Tatsunoko vs. Capcom Preview

VideoGamer.com: Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars is coming out for the Wii, but we’ve seen fighting games prove successful on the Xbox 360 and the PS3. Did you ever discuss releasing the game as downloadable titles on XBLA and PSN in the west, or was it always going to be a Wii game? Is there any chance that the game might be released on Xbox 360 and PS3 in the future?

RN: Currently, no, but we would like to see the reaction of the western market when we release the game on Wii. The other problem is the game is optimised for the Wii system, especially the graphics features, so if we were to port it to PS3 or Xbox 360 we would have to make the game from scratch, and in that case we might as well just make a sequel of the series on those consoles rather than porting it.

VideoGamer.com: We recently interviewed the producer of Tekken 6, who said that character unlocking is “outdated”. In Street Fighter IV you have to unlock certain characters – Akuma, Gouken and Seth. What’s your opinion on the character unlocking debate?

RN: Personally speaking I quite like the idea of rewarding the players for what they’ve put into the game. Often the unlocked characters are quite tricky ones. If you were to start playing with that character from the start you might not really like it so much, so I quite like letting the players play with basic characters and learn the basics first, and then move on when they’ve reached a certain level to more tricky characters.

VideoGamer.com: Will you have to unlock characters in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars?

RN: We are probably going to unlock all the characters in the Japanese version, but the new additional characters that we’re going to put into the western SKU will be locked.

VideoGamer.com: Who is your favourite character on the Capcom side and why, and who is your favourite character on the Tatsunoko side and why?

RN: It’s a difficult choice! It’s hard to pick because I’ve put so much time and effort into every single one of them. From Capcom’s side, I might have said my favourite otherwise someone else, but at this moment it’s Roll, because she’s a crazy character. She’s the only one who can heal. She fights with a mop and a bucket. Anything she does is fun. She also has a theme song. It probably won’t make it to the western market, but she has a Japanese lyric vocal song. Her theme song is the only one with actual voices in it. Everything about her is unusual. From Tatsunoko’s side it would have to be Ken the Eagle, because he’s the basic character. We based all of the other models on him. I worked on him the most. From both series, Ken the Eagle and Jun the Swan, they’re from the same franchise. Those two are my favourite from Tatsunoko.

VideoGamer.com: You mentioned you worked on Street Fighter IV. Looking back, is there any character you feel is over-powered?

RN: Well first of all I might have to apologise! Does he involve being slightly blinded and scarred [laughs]?

VideoGamer.com: I agree!

RN: Yes, Seth and perhaps Sagat might have turned out a little bit stronger than we expected. But then again a good player of another character can always beat a good Sagat player or a good Seth player. I don’t think it’s too out of proportion, but we do acknowledge that they turned out a bit more powerful than we expected.

Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars is due out exclusively for the Wii. A release date has yet to be set.