Its hard to be the less successful brother, and thats pretty much what CapcomsDarkstalkersseries is.
The series was created in the mid-90s as Capcoms next step in fighting game domination.
They hadStreet Fighter IImaking them all the money in the world, but they beat that horse to death.
it’s possible for you to still find Darkstalkers games to play!
Considering the play these characters would get as part of Capcoms menagerie, it was definitely for the better.
Darkstalkers: The Night Warriorshit the arcades in 1994 and it kicked so much ass.
On the surface, it was aStreet Fighterclone, but it was different enough to stand on its own.
It introduced air-blocking and EX attacks.
The animation madeStreet Fighter IIlook stiff in comparison and everything was beaming with personality.
Each character was distinct and popped with their mannerisms and unique animations.
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Part of it came from the freakshow novelty of the early fighting games.
Hell, almost the entire cast is made up of those kinds of characters.
The most normal guys are a vampire and a succubus.
And the succubus has literal batwings growing out of her back and head.
The game featured ten playable characters and two unplayable bosses.
They included:
Demitri Maximoff:A vampire lord and outright villain who was banished to Earth.
Female opponents simply change outfits.
The fanart communitylovesthis guy.
Morrigan Aensland:A succubus and daughter of Belial, ruler of the Demon World.
Sheisa monster, after all.
Felicia:A catwoman raised in a nunnery, Felicia desires to become world famous and star in musicals.
Due to being half-woman/half-cat, she suffers from prejudice, but is still overwhelmingly optimistic.
Hence, he looks to take out the other Darkstalkers.
Anakaris:A resurrected pharaoh from 5,000 years ago.
This bulky mummy wants to bring his people back to prosperity, as its been foretold.
Rikuo:A merman whose entire race was wiped out due to the coming of Pyron.
He hopes to find some sign of survivors and rebuild his people.
Is curiously attractive for a fish-man.
Dude loves himself some bananas.
Victor doesnt truly understand that the doctor is dead and is basically a big dummy.
Lord Raptor:A speed metal guitarist from Australia resurrected as a zombie.
Can turn his limbs into chainsaws and transform his enemies into basketballs.
Somehow didnt become Capcoms most popular character.
Seriously, hes a rock n roll zombie.
And hes named after a dinosaur!
Huitzil:The penultimate boss.
Despite the awesome cast of characters, the story is incredibly lacking.
There were relationships in there.
Its nothing it’s possible for you to hang a coat on.
Less than a year later, Capcom came out withNight Warriors: Darkstalkers Revenge.
Oddly enough, they treated the release like it was a sequel when really it was an upgrade.
It was no different thanStreet Fighter II: Championship EditionorSuper Street Fighter II.
Hell, even the endings are all the same.
The new characters include Hsien-Ko and Donovan Baine.
Hsien-Ko is a Chinese ghost accompanied by her sister while Donovan is a half-man/half-vampire with a bigass-floating sword.
Donovan is accompanied by Anita, a young girl with zero emotion and dark powers within.
But hey, its still an awesome game, so the series has a perfect batting average.
To add to that,Darkstalkerswas still an arcade-only series and was just 15-months-old.
It wouldnt hit PlayStation until months later.
The show was…er…hoo boy.
Ive seen a lot worse.
It felt veryNinja Turtlesin ways.
It was just incredibly half-baked and the bad outweighed the good.
Plus it featured way too many tractor beams for my liking.
So many, man.
So many tractor beams.
Demitri and Morrigan are his top officers and spend the series bickering and fighting each other.
Bishamon is brought in, but eventually turns against them.
All hail the imperial pudding!
There are lizards in my pants!
We need the annoying kid.
Outside of Pyron having a neat visual effect on his skin, the series has some really iffy animation.
Am…I even allowed to show this?
Anyway, the show wasnt good and it only lasted a single 13-episode season.
But hey, it wasnt all bad.
It did give us this completely badass end credits theme.
Trouble Man would be the ending theme used for the 1997 anime, titledNight Warriors: Darkstalkers Revenge.
Running for four episodes, the OVA scratched the itch of those mortified by the American cartoon.
He also plays Raptor in the US cartoon series.
Its pretty great to see him go from one to the other.
He does surf through space on his giant sword, so theres that.
Featuring super-deformed versions of various Capcom characters, the series brought together the cast ofStreet FighterandDarkstalkers.
Characters like Felicia, Morrigan, Donovan, Hsien-Ko, and later Anita were playable.
Speaking of Anita, the Japanese port of Capcoms fighterMarvel Super Heroesincluded her as a hidden character.
She psychically carried Donovans sword and had the ability to summon Akuma fromStreet Fighterfor an attack.
