to play a mini-game at the credits and collect all the gold letters to spell “THANK YOU FOR PLAYING” at the end of the game. But it’s just too hard and I can’t do it!

I can blame some of it on the bad controls, though. You control three Tatsunoko characters in a three-person bike and have to jump to get the letters in simple, 2-D platforming fashion. But the jumping controls are not very responsive and it’s easy to fall down holes! If you beat the game with Roll, you can play as her in the credits and fly on her broom (her MvsC theme song sounds weird in English, by the way). You’d THINK this way would be easier to get all the letters, but it’s not because her flying controls suck, too! Argh! I want to play that shooter mini-game so bad, too!

Tatsunoko Tidbits

Well, because I’m so mad about not being able to unlock that shooter game and also because Capcom took out all the other mini-games, I’m not going to tell you about the Tatsunoko cast. OK, OK, I’ll be honest. I’m not going to tell you about the Tatsunoko cast because, like Capcom, I’m too lazy! I don’t want to do research on them.

A few of the characters seem a little familiar, though. When I was a kid, I used to watch old anime cartoons like Star Blazers, Voltron, and Battle of the Planets. Some of the characters in the game, like Ken the Eagle and Jun the Swan, look like some of those characters. But it was a long time ago since I’ve seen those anime cartoons, so I get them all mixed up! Later on, I could’ve sworn I saw a cartoon about a guy with Mega Man X’s helmet and a robot dog, so maybe I watched a Casshan cartoon somewhere along the way, too.

Most of the other Tatsunoko cast look like Power Ranger rejects, but there are a couple of characters on the Tatsunoko side of the game that I don’t know about, but they look pretty interesting anyway. One is Doronjo, and she looks like a villainess with two goofy bad guy sidekicks. And you all know how much I like goofy bad guys with dim-witted sidekicks. Another interesting character is Gold Lightan, a giant gold robot lighter. I’d hate to see the giant cigarettes he has to light! Gross!

There are some Tatsunoko cartoons that I know about that aren’t in the game, though. Most people know about Speed Racer, thanks to popular culture. I think it would’ve been fun to have Speed Racer in the game, I’ve seen him fight in the cartoon. Or better yet, put Trixie in the game! Ha ha!

Another Tatsunoko cartoon that I know about is Samurai Pizza Cats. Unfortunately, this cartoon came out in the US when I was starting college, and I was too busy to watch most cartoons back then. I think they would’ve been great to have in the game, though. I played a Famicom Samurai Pizza Cats game one time and it was pretty fun, much better than the first NES TMNT game.

One other Tatsunoko cartoon that I know about is The Littl’ Bits. Any of you remember in the early 90’s when Nick Jr. showed a lot of kiddy anime? It was a far departure from all the Doras and Yo Gabba Gabbas of today’s Nick Jr. Anyway, one of those kiddy anime cartoons was The Littl’ Bits, and it was kind of like The Smurfs with pixie/gnome-like characters. They kind of reminded me of the sprites in the Harvest Moon games. Anyway, since it was a cartoon for little kids, I guess they wouldn’t be good in a fighting game, but it would be kind of funny!

And that’s all I know about Tatsunoko. Here’s what I want one of you to do. In fact, I CHALLENGE you to do this. Write a blog about the Tatsunoko cast of the game, kind of like how I did with the Capcom side! And if you do that, let me know, I’d love to read it and learn more about what you found out about the Tatsunoko characters!

Tatsunoko vs. Capcom Conclusions

Well, despite the lack of mini-games, the actual fighting part of the game is still fun. A lot of people said that Street Fighter IV was inviting to casual players, but I don’t get how they figured that. Even on Easy Mode, SF4 was hard for me. But I can adjust the difficulty of Tatsunoko vs. Capcom and play just fine. Fighter newbies like myself can mash buttons and make the characters do cool attacks, while more advanced players can master all the special moves and techniques. Like Soul Calibur, I think fighting games that all players can enjoy are the best kinds of fighters. And Tatsunoko vs. Capcom is certainly like that. Even though it’s rated T for Teen, I’d let any age play it, because it’s so silly and cartoony.

In the comments section, let me know what Tatsunoko vs. Capcom characters are YOUR favorite, and which characters would you like to have seen in the game that were not put in? I would’ve liked to have seen Cammy, Juni & Juli, Dan, Tron Bonne & the Servebots, Phoenix Wright, and the Okami dog as playable characters. (Yeah I know Phoenix is a lawyer, not a fighter, but Roll’s not a fighter either)

You can play Tatsunoko vs. Capcom online, but I haven’t tried it yet. I’m not in a rush, either, because I’ve kind of given up on the Wii as a verifiable online gaming system. But if you want to make the effort to play online with me, I’ll make the effort, too. So here’s my friend code just in case: 4855-7858-0119.

That’s all for now! Later! –Cary

No Responses to “The Crazy Characters of Tatsunoko vs. Capcom (well, mostly Capcom)”

  1. Dear GamerDad,

    Hey, Mr.GamerDad, Sir. I’m thirteen, and I was wondering what your view point might be of a boy of my age playing some of the older call of duty titles. I’ve seen some of the newer COD games out, and people have said their a lot of fun, but I’ve also seen their rated Mature. I’ve seen some of my friends play the game, and it doesn’t look that much different from the uncharted games, except for the large amount of blood…That stays..But, I’ve seen much worse in movies such as Serenity and such. Basically, my two big questions are this; 1) Is ESRB correct rating the new CODs M? Could a 13-year old play them? 2) If not, would the older COD games be appropriate?

    TFD~

  2. Duncan, I’ve forwarded your question along to the head GamerDad guy. Have a great day! –Cary

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