Written by: PlayDevil.com Staff

 

 

 

Having played the original my time with "Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom: Ultimate All Stars" focused on the two new playable characters available (of an eventual four). These characters are (for that Tatsunoko side) Tekkaman Blade and Frank West from 'Dead Rising' for Capcom.

 

Each character brings some interesting moves and combat strategies. Frank is perhaps the stranger of the two, able to summon zombies and utilize numerous weapons from Dead Rising. Standard attacks alone involve golf clubs and baseball bats (pulled from I don’t know where). He is a comical character who fits well with the game, but due to so many of his moves being slow to take effect can be hard to get to grips with.

 

Takkaman Blade is far more strait forward and easier to predict but still has a few interesting twists from that of the other characters. Takkaman Blade’s dash carries him diagonally upwards into the air instead of along the ground, this is extremely useful in combination with his heavy air attack that brings him crashing blade first into the ground. This requires some strategies to be altered as Takkaman cant close distance as quickly for ground attacks. Other than this all of his attack follow the standard projectile and melee attacks, making him a very comfortable character for more traditional players.

 

Both characters super moves conform to the usual screen filling extravaganzas, Tekkaman has one aerial counter move that fires diagonally up which can easily missed unless well timed against an airborne opponent. Frank is a little more wacky due to Dead Rising’s heavy helping of Capcom fan service giving the developers free reign to tie many of his super moves to other franchises. Frank dons the Megaman suit grab to fire a screen-engulfing beam. Even Servbot’s head makes an appearance as Frank smashes it down on to his opponent before slamming them in to the ground, unfortunately the range and timing on this move meant that I only saw it once in an hour of play. It did KO me though.

 

To quickly sum up my the game remains the Smash Bros. of the Street Fighter world. You go in to battle with any two characters from the line up (or one of the bigger characters) and are able to switch between them at will.

 

Combat is simplified significantly from other Capcom fighters, reducing number of attack buttons to three (which are then bolstered with special move buttons and a partner button). Fast passed extravagant combat is frequently chaotic and the screen is regularly filled with screen high explosions.

 

It’s a fun, accessible, flashy game that I would happily recommend, even before Capcom started adding the extra characters and online play.