GameXplain reviews single player and multiplayer separately

I bet you wish you had some friends right about now.

“Who the hell are all these people?” That’s probably the first thing that comes to mind as you boot up Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom the first time. Sure, there’s a few recognizable faces on the Capcom side, but excluding Ryu and Chun-Li, there aren’t nearly as many “classic” characters to choose from as people may be expecting going into the game. For a Vs. title, that does feel a bit odd at the outset, but if you’re like me, the coolness factor of playing as all these caped Japanese heroes of yesteryear is enough to temper any disappointment at the seemingly small character selection.

While the roster may not be as robust on the surface as what some fans my have wanted, it’s how the characters play that is the real test of the game’s quality. It’s in this area, that Capcom really nailed it with this game. The pacing is slightly slower than other recent entries in the Vs. series, but this compliments the slightly simplified moveset nicely. Players are only given three attack buttons: High, Mid, and Low. These attack buttons, coupled with different motions on the d-pad pull off your basic moveset. Much like in every Capcom fighting game, you’ll find yourself pulling off hadoukens and shoryukens with almost every character. If you are familiar with this sort of thing, you’ll be quarter-circle and half-circling your way to victory in no time. If you’re like me and still have trouble pulling off the more demanding moves (curse you charge attacks), then the game may be somewhat daunting at first. The game is more accessible than other games of its ilk, but try explaining that to someone who just can’t get Ryu to do that hadouken for the life of him.

The simplification goes a long way, though. Pulling off Hyper Combos is much easier to do than in other games, and makes using them a little more strategic. Each character has three different ones, two of which drain one level on your Hyper Gauge and one that drains three. These are executed simply by inputting your normal moves, and hitting two attack buttons instead of one. By making pretty much every move in the game easier to do, Capcom has been able to take the focus off of perfectly inputting the moves and onto the fight itself.

I keep saying that this game has been simplified, and while that is true, don’t take that to mean that it lacks depth. There is plenty below the surface for players to master once they get acclimated to the flow of the game. In particular, the partner dynamic is quite well developed. In addition to the standard assist moves and partner swapping, Capcom managed to squeeze in a few other uses for the partner such as counter-attacking and sustaining air combos. You can also pull in your partner characters in the middle of a Hyper Combo to assist, as well as swapping which character’s Hyper combo you are pulling off completely. The strategy of using your partner is one of the most satisfying aspects of the game.

On top of the partner dynamics, the characters themselves offer plenty of depth. No two fighters share a moveset, and even basic attacks are different depending on the character you choose and attack buttons you press. This adds a lot of variation in technique, and allows players to seek out fighters that just “feel right.” Despite there only being 26 characters in the game, there is more variety offered by those characters than in a game with a roster twice the size.

The characters themselves are really well conceived. On the Capcom side, most of the characters have appeared in fighting games before, so there weren’t a whole lot of surprises in their movesets outside of Saki (from Onimusha) and PTX (from Lost Planet). It’s on the Tatsunoko side of things that Capcom’s creativity really shone. Tatsunoko characters already have some pretty iconic and interesting designs, and they are translated beautifully into the world of a fighting game. From Ippatsuman’s baseball throwing, mech action, to Jun the Swan’s exploding yo-yos of doom, there’s always another little surprise lurking around the corner.

So, if the characters all play well and the combat system is fun to use, why then does the game score so low in singleplayer? That’s because it’s simply not all that fun. Capcom offered the absolute minimum in terms of singleplayer options.for modes, there is only Arcade, Training, Survival, and Time Attack. Each of these plays pretty much as you would assume. There’s really nothing out of the ordinary or all that interesting to see here. There is some vague approximation of a story thrown into the end of the Arcade mode. While, each of these endings is different for each character, there’s really no reason to see them other than to unlock the game’s four hidden characters. Other than that, there’s little incentive offered by the game to play singleplayer much at all except possibly to refine your skills. There is an in-game shop where you can buy stuff with your points from the different play modes, but nothing of much interest to spend those points on. There is a cool unlockable in the form of a scrolling SHMUP, but even that is way more fun with other people than it is alone.

Pure adrenaline-pumping bliss. Just add friends.

It is during bouts with your friends and enemies that Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom really shines. While the game’s singleplayer content quickly grew tiring, the multiplayer modes were another story entirely. Playing local multiplayer was an instant blast, with people quickly taking to the mayhem. There were the occasional annoyances when someone with no 2D fighting game ability would take to the arena, but the game’s accessibility quickly won them over.

The partner mechanic is just as much fun in multiplayer matches as in previous Vs. titles. Balancing each of your fighters’ life totals, while using them in tandem to pull off devastating combos and the like is always good fun. The fact that the pace of the game falls somewhere between Street Fighter IV and Marvel Vs Capcom 2 is actually perfect for heated multiplayer matches. Battles are always frantic and over-the-top without crossing over into indecipherable territory. Even without more modes or a larger roster of characters, Tatsunoko Vs Capcom manages to be fantastically engaging for longtime fighting game fans and newcomers alike.

The game also boasts an online component, something that is thankfully becoming more and more common for Wii games. While the game retains the now-standard Friend Code system from other online Wii titles, that shouldn’t get in anyone’s way of enjoying the game. Players can still fight matches against random opponents without the need for these 12-digit long codes. In fact, this is arguably more fun, since it’s just nice to be able to jump into the game and start ripping apart random adversaries. Of course, this is a 2D fighting game, so the competition out there is pretty fierce. I often found myself squaring off against opponents who were several orders of magnitude better than me at the game. As with the best games in this genre, though, each loss only inspired me to try all that much harder during my next bout.

At heart, this game is mostly a multiplayer affair, and in this respect, Capcom couldn’t have done a better job. The character roster, though not huge, is large enough to offer plenty of options for players not afraid of a little anime love-in. The flow of combat is perfect, offering a fairly low learning curve and accessible controls, but also plenty of depth for players who want to devote themselves a little more to developing their skills.My friends and I have had several hours of fun bashing each others' heads in as the various anime and game icons. There is more fun to be had doing straight one-on-one matches with your friends than in the entirety of the singleplayer modes. I can hardly think of a non-Smash Bros 2D fighter that I have enjoyed as much as this one.

Tatsunoko Vs Capcom fills a pretty wide hole in the Wii’s library, and it does it with style and panache to spare. There are not a whole lot of competitive fighters available on the Wii, much less exclusive ones designed specifically for the Wii hardware. Even though Tatsunoko Vs Capcom doesn’t have much competition on the Wii, that doesn’t mean that the developers took the lazy route out. On the contrary, Capcom stepped up the plate and knocked one of the park. Ippatsuman would be proud.