The Tatsunoko Interview

which gave us games as robust as Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and Capcom vs. SNK 2 was snuffed out. Capcom failed to bring its first triple-A attempt at 2D/3D crossover, Capcom Fighting All-Stars, to market, instead delivering the half-baked Capcom Fighting Evolution — a game that suggested the developer had run out of juice. The 2D fighting genre went dormant.

Somehow, though, Capcom has rescued it from dormancy with the massive success of Street Fighter IV. Arc System Works delivered the high definition BlazBlue. And Capcom has chosen to revitalize its Versus series in the form of Tatsunoko vs. Capcom.

The title, which debuts in Japan next month and in the West in January 2010, pits the retro cool of the anime studio — best known in the west for Battle of the Planets/G-Force — against Capcom’s slate of memorable characters — up to and including Frank West from Dead Rising.

How did something like this happen? How do you even make a game like this in this day and age? And why go exclusively for the Wii? To answer those questions, Gamasutra sat down with the game’s producer Ryota Niitsuma.

My first question is: why Tatsunoko?

Ryota Niitsuma: Well, the first stage of involvement is that Tatsunoko approached us about making a game using their characters. Fortunately, at that time, I was looking to make a new fighting game.

Of course, at Capcom, we have the Street Fighter-type series and then the Versus series, which are kind of different types of fighting games. So, we thought, “Oh, maybe this Tatsunoko would fit well in the Versus series.” And “Since I want to make a fighting game and they want a Tatsunoko game, this might be the way to go.” 
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