It all started with fond childhood memories.
âThe anime that Tatsunoko makes is well known in Japan,â said Capcom producer Ryota Niitsuma. âEven now, looking back on them they had a lot of good stories and were really fun. I think a lot of adults in Japan have fond memories of those.â
So when the anime studio approached Capcom about making a game based on characters pulled from their five decades worth of work, Capcom jumped at the idea.
The result was 2.5D fighter Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars.
https://lastchance.cc/capcom-to-adopt-2-5d-for-future-fighters-453110090%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
âWe started by sitting around and deciding what characters from the anime we would like to see in a fighting game,â Niitsuma said. âThen we had to consider licensing issues. Once we had that list we had to figure out how to make a balanced fighting game. On top of that we wanted a good balance between male and female characters.
âWe mainly plucked the main characters from the anime we used, and not too many villains.â
But not all of Capcomâs choices were approved.
âOne of the main anime we got more requests for than any others was Samurai Pizza Cats,â he said. âThere were a lot of people who wanted to see that. I wanted to see that, but we couldnât reach an agreement.â
Another set of characters shot down by Tatsunoko were the transforming-motorcycle riders of Genesis Climber MOSPEADA.
âThey told us what we could and couldnât use,â he said. âIf they said no we cut them.
âWe werenât privy to a lot of their decision making process. They didnât share a lot of reasons with us. When they said no and we asked why, they wouldnât tell us, but would give us another suggestion.â
When Capcom decided to bring Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom to the U.S. as Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars they added a few more characters to the game. If it does well enough, Niitsuma says that they may consider releasing even more characters for the Wii game as downloadable purchases.
And Niitsuma hopes that Capcom isnât finished working with Tatsunoko.
âOn a personal level I am so happy I was able to make this game and I hope I can continue to work with them and adapt more of their anime for games,â Niitsuma said.
Bringing Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom Ultimate All-Stars to the PS3 or Xbox 360, though, is much less likely, he says.
The game was developed for the Wii because Capcom wanted to have a fighting game on all of the current platforms, but to bring the game to the other consoles would require an enormous amount of work, he said.
âWe would have to change our development schedules around,â he said. âThe work involved would be pretty insurmountable.â
