Tatsunoko vs. Capcom

Tatsunoko vs. Capcom is a tag team-based fighting game in which players control characters with different attacks and fighting styles, and engage in combat to deplete their opponent's life gauge. 5D environment where the characters are rendered in three-dimensional graphics, but their movements are restricted to a two dimensional plane; they may only move left and right, and upward through the air. Each player may select a team of two characters and can switch between them during combat.

Alternatively, players may select one of two "giant" characters, who cannot be played as part of a team. When characters switch, the incoming one performs a special attack upon entry, and the previous one can regenerate health. Characters not in play may be used to assist, and to perform powerful team moves. A match ends when a team has no characters left, or when the timer reaches zero—in which case, the team with the most remaining life wins.

Tatsunoko vs. Capcom was conceived when Tatsunoko Production asked Capcom to develop a game with Tatsunoko characters. In-company discussions at Capcom about it started in mid-2006; Capcom producer Ryota Niitsuma was interested in producing a fighting game, and agreed with other Capcom employees that Tatsunoko's characters would be better suited for a Vs. game than a Street Fighter game.

The resulting project was the seventh Capcom-designed entry in the Vs. series and the first in over seven years. In the 2000s decade, fighting games were less popular and plentiful than in the mid-1990s, with multiplayer competition shifting towards other genres.

Famitsu's four reviewers each gave Cross Generation of Heroes a score of 8/10. They believed that its variety of characters and its fighting system were strong points, but found its gameplay to be slightly flat, as skilled players are obligated to use Baroque Combos repeatedly. Licensing and resource issues made GameSpot's Ricardo Torres, IGN's John Tanaka, GamesRadar and other critics doubtful that the game would see an international release. Describing the game's cast of licensed characters, Adam Sessler of X-Play stated that "clearing the American rights to show them all in one game would be a logistical nightmare."

He also pointed out the largely unknown cast to non-Japanese audiences—a notion IGN's Mark Bozon agreed with. When Ultimate All-Stars debuted at E3 2009, it garnered numerous genre-specific awards, and won the Game Critics Award for "Best Fighting Game".