Capcom NYC Press Tour: SSFIV And Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom
The afternoon of October 20th I was treated to all things Capcom in a lavish room overlooking the park at the London Hotel in NYC. I was greeted by the bright and eager eyes of Team Capcom who were smartly dressed with oodles of information about some of their upcoming games.
The first thing I noticed and quite frankly the main thing that caught my eye on the invitation email was the showing of Super Street Fighter 4. The "blogosphere" has been spurting the same information ad nauseum for weeks about new characters and so called re balanced game play so I came prepared with a barrage of my own questions about actual new content. Why this rebalancing of a game that has been acclaimed by fighting enthusiasts and what does this mean for my months of training with the current system? Why not mark it for DLC? If you sold me a game eight months ago that already requires a complete rebalancing of mechanics what does that say about the original game? Alas no matter how much I batted my lengthy lashes at the producers I could get no further than a nun would in a brothel. In fact the game was not available for me to play. Seth, the friendly community manager simply stated there would be eight new characters inducted into the Street Fighter cannon not to mention classic combatants like Dee Jay and the full roster from February's release. The game is slated for a spring release at less than the price of the original SF 4 but no actual numbers were shared. Seth showed off his clear passion for fighters in a minor demo battle between T-Hawk and new cyber gal Juri and later when he kicked my butt in Tatsunoko Vs Capcom. Twice!
Can you make the jump?
When this beating took place it was particularly disheartening because I had just come from a solid hour of schooling my boyfriend in the ways of Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 on the PSN. Tatsunoko feels similar, if not easier to handle than its' predecessor. You can expect the same color crazy, animated, tag team mayhem in Tatsunoko but this time around you will build massive combos with two heroes instead of three. I love how the technical system takes a tried and true formula and simplifies it so that anyone can feel like a badass. This system rewards mashing but runs deep enough for a seasoned pro who frame counts to own the match making it very hard for you to get a hit in edgewise. This game is gorgeous! I nearly creamed my Lucky Brand jeans the first time I performed a hyper combo! The presentation feels slick and spot on ready to assist in creating your anime dream battles and suggests that something might be lost if showing on a console other than the Wii. Yes. This is a Wii exclusive that may warrant the purchase of the console for fighting savants. I have a feeling Nintendo will hold on to this one as long as it can, considering it wasn't even supposed to make it to the states. As intriguing as this game is I still had some questions: Like, "Whats a Tatsunoko? And "Will it work with my favorite Capcom heroes?"
Tatsunoko is a Japanese animation company founded in 1962. Essentially the grandfather of many current projects, there are few studios in Japan today whose roots aren't tied to Tatsunoko. Gold Lighten, a giant gold lighter and Tekkaman, The Space Knight are both series from Tatsunoko of the late seventies and early eighties and both make appearances in this game. The whole of the Tatsunoko universe is a massive and exceedingly Japanese place with campy, ridiculous plotlines and "tech-mech" robots. Some of the long arm of Tatsunoko might have reached some of you in the eighties. Does anyone remember "Samurai Pizza Cats"? I do!
Fleshing out the Capcom side are some of my favorites including Zero from the darker Mega Man X series and surprise newbie Frank West from the acclaimed Dead Rising. I chose both as my first picks and quickly found the two to rock as a team! Zero can blast the field with his chargeable X-buster and Z-saber combos and feels just like he did in the X series. Frank has several tricks up his sleeve with the ability to summon zombies and just about any weapon from his game of origin. He combos easily and is a great choice for beginning players. His best feature has to be his ability to briefly turn into Mega Man as a special move!
Overall I had an awesome time with Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom and cannot wait to get my hands on some more delicious hyper combos when it debuts next year.
ROCsteady
Posted to Video Games on 25 October 2009
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