Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom: Cross Generation of Heroes
Despite the expressed excitement from my previous post, I must let out a groan of disappointment at the recent announcement regarding Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom: Cross Generation of Heroes. Just when I thought Capcom had learned its lesson… I can forgive Namco x Capcom and even the upcoming Cross Edge because at least Capcom is dabbling in using it’s various characters in an RPG setting. Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom feels like after taking their one step forward, they’re taking two steps back.
With Mortal Kombat Vs. DC, it was easy to declare that the bottom of the Versus fighter barrel had been reached, ready for Midway’s scraping. Capcom must have felt their level of standards (on both poles) threatened, using this new title as their way of telling the industry, “Oh, no no no… We have a deeper barrel.” I mean, seriously… Gotchaman? I don’t know how faithful of a following that show has in Japan, but most gamers in my [thirty-something] generation doesn’t even remember it. And one of the series used to make up Robotech…it’s not even the good one, so how excited can one be? If you’re going to team up with an anime company, try to hit one of the hotter ones like Bandai or Takara.
One thing that puts me at ease is that I have a hunch that Capcom isn’t intending to take this title seriously. This game is not meant for the dedicated tournament gamers. It’s meant to make an easy buck off of fanboys who are only going to button-mash anyway. It’s like those straight-to-DVD action/horror movies; meant for late night college kids to rent from Blockbuster to watch while drunk over the weekend when there’s nothing good on TV. This is the type of game that I would recommend be reserved for digital distribution only, leaving the truly great games (ideally) to be worth investing into tangible media.
