Courtesy of Chad Bonin of the GaijInside Blog:
The Versus Series
expands into new territory, pitting some of Capcom’s greatest
characters agains the heroes and villains of Japanese animation. Years
ago, the Street Fighters clashed against the X-Men, the Marvel Super
Heroes, the entire Marvel Universe, and the SNK fighting characters,
and now the Capcom legends face off against some of the Tatsunoko’s
titans. Ryu and Chun-Li face off against Ken the Eagle and Jun the
Swan from Gatchaman, the henshin hero of Viewtiful Joe faces off
against his heroes of Tekkaman, Casshan, Polmar, and more, and even
succubus Morrigan and zombie photographer Frank West (he’s covered
wars, you know) throws on his Megaman armor alongside Zero, Megaman
Volnutt, and Roll to tackle Doronjo, Karas, Gold Lightan, and more!

Capcom’s exploits are legendary across all consoles, genres, and
medium. Tatsunoko, on the other hand, is nameless in America. Only
known for a few of their properties making their way to America
(Gatchaman, Casshan, Karas, and Tekkaman), Tatsunoko has created
classic characters in Japan. This game, once titled Cross
Generation Of Heroes, showed the clash between legends and lesser
knowns. Tatsunoko VS. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars comes after
extensive speculation. Once expected to never reach America, due to
the prevalence of copyright law and mixed properties prevalent on the
Tatsunoko side of things, the game has finally hit American shelves
minus one character and adds tons more.

The fighting engine continues
the VS. series mindset of a five-level Super bar, with
characters having both single level Supers, triple level Supers, and
can combine to perform Partner Supers. Added to the mix are Baroque
and Mega Crash, with the former allowing the player to continue
chaining combos while sacrificing life, and the latter saving them
from crushing attacks.

The only real way to play this game, outside of a arcade stick (Which
were made specifically for the game, which is a nice touch), is with a
Classic Controller (or a Classic Controller PRO, coming soon). Three
buttons are dedicated to light, medium, and hard attacks, with one
button dedicated to partner actions (press it to call out your partner
for an attack, or hold back and press it to swap out with your
partner). Any other control scheme, and you’re limiting your accuracy;
given that this reviewer was raised on SNES pads with Street
Fighter II Turbo, the Classic Controller just tends to be the
best way to tackle the game.

Multiple modes are expected with a fighter, and while Ultimate
All-Stars doesn’t break any new ground, the roads traveled are no
less fun. Arcade, Time Attack, and Survival are fighting game
standards, with arcade going through eight matches, time attack going
through seven (omitting the final battle with Okami’s boss, Yami), and
Survival lasts as long as you do. Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection allows for
both ranked and player matches, but it seemed to take an inordinate
amount of time to make connections. Once made, the fight seems laggy.
It’s hard to quantify this as an erroneous code or just a bad
connection; the sheer inclusion of a Online mode puts the game a step
ahead of it’s Japanese half-predecessor, but Nintendo’s third place
weakness in the online department shows.

One of the most frustrating
unlocks in the game (with art, character colors, videos, and more
available for purchase with Zenny earned from playing naturally) is
the Extra Game, Tatsunoko VS. Capcom: Ultimate All-Shooters.
Unlocked by beating the game AND collecting all highlighted letters
(spelling THANK YOU FOR PLAYING) during the ending credits… it took 26
runs through the game to unlock this mode. Once unlocked, Ultimate
All-Shooters is a four-player shooter starring Ryu, Ken The
Eagle, PTX-40A, and Tekkaman Blade. While not worth a game purchase on
itself, Ultimate All-Shooters is a fun little bonus game
that’s worth a few play throughs, but not worth completely going out
of the way to unlock.

Much of Ultimate All-Stars fun comes from the style and
reverence held throughout the game. Past the point that the combo
counters showing how much damage ranks up in the billions, Capcom (and
UDON, the artists behind the new endings, which replace the animated
endings of Cross Generation Of Heroes) show how much fun can
be had when combining two relatively dissimilar brands. While the plot
is pared down to “the worlds are combining, we have to fight to save
them”, character moments make it beyond the generic setup. Viewtiful
Joe gets to hang out with the heroes he only could buy toys of in the
past, the roster of the Space Knights is enhanced by Roll, Zero, Gold
Lightan, the PTX-40A, and more, and a certain picture on Frank’s
camera during the Willamette Mall incident is revealed. The multiple
openings feature such text quotes, including Ken’s suggestion that Ryu
should join G-Force, but show a problem that will come from the
American players: all voice acting is Japanese, outside of characters
that are uniquely English-speaking. While it’s better than having an
offensively-poor dub, when you can’t understand the dialogue thrown in
the middle of matches, it loses some of the fun. After-battle quotes
are tailored for many of the matches, and levels pulled straight from
the franchises enrich much of the feel of the game.

If you own a Wii and enjoy the franchises involved, definitely check
out the game. If you just want a good fighting game that isn’t
party-designed like Super Smash Bros., this is your best bet.
If you love both factors, this game will go high on your list of
instant classics. While parts of the game are just incredibly obscure,
the fans of them will get their money’s worth.–