Retronauts - 476: Retronauts Episode 476: Darkstalkers

Episode Date: August 22, 2022

Recorded under the light of a full moon and surrounded by hordes of otherworldly creatures, Diamond Feit and Ant from GamingHell.co.uk brave the night to celebrate the DarkStalkers series. Retronauts is made possible by listener support through Patreon! Support the show to enjoy ad-free early access, better audio quality, and great exclusive content. Learn more at http://www.patreon.com/retronauts

You're listening to Retronauts a part of the HyperX Podcast Network. Find us and more great shows like us at podcast.hyperX.com. This week on Retronauts, Capcom gets horny on Maine. That's M-A-N-E. Hello, welcome to Retronauts, episode 476 by My Math, and today we are talking about something scary, but also something, little Randy. We're talking about Darkstalkers, the other, other, other, other, other Capcom fighting franchise that kind of slipped into the background, but of course, as of this recording, it's very much in the news again because it's the centerpiece of the Capcom fighting collection, a sort of grab bag of, well, Capcom fighting games. So joining me today, oh, see, I always forget this part. I'm Diamond Fight, want to be vampire, and I'm joined today by my guest in the UK.

Please introduce yourself. Hi, I'm Ant. I'm known on the internet as Teffit Snake, and I'm conducting a gloomy puppet show this evening. That's a joke for you, vampire saviour fans out there. Sorry, I'll see myself out. That's good. We were going to mention that move for sure. Good. Good. So, Dark Suckers, please, Ant, since you're here and you're my guest, why don't you tell us about when and where and how, however much you can. Remember, where did you first encounter the Darkstalkers? My first Dark Stalkers game was, of course, Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo. I didn't really have like a local arcades growing up, so I'd just see them when I saw them.

And I never actually saw Dark Stalkers in a proper arcade. But I got one of the home versions of Puzzle Fighter, and that has a bunch of Dark Stalker's characters, as well as a character from Capcom's number one game, Cyberbots. Yes. Um, so, you know, I knew who they, I had a vague idea of who they were, but then the first real Dark Stalkers game I played was S&K versus Capcom on the Neo Geo pocket color. Okay. Because that, that has a bunch of Darkstalkers characters in it.

And one of them is B.B. Hood, who I'd never seen before. And I was like, wow, that's the coolest fighting game character I've ever seen. What game is she from? So then I picked up the PS1 version of Dark Stalkers 3, fell in love with it. And then I sort of worked my way backwards. air. So I kind of experienced the series completely the wrong way. But I can definitely appreciate the earlier titles, but Vampire Saviour is like my favorite Capcom fighting game. So it has a special place in my heart. If you fell in love with it, then it was the right way. But honestly, I think, I think those compilations, they really, you know, the fact that Dark Suckers has so many characters in it, and we'll talk about all of them. The fact that it has so many characters in it and other

games were able to sort of cherry pick just the weirdest wildest ones that got them to go back and say, oh, wow, where did this person come from? They came from this lot of just wild boys and girls and other. Yes. Everyone is represented in Dark Stalkers. Yes. So for me, I was there on day one, more or less. I was actually in college. I was in college in 1984, yes. And my university had a had a game room. And this game room was my introduction to a lot of games. I know that was the first place I saw Primal Rage.

Oh, wow. Yeah. That was the first place I probably saw like Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo and, you know, at least one of the Marvel crossover games. So it was I saw a lot of games in that game room. But by far the biggest, most memorable one for me was Darkstalkers.

That was the first place I saw it. That became my main game for a while. Well, because let me tell you, I didn't go to class. This was my first, you know, you do the math, this was my first round of college. I spent most of my time in that game room, and I spent most of my time in that game room playing dark suckers. So I got, I got pretty good at it. I'll be, I'll be honest. I got pretty good at it.

I went through most of the roster learning as many characters I possibly could, and that it became my thing. I mean, their first mistake was putting a game room there. That's the big problem. Let me tell you, this game room was right next to sort of the communal TV room, because, you know, Most of us didn't have TVs in our dorms at this point. So, like, when I went to this space, I was either in there playing video games or I was out in the TV room watching Animaniacs or Syndicated Reruns of Star Trek. So, yeah.

All part of a balanced education. I learned more in that building than I did in any classroom. So, yeah, that was it. That got me hooked. And I followed the series from that point on. And, yeah, it was wondrous. Yeah, I mean, I can imagine, like, seeing it in 94 right as it came out, it making a big impression because of just this general presentation.

