Tatsunoko vs. Capcom

It came Across The Border

Sometime in 2008, Capcom decided to make a return to the gameplay of the Marvel series, except that they had no idea which company they should crossover with, until anime studio Tatsunoko Productions phoned them in and asked them to make a Licensed Game based on their characters. Naturally, Capcom agreed... and merged the request with their own plans, thus resulting in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Cross Generations of Heroes, developed by 8ing (otherwise known for the Naruto Clash of Ninja series).

Initially starring Ken the Eagle, Jun the Swan, Neo-Human Casshern, Tekkaman, Yatterman-1 and his Stripperiffic nemesis Doronjo, Hurricane Polymar, Karas and Gold Lightan in the Tatsunoko side; (plus Hakushon Daimaou and Ippatsuman in the Wii version) and Ryu, Chun-Li, Alex, Batsu, Morrigan, Soki, Mega Man Volnutt, Roll (with a completely different moveset from her Marvel self) and the PTX-40A Vital Suit from Lost Planet representing Capcom (plus Saki, from Quiz Nanairo Dreams, and Viewtiful Joe in the Wii version, and the Big Bad of Okami as the game's boss in both the Arcade and Wii versions, for bonus fanservice), the game marks a return to the series' roots of frenetic two-on-two tag-team action - but with 3D graphics (though the game still plays on a 2D plane) and the combos ramped up big time. New mechanics introduced include the Mega Crash, which is akin to Guilty Gear's Burst (although the term itself originated from Capcom's Pocket Fighter, the mechanics and cost are essentially the same) and Baroque, which allows you to sacrifice your red life to cancel your current attack and gain a proportional, temporary power boost. The story is even more non-existent and laid out to you by the anime intro sequence (provided by Tatsunoko, of course): The characters all live in a TV show and and only exist to (surprise, surprise) beat the stinking crap out of each other.

On January 26, 2010, an Updated Rerelease to the game, entitled Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars, was released in North America, with an international release to follow. Among the changes are the addition of online play, character balance tweaks, the removal of Hakushon Daimaoh (because his European licensors were quite stringy over him), still endings done by UDON Comics rather then the animated ones from Tatsunoko (due to licensing issues; those outside of Japan were not happy about that) and the addition of five new characters: Tekkaman Blade, Joe the Condor and Yatterman-2 in the Tatsunoko side, and Frank West and Zero in the Capcom side. The plot has also been updated. Why the heroes have to fight in order to defeat the Big Bad is still a guess however.

The home port is exclusive to the Wii - at least for now - mostly because the arcade machine used Wii-based hardware.

If you want a quick information about the characters in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, Jew Wario of That Guy With The Glasses has provided a video for a quick but informative information about the company and the characters. Also, GamesRadar compiled their stories and the Tatsunoko character's anime intros.

On a serendipitous note, Marvel has recently entered into an agreement with Tatsunoko to make what appears to be a crossover anime between the two companies. Capcom, you know what must be done...

Tropes used in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom include:

