Super Roster Maker - Capcom All-Stars

Earlier, this blog posted a Super Roster Maker entry based on Capcom Fighting Jam 2, an upgraded sequel to Capcom's attempt at a 100% in-house crossover game focusing completely on Capcom's fighting game franchises. During that, I mentioned that another roster would come soon focusing on Capcom as a whole, a fighting game focusing on any of their series, big or small, fighting or otherwise.

That’s what we’ll explore in the topic of this Super Roster Maker, Capcom All-Stars.

For this roster, any of Capcom's series are up for discussion, any of them can have characters pulled from them. We'll be using the format from some of the other SRM articles and splitting the character selection into four parts; the icons of the company's biggest series, popular or top-tier characters from the studio's fighting games, representatives of series with recent or upcoming projects, and wild card picks which will be discussed more when that section comes up.

Now, let’s choose our characters!

=

Part 1: The Icons

The picks are:

Mega Man (Mega Man)

Ryu (Street Fighter)

Jill Valentine (Resident Evil)

Captain Commando (Captain Commando)

For the icons, we looked at the biggest franchises Capcom has (Street Fighter, Mega Man, and Resident Evil) and picked the most iconic characters from each of them. As for Captain Commando, he was picked to represent Capcom as a whole, since he was originally designed to be Capcom’s mascot.

Part 2: The Fighters

For the fighters, we once again pay a visit to the fighting game community website Eventhubs to look at the popularity and tier lists for the currently active Capcom fighting games, crossovers included this time, to find the best additions.

From Marvel vs. Capcom 2: Tron Bonne (Mega Man Legends) and Strider Hiryu (Strider)

From Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Nathan Spencer (Bionic Commando) and Vergil (Devil May Cry)

From Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite: Jedah Dohma (Darkstalkers) and Dante (Devil May Cry)

From Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Saki Omokane (Quiz Nanairo Dreams) and Zero (Mega Man X)

From Street Fighter 2: Sagat and Vega

From Street Fighter Alpha: Sakura and Akuma

From Street Fighter 3: Ken and Chun-Li

From Street Fighter 4: Cody (Final Fight) and Yun

From Street Fighter 5: Karin Kanzuki and Cammy White

From Street Fighter X Tekken: Guy (Final Fight) and Juri

From Darkstalkers 2: Morrigan and Jon Talbain

From Darkstalkers 3: Felicia and Lord Raptor

Part 3: The Stars

For the Stars section, the characters representing series with current or upcoming releases from the studio, one character each was chosen from Capcom series that have had a new game released in the past five years (2013 being the cut-off year), not counting remakes, rereleases, compilations, or mobile games. The search turned up ten series that Capcom has recently worked on or is currently working on.

The picks are:

Albert Wesker (Resident Evil)

Guile (Street Fighter)

Monster Hunter (Monster Hunter)

Phoenix Wright (Ace Attorney)

Date Masamune (Sengoku Basara)

Frank West (Dead Rising)

Wayne Holden (Lost Planet)

Tong Pooh (Strider)

Nero (Devil May Cry)

Dr. Wily (Mega Man)

Part 4: The Wild Cards

As with other SRM articles in this format, we’ll be separating this section into three sub-sections, developer favorites (where we look through interview articles and developer comments to try to find out which characters a developer might like), fan favorites (where we look at polls and forums to see which characters fans gravitate to), and experimental characters (often lesser-known characters that may offer potential for a creative move-set concept or presentation). And to keep things even, each sub-section will get the same number of characters.

Dev Favs

Blanka (Street Fighter)

Lady (Devil May Cry)

Leon Kennedy (Resident Evil)

From separate reviews with Capcom characters, we figured out that some developers have a fondness for certain characters. Yoshinori Ono (executive producer of Street Fighter V) stated that one of his favorite characters was Blanka from Street Fighter (along with Cammy, but she already made the roster), Hideaki Itsuno (director of Devil May Cry 5) said that one of his favorite characters was Lady from Devil May Cry, and Hiroyuki Kobayashi (executive producer of Mega Man 11 and several Resident Evil games) said Leon Kennedy from Resident Evil was one of his favorites.

Fan Favs

Amaterasu (Okami)

Chris Redfield (Resident Evil)

Mike Haggar (Final Fight)

For the Fan Favs, I looked through various forum threads and top 10 lists to see which characters that didn’t already make the roster were mentioned frequently. This gives an idea of which characters were memorable to Capcom fans and who they would likely want to see in a large crossover game.

Experimental Picks

Yellow Iris (Battle Circuit)

Edward Falcon (Power Stone)

Lynne and Sissel (Ghost Trick)

With more of a focus on lesser known titles for this final section, the picks provided here are ones that allow for more variety with the characters themselves, how they play, and the series they represent. 

With Capcom having recently released the Capcom Beat ‘Em Up Bundle, futuristic beastwoman bounty hunter Yellow Iris from Battle Circuit is one of the frontline characters shown for the collection. While she can use moves from the game, she could also potentially call in help from her fellow bounty hunters. From the Power Stone series, pilot and treasure hunter Edward Falcon can use the titular Power Stones from the game to potentially power-up his moves and even enter his Power Change state to give himself completely different moves to use. Finally, from the puzzle-adventure game Ghost Trick, detective Lynne and her ghostly companion Sissel can fight with Lynne using more traditional fighting moves or police equipment while Sissel uses his ghost powers to manipulate the environment around them for attacks.

FINAL RESULTS

The Roster: Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, Guile, Blanka, Cammy, Sakura, Karin, Yun, Sagat, Vega, Juri, Akuma, Morrigan, Felicia, J. Talbain, L. Raptor, Jedah, Jill, Leon, Chris, Wesker, Dante, Nero, Lady, Vergil, Haggar, Cody, Guy, Mega Man, Dr. Wily, Strider Hiryu, Tong Pooh, Captain Commando, Tron, Spencer, Saki, Zero, Monster Hunter, Phoenix Wright, Date Masamune, Frank West, Wayne, Amaterasu, Y. Iris, Falcon, Lynne

This roster gives us 47 different characters from 21 different series. Same as with Capcom Fighting Jam 2, Street Fighter has the most characters with in the roster with 13 fighters while more than half of the series in the roster only have one character. This is mostly due to how many of the Street Fighter games are active in the competitive scene. It’s practically a staple of it.

=

What did you think of this roster? What characters would you want to see in a Capcom All-Stars fighting game? Make your voice heard in the comments below. Thanks for coming.