I mean, it's the, what does it then say? Like, four times the amount of animation frames per character than, like, Super Turbo. That's wild. Exactly. So, yeah, obviously, you know, as indicated by past episodes, I grew, you know, I was a big Street Fighter 2 fan. So coming from that game, and even, you know, even with my Neo Geo fandom coming from the Neo Geo games, which looked amazing, coming from that background, looking at Darkstalkers in 1994, my mind was blown.

Yeah, I remember my initial thoughts were like, did Disney draw this? It looks like Disney to me, you know, which at the time, of course, was like was the highest praise I could possibly offer something. Oh, my God, this was like Disney. You know, because, of course, Disney was in the middle of their Renaissance, and, you know, they were making, you know, theatrical movies that were, you know, being nominated for Oscars. So I was looking at this game and my mouth at the floor. and it was just astounding.

Yeah, I can definitely imagine that happening sort of back, back when it was new. And I mean, honestly, some of those strikes still hold up today. Yes, well, Capcom did their best to make those sprites hold up for as long as possible. I'm sure we'll get to Morrigan stripe eventually, but there's a reason they reused it is because it's good. Yeah, yeah. No, they did the work. They did the work, and you don't throw that away. You don't throw that away.

So what is Darkstalkers in the big picture? Well, Darkstalkers is a fighting game where the cast is mostly monsters. Not oops, all monsters, but most of them are monsters and creatures. And as we have a quote here, it started out with more sort of Yokai, which is sort of the traditional Japanese sort of spirits and monsters. I think yokai has become a more common term these days, thanks to yokey watch and just more general awareness of Japanese sort of superstitions. But I think probably in 1994, if you said the word yokai, I think most people would have just stared at you. You're like, what?

Yeah, no, that's. But yeah, we have a quote here from Noritaka Funamizu, a name we've heard a lot on the show before because he worked on Alpha and he worked on SS Street Fighter 3. He said, in the beginning, there were a lot of yokai, but we trimmed that number down because we realized most international players wouldn't be very familiar with them. Yeah. One thing that I have heard is there's like different names for some of the characters between divisions. And I seem to recall hearing that the international names came first.

So it almost seems like they wanted sort of a kind of a wide appeal with the characters, you know, not just in Japan, but sort of international. that they were sort of thinking that way even back then, in a sense. They definitely had to self-edit, yes. We should actually, I didn't mention this already. So this series has a lot of names and each game sort of has a new name.

There's no light, it doesn't really go one, two, three. No, it doesn't. The original game was called Dark Suckers in most territories. In Japan, they just called it Vampire, which I think it's a good, it's a good name in that it sort of communicates that this is a game about supernatural stuff, But it's also not a good name because, A, that's very generic.

We've got a lot of stuff of vampires in it. And B, there's really only one vampire in the original game. So I don't think it's a great name for that regard. So I think Dark Stuckers is a better collective. Yeah, yeah. It kind of encapsulates what they all are. Although I'm pretty sure some players imagine Morrigan is a vampire if they don't know what a succubus is. Yeah, I mean, she's vampire adjacent, you know?

Right next to it, yeah. If I recall, in her original ending, she basically sucks pyrin dry. He gets all crusty. So, yeah. So she's into sucking, but maybe not blood, like essence or fire or whatever pyron's right out of. Yeah, something like that.

So we have a quote here from Junichi Ono, who was credited as a planner on the original game. He said, we wanted to create a new different style of versus fighting game. In the midst of our brainstorming, someone proposed, well, why not make it about monsters then? With monsters, we wouldn't have to create brand new characters from WholeCloth, and we could use famous monster characters that people would already be familiar with.

That said, they certainly had a lot of wild ideas. One of my favorites, though, from the rejected pile, speak of Yokai, is Nudikabe, which is literally like, in Japanese, like, wet wall or sort of slick wall. It's a wall. It doesn't actually move. So they said the designers like that one because it wouldn't have to move, wouldn't have to be animated. It would just be this big-ass wall that's always guarding, which sounds funny for a

fighting game, but I guess eventually they're like, oh, what does it do, fall down? Yeah. And also I loved, you know, because if you're going classic monsters, someone's going to mention the invisible man, so they had an idea for an invisible character who all you could see was their hands. So again, animation-wise, like, all we got to do is hands. They would have been the most exquisitely animated hands of all time, though. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, Master Hand would have nothing on this guy. But no, that didn't make it. That didn't make it. Also, there was an old salary man idea that doesn't sound that exciting. Ittan moment, which is basically literally like one bolt of cotton. I know that now because of the Yo-Kai watch version, which is called Itai Gomen, who apologizes for things. But, yeah, I guess just a strip of cloth. Yeah.

