Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors is interesting for a number of reasons. In the era when Street Fighter was king and Capcom was delivering annual sequels it’s strange that they would make an entirely original 2D fighter. What’s more is the fact that Darkstalkers is based on elements of classic horror, yet in a super hero Saturday morning cartoon kind of way. Unfortunately the series was never super popular. In arcades in Japan it performed well, but on home consoles it never quite caught on. With Halloween just on the horizon I thought there was no better time to revisit the original Darkstalkers than now. Today we’re checking out the PS1 edition. Let’s go!
What excuse did Capcom find to bring the worlds craziest monsters together for a fighting tournament. Apparently in this case the vampire lord Demitri has brought them all to the same place to battle it out and prove once and for all who is the strongest creature among them. It’s pretty basic, but works well enough. I think that the horror monster premise does a lot of heavy lifting here. Because of it Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors feels unique in a sea of Street Fighter copycats despite being one of them itself. I love the cast of characters and how so many of them reference classic horror media. I’ll get to the roster later. For now let’s go over the gameplay.
Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors is a 2D fighting game. It’s also a very traditional one making obvious use of the Street Fighter engine. You have three levels of high and punch kicks, a throw, and block incoming strikes by holding the direction away from your opponent. Special moves are also mostly performed with sweeps on the d-pad followed by either a punch of kick. If you’ve played any version of Street Fighter II then you get the basic idea. What Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors lacks in originality it more than makes up for with fluidity. The game refines the classic 2D gameplay and feels highly polished.
So what that means while you’ll still be doing Street Fighter II style hadokens it looks great while doing so. The combo system is also really cool and gets quite technical when you start getting into things like recovery frames and move momentum. It’s at least as technical as the original Street Fighter Alpha in this regard. I especially love how kinetic so many of the special moves are. Due to the supernatural themes characters often disappear and reappear in different places when these are performed. Furthermore they warp and contort their bodies at times. This adds new movement dynamics to each of them. I found there to be more methods than usual to dodge enemy attacks. This may sound small but it makes Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors, play quite differently from most otherwise similar fighters.
The characters each also have their own super move. This is indicated by a bar at the bottom of the screen. It builds up when you take or dish out damage. A super move typically requires more complicated input strings to pull off. These are never too difficult, but considering they unlock after you’ve been fighting a while the stakes are going to be higher. I struggled to pull these off accurately when my life bar was nearly drained, or when the opponent also had theirs available. This feature had all but been standardized by the time Darkstalkers hit so it’s not that special. Few things in life are as rewarding as unleashing one at the end of a combo however.
I absolutely love the character roster. It’s one part anime and two parts horror all wrapped up in an incredibly colorful and over-the-top package. The artists covered a wide range of classic horror icons while adding their own twists. First of all you have Anakaris the mummy who can, for some reason, float in the air. Next up is the ghost samurai Bishamon. He’s okay, but largely forgettable. Then we have Demitri the dark vampire lord. I love how crazy they went with his design as he kind of resembles and evil Superman more than anything. Felicia is probably the most recognizable the series as she’s the scantily clad cat lady everyone thinks of when they hear the word Darkstalkers. There’s also a werewolf, zombie, a female vampire named Morrigan, fish guy that looks like the creature from the Black Lagoon, a sasquatch, and finally a Frankenstein rip-off.
Thankfully Darkstalkers also has all of the typical options you would expect to find in a 32-bit fighting game. You can choose between arcade mode or versus, and these have their own settings as well. It’s possible to reduce the difficulty of CPU opponents, alter controls, or change the turbo speed as well. These are pretty typical for the genre. Like most other fighting games where this one excels is in its multiplayer. You and a buddy can go head to head and honestly that’s the best way to play. Not only does it make actually learning the game easier but also mastering it. The CPU opponents even on the highest difficulty don’t offer much push-back which makes versus mode a real godsend. What’s nice is the fact that the game runs just as smoothly during the head to head matches as it does in single player.
Controls are super responsive. Input lag in games with overly animated characters is a big problem, but I’m happy to report it’s not an issue here. Character respond without delay to all buttons, and even things such as diagonals are really each to manage here. As I’ve already mentioned the game uses the typical Street Fighter II inputs. This makes Darkstalkers very easy to learn for fighting game aficionados. The game’s best advantage is that it doesn’t try to re-invent the wheel, and instead focuses on what works.
Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors is one of the best looking fighting games on the PS1. The characters animate with incredible fluidity. Street Fighter Alpha does not look nearly as good as this one. The Art style absolutely pops. It’s not straight up horror, nor is it as full of anime tropes as others. It’s nice blend of different styles that works surprisingly well. The character designs themselves are amazing. Capcom may have taken some huge liberties with the classic horror tropes, but it paid off exceptionally well. The music is good but doesn’t quite stack up like the graphics do. There’s some pretty cool gothic inspired rock music here and there, as well as some dark techno, but for the most part it’s all largely forgettable. I like but don’t love the soundtrack.
