Darkstalkers

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Any fans?

Hell yes, but I don't really have the time to make a detailed post about it right now. I'll just say that B.B. Hood and L. Raptor are some of the most well-designed characters on the face of the earth (just like pretty much every other DS character)

This was a great series before fighting games evolved into what they are now. The detail paid to the animation, design and play style of the characters was wonderful. The overarching storyline, while often confusing was enjoyable and amusing depending on the characters chosen as well. The setting and music were fantastic and quite inspired even among todays fighters. I miss the 2D direction taken with fighting games and feel that Darkstalkers, Vampire Savior and all the others of the line were some of the best examples of what can and should be done with 2D fighting games.

Among my favorites were Lilith, Felicia, Morrigan and Zabel and Bulletta. All of the characters were lovely though and clearly outshine most of the current fighting game characters in my opinion.

I recall the day I got Vampire Savior for Sega Saturn along with the memory upgrade and a guide book for combos. It was a delight to practice Felicia's 50+ hit combos and I look back on those times with very fond memories. Fighting games just aren't the same currently as they were. They are either too technical or too button mash focused. It's a shame.

I'd get it if they came out with a new one. I've always wanted to play the series.

Yes, Darkstalkers still has some of the best animation ever. A lot of the tween animations are great, like Victor's heart popping out when he gets hit by a pursuit attack.

It was always an underrated series. What kinda killed it was that most people damned it as Street Fighter with vampires. Since people were kind of getting sick of SF by that time, that wasn't a good label to throw on it. In reality, it ended up innovating just as much as SF did, if not more. A lot of the new mechanics and aesthetics, like EX attacks, made it into other games.

EX attacks: Street Fighter III, SFIV, King of Fighters XIII
Chain combos: Street Fighter Alpha (later they were taken out in SFA2 so that SFA and Darkstalkers could have their own identities, although characters like Guy and Gen had some), Marvel vs., Real Bout Fatal Fury
Recoverable life: Tekken Tag Tournament, Dead or Alive, SF x Tekken, Marvel vs. games
Air blocking: Street Fighter Alpha, Marvel vs. games, some King of Fighters games
Anime-style graphics: Street Fighter Alpha, Real Bout Fatal Fury
Push blocking: Marvel vs. games, King of Fighters, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
Crouch-walking: Fatal Fury
Ports with tons of extra stuff added: Pretty much every port of a fighting game that came out after the Vampire Savior port

The console versions were even innovative. The Saturn version of Nightwarriors' Revenge (the second game) had the "appendix mode" where you could pick what stages and music from the first two games to use. The PSX port of the third game had a similar mode.

Here's a list of all the games and ports (the third game was split into three games due to memory constraints; they fixed this later with the ports):

Arcade:
Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors (Vampire: The Night Warriors in Japan)
Nightwarriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge (Vampire Hunter: Darkstalkers' Revenge)
Vampire Savior: The Lord of Vampire (also known as Jedah's Damnation in some areas, Vampire Savior EX in the JP PSX and Saturn ports, and Darkstalkers 3 for the English PSX port)
Vampire Savior 2 (an expansion of Vampire Savior that had different-colored backgrounds and left out Sasquatch, Talbain, and Rikuo, but added Donovan, Pyron, and Huitzil )
Vampire Hunter 2 (had same backgrounds as Nightwarriors, and the same music, with endings in the style of that game)

Console:
Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors (PSX) - This was released by Psygnosis in the US, and Capcom in Japan, and had two printings, at least in the US. The first was in the long black box. The second was a Fighter's Edge re-release in a jewel case. Capcom re-released several of their fighters when this program started. Psygnosis cut out most of the voices, except grunts and screams, and added a bunch of load times. It was a very poorly-coded port. Capcom didn't want to touch the game with a ten-foot pole in Europe and the US due to its reputation in the arcades, so Psygnosis released the game instead.

Nightwarriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge (Saturn) - This was only released on Saturn, due to some conflict with Sony at the time over Capcom trying to continue to release 2D games (which also affected Mega Man as well) to Sony's dismay, since they wanted the PSX to have mostly 3D stuff. It's fairly close to arcade perfect, at least the JP version is.

Darkstalkers 3/Vampire Savior EX (PSX/Saturn) - The Saturn version was Japan-only and came with a RAM cart which made the game more than an arcade perfect conversion, since it had all the extra stuff. The PSX version had the typical cut frames, load times, and censored blood, and was the only port of it released outside of Japan. And yes, the PSX version was released in Japan too. This port, along with the port of the first, are on the Playstation Network now. We never got the Saturn version because by the time it was out, the Saturn was dead here. The PSX version in the US was a Fighter's Edge title.