It was fresh enough to qualify as a sequel, but notcompletely.
The gameplay was faster overall.
And yes, this time they actually changed up the story, unlikeNight Warriors.
Its just that they were still using the same sprites and resources from the first game.
It still felt more like another upgrade than a real sequel.
Its JUST different enough to be considered a real sequel, but retrospect hurts its reputation a bit.
He plots to destroy the universe and start over by awakening a rather horrific, gigantic demon fetus thing.
He has two main henchmen with him.
One is Q-Bee, a half-woman/half-bee creature, and the other is Lilith.
But really, the true star of the game is Baby Bonnie Hood, otherwise known as BB Hood.
With all the different monsters involved in the games, BB Hood represents the monster that is man.
Shes the only full human in the series and shes depicted as having some of mans worst qualities.
Instead of building on their franchises, Capcom started throwing them together in fighting game form.
It certainly worked and even graphically, there werent any problems.
Marvel vs. Capcomthrew in Capcom characters from all over, which included Morrigan.
Lilith was playable as well…sort of.
Then again, there was a lot of weirdness with the secret character designs in this game.
Marvel vs. Capcom 2featured a massive cast and with it came more Darkstalkers.
Morrigan was joined by Felicia, Anakaris, and BB Hood.
Still no love for Lord Raptor.
Keeping the crossover thing going, Capcom started doing games with SNK.
This included Capcom releasingCapcom vs. SNKand its sequel.
They werestillusing her sprites from the firstDarkstalkersgame, all the way from 1994.
It didnt look good.
On the other hand, SNK got to makeSNK vs. Capcomand included Demitri as theDarkstalkersrepresentative.
The moment Capcoms laziness hit critical was 2004sCapcom Fighting Evolution.
Shockingly, no Morrigan this time around.
Probably for the better, considering how lame she would look next to anyone fromStreet Fighter III.
The game was a broken mess that had a single new character made for it named Ingrid.
And Ingrid is just terrible.
This included BB Hood, who proved that shes not exactly a team player.
Also in 2004, Udon started aDarkstalkerscomic in America to go with their relatively successfulStreet Fighterseries.
Ken Siu-Chong wrote the series with art by Alvin Lee, Kevin Lau, and Joe Vriens.
The first volume lasted six issues and didnt exactly set the world on fire.
The first six issues acted as an exercise of world-building for a world that wasnt exactly all that exciting.
Pyrons coming to Earth and monsters are doing stuff.
Like, thats who were supposed to be rooting for.
The lady who forces herself on a good man and eats his soul because shes bored.
By the sixth issue, there was no real closure to anything and nothing of note has really happened.
Still barely anything with Lord Raptor.
Darkstalkers #6came out in 2005 and the comic appeared to be dead in the water after that.
Demitiri drains Pyron of his energies, gets defeated himself, and the good guys win.
Only the last page is a cliffhanger to build towards aVampire Savior-based sequel that wed seemingly never see.
Not for another seven years.
Morrigan showed up in 2008sTatsunoko vs. Capcomas the onlyDarkstalkersrepresentative yet again.
Marvel vs. Capcom 3featured Morrigan, Felicia, and Hsien-Ko.
Hell, the trailer still holds up as badass.
Check it out and watch Morrigan feel really bad about accidentally sodomizing Deadpool.
And now Deadpool is married to a Morrigan stand-in in the comics.
Funny how that works.
Fighting games had been making a comeback with even the likes ofKiller InstinctandGuilty Gearmaking returns from obscurity.
The ending of the teaser claimed, DARKSTALKERS ARE NOT DEAD!
Much like the Ermahgerd girl, I had goosebumps.
But it was just a trailer forDarkstalkers Resurrection, an HD release ofNight WarriorsandVampire Saviorfor modern consoles.
The idea was that if they sold well enough, they would make a newDarkstalkersgame.
Few people bought it.
Because theyve been reselling the same games to us for two decades!
Its such a fitting fate that Capcoms forced upon themselves.
They played with the copy and paste functions so many times that they shot themselves in the foot.
Now a once-thriving video game franchise is buried away in the graveyard and it may never rise.
I will say that Jedahs inclusion does lead to one of the most ridiculous moments in the game.
Then theres the more recent comic.
Despite coming out at a glaciers pace, UDON ended up running out ofStreet Fighterstories to adapt.
They did everything from Ryu scarring Sagat to Gills tournament and hit the end of the line.
Rather than simply call it a day, theyve decided to continue the path by doingStreet Fighter vs. Darkstalkers.
Usually when Akumas unleashing his Raging Demon it means something completely different.
This miniseries is currently being followed up with aStreet Fightercomic calledAkuma vs. Hell.
