On the surface of things, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars Review looks like to be the rightful successor to Marvel vs. Capcom 2; the spirit of teamwork, hectic, over the top fighting and a hugely accessible gameplay. But in practice? Well we can thank Capcom and developers Eighting for not just delivering an exciting fighting game, but also giving Wii owners a title they can be proud off.

It’s a given that many won’t know much, if any, about Tatsunoko and may feel they are an odd choice when compared to X-Men, Marvel and SNK characters. This is perhaps why we don’t get as many characters when compared to most of the other vs. series games. However, what we do get is a fine selection itself, though you have to ask where is Ken? And why is the Mega Man in Ultimate All-Stars the one from Mega Man Legends? Minor quibbles aside, you’re bound to have fun with characters familiars such as Ryu and Morrigan, to new stars like Yattaman-1 and Polimar.

Gameplay is pretty simple to grasp. Hell if you thought the X-Men and Marvel vs. series were accessible, then Ultimate All-Stars makes their controls feel Tekken-esque. You have three attacks; light, medium and strong and a partner button. Oh and you can taunt, but since there’s no Dan (another sad omission), it’s rather pointless.Despite the simplicity of it all, and the ease of getting use to several different techniques you can pull off (from special moves, to baroque to different types of hyper combos), there is some depth in there and the seemingly weakest character can potentially become a big threat once you master the controls and each character’s playing style.

There are various modes to test your skills. Arcade sees you go through eight stages, with the last seeing you face off against Yami (last boss from Okami). As traditional for the vs. series, the final boss isn’t all that great, though thankfully it’s not as cheap as Onslaught or Shin Akuma were. Completing this nets you Zenny (more so if you stick around and complete and partake in the mini-game during the credits roll) which can be used to unlock art, movies and additional select colours for characters. While it’s a bit disappointing that you can’t unlock anything meaty (additional characters, more stages), at least there’s an incentive to carry on playing the game, even when you’ve seen all the characters endings.

Speaking of endings, there’s a slight disappointment for anyone who was expecting that Ultimate-All Stars would retain the animated endings from the Japanese version of Tatsunoko vs. Capcom. Instead they are replaced by still shots. Still, the artwork is fantastic (due to being designed by Udon) and some are amusing (Kaijin No Soki, Polimar and Viewtiful Joe spring to mind).

There’s also versus, survival and time attack modes, which have been expected to be included in any fightinggame. But thankfully, Eighting haven’t been content to just stop there. First of all, there’s the inclusion of the Wi-Fi connection. This means that even when you’ve exhausted everything from the single player modes and you don’t have someone nearby to play versus mode, you can simply go online, which gives Ultimate All-Stars extended longevity. Before going online, you should make sure that downloading anything or running that drains your computer resources as it can make the battles rather laggy.

Online you have the option to participate in rank battles or free battles. The higher in rank you go, the more you’ll be matched up with those on your level. So while you may find at first your winning a lot due to facing rookies, you may soon end up going against the big boys. As well as having up to 32 friends you can battle against (by getting their Wii codes of course), there’s the novel feature of being able to gain rivals. After winning (or losing) a match, you can request someone to be your rival. If they accept, you can track them when their online and give them a good thrashing again or seek revenge. The advantage of this system is that you don’t have to enter friend codes, which can be tedious if you have lots of friends who can’t wait to hadouken you to death.

The other mode included is the rather novel top-down shooter called Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Shooters. This mode is playable with four players and you select from Ryu, Tekkaman Blade, Ken the Eagle or PTX-40A. It’s recommended that you start with Tekkaman or PTX, because not only are they the best for beginners especially PTX) but they don’t make annoying sounds when they fire their weapons unlike Ryu and Ken the Eagle. Once selected, it’s up to you to go through four stages, blasting Akrids and then taking down a huge boss at the end of each stages. There are branching paths (which means in total there are ten levels) and which one you take depending on how many points you have. It’s a novel game that’s good for time wasting, especially with four friends. Unfortunately, you can’t play the game online, which is a missed opportunity.

Overall then, Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars is the best vs. series game since Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and is one of the best fighting games currently released. While there may be some minor quibbles; disappointing final boss, surprising character omissions and a few lacklustre characters (hello MegaMan Volunutt), the great experience of Ultimate All-Stars pretty much overshadows them all. Now Capcom, how about getting the Marvel license back and giving us Marvel vs. Capcom 3.