• Airborne Aircraft Carrier: The Gesselschaft. To some extent, the Orbital Ring Systems Cargo Bay is an off-ground carrier... because it's in outer space.
• Anime Theme Song:
  • In Cross Generations of Heroes, the Tatsunoko characters have their shows' theme song as their theme song, except for Karas, whose OVA/film has no such thing to speak of so he instead gets the Crowning Music of Awesome that blares during the first scene of it. The way Capcom worked over those songs actually makes some of them counting as Crowning Music of Awesome and/or Ear Worm as well.
  • There's also "Across the Border", which has two different arrangements for Cross Generations of Heroes and Ultimate All Stars.
• Badass Normal: Most of the Tatsunoko heroes, for whom Clothes Make the Superman, consider the Street Fighters this.
  • Ryu himself seems to think of Frank as this.
• Beam Me Up, Scotty: For some odd reason, a lot of people think that Daigo Temple is named after amazing Street Fighter player Daigo. Kinda shows a lot of people don't play Onimusha, which based it from the real temple.
• Beam-O-War: Can occur with many projectile weapons and supers.
• The Cameo: A large amount of old-school Capcom characters appear in the game's endings. Hell, even Hakushon Daimaou's ending has him being warped into the world of the World War II shmup 1942!
  • Devilotte (or Devilot?) Dave and Xavier in Doronjo's ending.
  • Hauzer in Karas' and Saki's endings.
  • Fiona, Hewie and Debilitas in Joe the Condor's ending.
  • Roll activates Huitzil and Vector in her ending. This is a long Development Gag, as Huitzil's first design was that of a robot housekeeper. In that same ending, we also see Dr. Light and Mega Man.
  • The pilot of PTX-40A is invited to the Super Robot Tournament by Santana in his ending. The cameos of the robots include G-Kaiser, Blodia, and Baby Head/Hoover. In UAS, they added Zero and Vile in the mix too! And Frank is in the bleachers taking photos.
  • Hayato (who previously was a playable character in Marvel vs. Capcom 2) saves Tekkaman Blade in his ending in UAS.
  • Soki and his gang pick the wrong interdimentional portal in UAS, and end up helping Arthur storm Astaroth's castle.
  • If you play Ultimate All Shooters mini-game, some of the stages (referred as Blocks) have Akrids sporting black color/gi with a Ten symbol on their backs and move in a manner similar to the Ashura Warp...
  • In Yatterman-2's ending, Doronjo and her two henchmen get reinforcements in the form their expies from the other Time Bokan series.
  • Fellow characters from the first Dead Rising game, Brad and Jessica, chat with Frank in his ending. The ending also seems to imply that in the Tatsunoko vs. Capcom universe, this game's story happens before the original Dead Rising game.
• Combination Attack: Double and Triple Supers.
• Combos: The game encourages smaller combos due to its damage scaling (which triggers pretty quickly). Expect to hear "YES!" (the game's call-out to three-or-four-hit combos) a lot.
• Combo Breaker: The Megacrash.
• Comeback Mechanic: The more damage a character has taken, the more damage that character will do when they activate Baroque.
• Creative Closing Credits
• The Dev Team Thinks of Everything: Both games are full of many small details in the endings, pre-fight chats and win quotes.
• Dialogue Tree: If certain characters fight or are picked as the same team, the victory quotes and intro quotes will be different.
• Dynamic Entry: Most of the tag-ins.
• Enemy Mine: It's pretty hilarious seeing the Science Ninja Team fighting inside of Galactor's base, or Mega Man Volnutt fighting aboard Bonne's Gesselschaft.
• Feelies: Do you live in Japan or do you want to import Ultimate All-Stars? You might want to check out this, which includes both the game and a bonus Audio CD containing 4 songs - 2 new for this game (English versions of "Across the Border" and "Kaze Yo Tsutaete") and 2 songs from the previous version (Japanese versions of those two). Still want more loot? This one contains not only those two, but also Capcom's Secret Files, a collection of arcade flyers and promotion materials. This one is Volume 27th, containing game stuff.
• Fire, Ice, Lightning: The player type online uses Fire (offensive), Ice (defensive) and Lightning (speedy) symbols to describe the opponent's play-style.
• Flawless Victory:

PERFECT!

• Free-Floor Fighting: The Uncharted Region of China has a breakaway floor, and Galactor's base has a path that can be adjusted. Both of these are affected by attacks that damage the ground.
• Funny Background Event: Some stages have odd things happening in the background.
  • In the background of the Orbital Ring Systems Cargo Bay, over the course of the battle, human soldiers are battling giant aliens. It doesn't seem to be going too well.
  • The zombies taking over the Willamette's Parkmall View.
  • In both Les Vagas and Washinkyo, Amehon, cars run fast, there are tanks... of course, the combatants are fighting in the middle of the street.
  • In the Yatterman Workshop, Omotchama flies everywhere, and after some time, Yatterwan or Yatterpelican exit the stage.
  • The Servbots try to keep the calm and keep everything well in the Gesellschaft when it's raining. They can be spotted running everywhere when it's not raining.
  • The Aensland Castle features a screen of the fight.
• Gratuitous English: The Cross Generations of Heroes announcer.
• Idiosyncratic Combo Levels: Features the "word" Tatsunical, but also marks the debut of Viewtiful, as this is the first Capcom vs. Whatever game to include Viewtiful Joe.
• Immune to Flinching: Giant characters Gold Lightan and PTX-40A are Mighty Glaciers; extremely slow and unwieldy compared to the rest of the cast, but in exchange they are nearly impossible to flinch, and can stomp through even the strongest special moves from other characters easily.
• Invulnerable Knuckles: Played straight normally, but subverted in these winquotes.

