Coinciding with Capcom's announcement today of four new characters for Tatsunoko VS Capcom, Famitsu.com delivered an interview with the game's producer, Ryouta Nizuma. Here are a few of the key points form the interview.

Nizuma first detailed the origins of the project, saying that there was a general movement within Capcom towards making fighting games once again. Street Fighter IV was one part of that movement. The idea of making a Versus fighter came about when Capcom attempted to find something to contrast with SFIV. The thinking was to make something that, compared to the serious nature of SFIV, would deliver a flashy experience that anyone could easily get into.

Once the the decision was made to make a Versus fighter, the game's developers began considering what kind of characters to use. It was at that very time that Tatsunoko Productions approached Capcom with the idea of using its character properties in a game.

Moving on to the actual production of the game, Nizuma said that it's been tough selecting characters. The team wants to put in as many characters as possible, but he feels that, given that they have to begin each character from scratch, putting in too many characters could end up affecting game balance or reducing quality. The aim is not to have as large a cast as was found in past versus fighter Marvel VS Capcom 2.

Expect more character surprises, according to the Tatsunoko VS Capcom producer.

There are more characters on the way, though, said Nizuma. This includes some big surprises. Compared to the current lineup, which he described as being "expected," the new lineup is like a "change-up" (yes, a baseball analogy).

The timing of the Famitsu.com article makes it a bit unclear if Nizuma was including the latest character reveal in his comments. Capcom's latest announcement included one big surprise, the main character from Shin Onimusha. Previous Capcom characters have been from the company's fighting titles.

Those hoping for more SFII or SFIII characters may be out of luck. Nizuma noted that Ryu comes from Street Fighter, Chun Li from Street Fighter II, and Alex from Street Fighter III. Rather than having multiple characters from SFII, the image is of one character from each title.

As for the Tatsunoko characters, Nizuma admitted that most of the staff is from the 70s and 80s, so within the team there is a strong desire to select heroes from that era. Jokingly, he apologized to Famitsu.com's readers for being an old man.

Ryu may be pretty lonely this time around when it comes to Street Fighter II characters.

The staff is minding the details with the game, said Nizuma, with the hope that fans of the original works will notice. As an example, he noted that the game's background music is not attached to the stages of play, but to the characters. The background music changes if you use a different character. He likens this to how the theme music plays in the background when heroes appear in an anime.

Consideration of fans extends beyond BGM and into the gameplay. Taking Alex as an example, Nizuma noted that the SFIII warrior has a move that, in the original game, dizzies opponents. Tatsunoko does not have dizzy states in general, but the team included a special dizzy state just for this one move.

Nizuma wants players to be on the lookout for these little touches. Some are for the true hardcore -- stuff that only the biggest fans (1 in 5, according to Nizuma) will be able to catch.

In closing, Nizuma said that the development staff is under constant pressure due to this being the first versus series fighter in a long time. While he admits that it will probably be difficult for those who watched the Tatsunoko anime series in their original airings to make it out to arcades, he still hopes they try out the game. He also notes that the title is not made exclusively for old people and he hopes that younger players also play it, see how cool the Tatsunoko characters are, and proceed to watch the original anime versions.