Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars

Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars is a crossover fighting game from 2010, exclusive to Wii, in which characters from Capcom's video games face off against heroes from the Japanese anime studio Tatsunoko, such as Ryu, Chun-Li, Viewtiful Joe, or Mega Man Volnutt on one side, and Ken the Eagle, Casshan, or Doronjo on the other. Battles take place in teams of two characters, with the player switching between them during the match and combining their special attacks into flashy tag-team combos, a concept close to the Marvel vs. Capcom series, which this title clearly follows in both style and its assist system.

The gameplay is built on fast, arcade-style pacing, easily memorable combos, and visibly over-the-top special attacks that fill almost the entire screen with colorful effects. On Wii the game ran smoothly at a higher resolution than the console usually offered, with colorful graphics evoking stapled comic books and conveying the distinctive style of both sides of the crossover, from the realistic faces of Capcom heroes to the exaggerated proportions of the Tatsunoko characters. Controls worked with the classic GameCube gamepad as well as the Classic Controller, letting players handle fights with a precision comparable to fighting games on other consoles, without needing to rely on Wii Remote gestures.

Because many of the Tatsunoko characters were little known outside Japan, the game built its reputation among Western players mostly with fighting-game fans and Japanese pop-culture enthusiasts rather than the broad Wii audience. Even so, reviews praised its balance, system depth, and unexpectedly strong technical execution on a console not primarily built for fighting games or such fast-paced action. Today Tatsunoko vs. Capcom is regarded as a treasured curiosity and one of the few genuinely great fighting titles ever to appear on Wii, and genre fans still remember it as a small gem in the console's overlooked library.