Alex when winning against Gold Lightan: "Gonna need to ice my hands after punching you so many times. You made of steel or somethin'?"
Kaijin No Soki when winning against Gold Lightan: I... WIIIIIIIN! Owww! My hands still quaver with pain!

• Just for Pun: Combos longer than 74 hits are Tatsunical.
• Lampshade Hanging: The victory quotes in Ultimate All-Stars.
• Mad Libs Dialogue: Many winquotes are like this, with your character referring to his partner by name.
• Mini Game: Cross Generations of Heroes has unlockable mini-games. Ultimate All-Stars has the almost eponymous "Ultimate All-Shooters" and the credit sequences in both games serves for that purpose.
• Mirrored Confrontation Shot: In the Ultimate All-Stars coverart.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: The Science Ninja Team are ninjas who use technology to fight alien invaders with mechas! This is mocked by Tekkaman Blade:

(after winning against Ken The Eagle) "So you guys are ninjas who use science? I don't get it. What exactly are you trying to accomplish?"

• Non Dubbed Grunts
• One Steve Limit: Viewtiful Joe and Joe the Condor. Ironically, this game, while being the first Capcom crossover to feature Ken the Eagle, is the first one not to have Ken Masters.
• Panty Shot: Lampshaded by Frank's victory dialogue to Jun the Swan.
• Pinball Scoring: BILLIONS of damage done... by combo?
• Power Creep, Power Seep: How the (mostly) Badass Normal characters from the Street Fighter-verse can last more than five seconds against powerhouses like Casshern, how Frank West can throw Gold Lightan or the PTX-40A, spin them above his head and hit them with a bat, how normal humans can take on someone like Tekkaman Blade and Tekkaman's 'SPACE LANCE!, and how Alex can grab Gold Lightan or the PTX-40A's legs to slam them around like ragdolls.

Gold Lightan: You threw me! You really threw me! Are you human?!
PTX-40A pilot: Never thought I'd meet a person that could throw Ivan here. I don't know whether I should laugh or cry...

• Practical Taunt: Polimar can charge up his attack power by taunting. This is represented by three Polimar emblems on the bottom of the screen; one lights up each time he taunts.
• Public Domain Soundtrack: A remixed version of Offenbach's "Can-Can" plays during the credits roll of Tatsunoko vs. Capcom (except when you win as Roll).
• Rage Quit: Perhaps a bug of the game, but if someone ragequits a match online, it counts for a loss for the person who didn't quit.
• Reunion Show: Or rather, reunion game for the Tatsunoko VAs. Come on, nearly all of the actors on the Tatsunoko side are the original cast! Heck, with Hakushon Daimaou (who voiced Dr. Nambu), Ken the Eagle and Jun the Swan (all of them in Cross Generation of Heroes, the genie gets replaced by Joe The Condor in Ultimate All-Stars), you pretty much have a Gatchaman reunion of sorts!
• Rickroll: Referenced in the training stage rap song in the Japanese version. "I keeps it real, son! Not the type to Rick Roll ya."
• Ryu and Ken: Averted. Playing with Name's the Same, Ken the Eagle plays differently from Ryu but he still serves as the poster boy for his company. Let's not forget about the Tekkamen. Very similar movsets, but wildly different executions.
• Shout-Out: Check the page.
• Spiritual Successor: This series is pretty much a follow-up to the Marvel vs. Capcom series.
• Super Move Portrait Attack: The game has a special case where the portraits are really zoomed-in images of the models that actually move in accordance to the hyper move being done.
• Tag Team
• Title Scream
• Trapped in TV Land: What seems to be the premise behind both games.
• Updated Rerelease: Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All Stars, as detailed in the opening paragraphs.
• Video Game 3D Leap: This game is the first 3D fighting game of the whole Capcom vs. Whatever series.
• Videogame Dashing
• Wrote the Book: Joe The Condor's victory quote against Zero:

You've got speed, I'll give you that. But your textbook fighting style isn't gonna work on the man who wrote the book!