Vampire Chronicle: For Matching Service (Dreamcast) - This one is an oddity. It's Vampire Savior, but with all the characters, and you can choose what version of the character to use. Okay, say you have Demitri, for example. His Darkstalkers 1 form has no chain combos and hits pretty hard, plus his fireball has an instant knockdown. His Savior form, however, plays like in Savior, with chain combos and a fireball that stuns instead of knocking down. Even characters who weren't in previous games, like B.B. Hood, get commands and moves from previous games when you pick other forms (like instead of her missiles being charge motions like in Savior, in her DS2 form, they are half circle motions like all the other moves that were charge moves in the first game). It's also part of Capcom's "For Matching Service" lineup which means it has online play. This game has quite a bit of customization compared to the others. It isn't arcade perfect. Some tricks, like Victor's tick throws, don't work. It never hit the US until about 5 years later, because of bad sales of DS3. This port was the basis for Hyper Street Fighter II and Hyper Street Fighter Alpha.

Darkstalkers Chronicle: The Chaos Tower/Vampire Chronicle: The Chaos Tower (PSP) - This is basically a translated version of Vampire Chronicle, but without online play (there is ad hoc play though) and with a new mode called Chaos Tower. The Chaos Tower has a bunch of floors with different characters and missions you have to do. Going through this mode unlocks artwork and music in the gallery mode. It should also be noted that, interestingly, some of the endings in the arcade mode had typos and translations fixed, such as B.B. Hood's ending. What Capcom didn't tell people was that the sales of this game would determine if we were to get the upcoming Vampire Collection for PS2 or not. Sadly, the game flopped, so the collection was left as a Japan-only game.

Vampire Collection (PS2) - Released a mere two months after Chaos Tower, this port had all the arcade games in it from Vampire to Vampire Hunter 2. The interesting part was that this game had dipswitch settings that mimicked the ones in the arcade, so these games could all basically be made close to arcade perfect. It added a "new" character named Dee, who was basically Donovan's vampire form. His sprite was literally Demitri's body with Donovan's head. He had moves from Donovan and Demitri, but the effects were all turned blood red. The collection's aesthetics and features were used for Street Fighter Alpha Anthology, which was released almost exactly a year later.

Darkstalkers Resurrection (PS3/360) - This is coming out sometime this year, and will have Nightwarriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge and Vampire Savior in HD (not redrawn, but with HD filters). They will be based on the PS2 versions of the games and will use GGPO for online play. It will include a collection mode similar to the one in Chronicle where you unlock artwork and music. The port is in the same style as Street Fighter III Online and Marvel vs. Capcom Origins. The sales of this game will also determine whether a brand new game is made or not as well.

The Darkstalkers characters have shown up in other games as well. They have a crapload of cameos, all of which would take me forever to list.

This is one of those series where it always sells like crap but there's a sizable following. I always wished this game made it big, because it was innovative for its time. The chances of getting a new one that plays like the others is almost nil now, because Team Dirty Beret, the former internal team at Capcom that made the series, jumped ship to Arc System Works, where they helped create Guilty Gear and Blazblue (which is why those two series have similar mechanics to the DS games).

I wish they'd finally come out with a fourth installment, but they probably never will. They should though.

It was said that if Darkstalkers Resurrection did well enough, that a new game would be made. Yoshinori Ono, an employee at Capcom, really wants it to happen, but Capcom isn't budging as of now to let him make it. He has to get enough support for it. Which is actually what also happened with Street Fighter. SF3 wasn't popular at all, but he finally was able to bug Capcom to let him make a new SF game.

There is also this little teaser trailer too:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_skngJlTDg[/youtube]

And while I'm at it, the Resurrection trailer:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8A4fPuMitys[/youtube]

If it turns out like SF4, then f*** it.

It's either Ono's team makes it, or, god forbid....Arc System Works.

I remember the cartoon from the mid-1990s, but that's about it.

I've spent a good bit of quarters on these games

I bought darkstalkers 3 on ps3 store last year, and I have just managed to beat the game as two characters so far.
personally, I really enjoy this game. it's been alot of fun. althouh I've been busy with other games so today was the first day I played it in quite awhile...

by the way, anyone know how to unlock the Art gallery stuff?

There is actually an easier, better way to view the gallery. Just put the disc in the CD-rom drive of your computer and open the folder that pops up, and the whole gallery will be in there.

The other way is to beat the game without losing a round, if I remember correctly.