Sounds like, those ideas and maybe work them into Sienko, but. Yeah, yeah, maybe. I would have played as the wall, I'm just saying. I wouldn't have not tried the wall, I'll say that much. Well, since we're talking characters, let's go ahead. Let's go into the cast of the original game, which as we said, debuted in 1994 and later appeared on PS1 in 1996. Yes. So our lead character, more or less, is Dimitri.

He's certainly the character that comes up first when you put your coin in. And he's a vampire, you know? I mean, I would say he's, uh, How do I put this? His clothes look like they're painted on his body. His shirt has abs. Yes, it absolutely does. He's kind of on fire.

He's glowing. And one of the things I love about Dimitri is as he sort of attacks, as he does certain moves, you can see his sort of handsome bro Visad disappear and you see sort of the monster version of him like peek out for a few frames. Yeah, I think that happens when he's blue. blocking as well sometimes, but it's a good look. I always joke that Dimitri wanted to be the main character, but then Morrigan showed up. And he was like, oh, man, because he's in all the intros, but so is Morgan.

Exactly. And he's, he's the only vampire we have in the original vampire. He's what the game's named after. But yes, there is Morgan. And Morgan is, you know, aka Chesley-Leroux, she's got, she's got a lot of going on there. Officially she is a succubus. Yes, that is correct. Dmitri and Morgan have a lot in common because they're kind of like, I sort of view them as the sort of view and Ken of this game because they both have the sort of standard fireball, uppercut. They don't have a roundhouse

kick thing, but they both have sort of kick moves. In Demetri's case, he teleports in and sort of drills down. And from Morgan's, she sort of flies off screen and sort of soars in. Yeah. And her legs sort of turned to a, so they both have like a drill attack. Yeah, yes. They definitely feel more distinct than Ryu and Ken did. Obviously, in Super Turbo, they were trying to make them a bit different. But Morgan and Dimitri definitely feel very distinct from one another, which I think was a good call. As for as for Morrigan, the first Dark Stalkers has her with these baggy eyes, which is a good look, I'm just saying.

But I think they make good intro characters. Like, if you're coming to this game from Street Fighter 2, and I'm pretty sure they're, like, when you put in coins, they're the default. Like, here's the character you start with the select screen. So it's like, if you don't know what any of those people are, you could pick these two and you'll get the gist of it. They are absolutely the safest choices because some of the other characters are completely wild. Speaking of. Yeah. Let's go through them.

So, we'll go through, honestly, this is one of my favorites, Anacaris. I love Anacaris. He's so cool. He's a mummy. He's a big, very big mummy. This is definitely one of the biggest sprites, I think, in any Capcom game at this point. Yeah, this is like before X-Men Children of the Atom, so he was like the biggest. He was the largest lad.

Children of the Atom might have been late 93, so it's pretty close. He's close to Sentinel. I would say he's very much, he's kind of Sentinel adjacent, because he's very slow. and he's very big. But the difference with him is that Anacaris can basically change. He's almost like a shapeshifter. His sort of his body changes as he needs. When he jumps, his legs vanish and he's sort of like,

he isn't quite dash as so much as he can sort of like hop midair. He can make more than one jump midair. Yeah, his aerial movement is like very, very strange, especially for 94. Some of his punches and kicks sort of come from off screen. Yes. He's got a big punch move that sort of he brings his two fists together and they sort of join and become a sort of giant coiled cobra that covers almost the entire screen. Yeah, like I think the X version just covers the entire screen. You can't.

Yeah. It's great. Sarkophagus, sarcophagi. Yes. From above. He can grab you and bring you into his coffin where he sort of messes you up and kicks you out. He's got helpers. He's got magic.

He's got to move one of my favorites where he sort of spits out these little, like, ghost things. And if they hit you, you become a cute little character, everyone has unique character. Yes. And you can't attack anymore. You can just run and jump and try to avoid getting hit. And I'm sure the animators loved that, the fact that they have to do one for every single character and every character they added in sequels. Yep. That would become a recurring theme.

Oh, boy. Yes, no, Anna Karas plays so differently. He's really fun. He's awkward to get used to, but he's fun. And so we should mention right away, so Anna Karas's credited designer is Takenori Kimoto. So he's also known as Kimo Kimo. He did a lot of graphics work on this game and other games in Capcom. He, at this days, he's a freelancer, so he works with basically whoever he hires him.

But I did like to point out that he would later marry. Erri Nakamura, who's also a veteran artist at Capcom. She had some credits on Dark Stuckers, but she's probably most famous these days for being the original voice of Chun Li. She does the... Oh, yeah, that's right. In Street Fighter 2, she did all of Chun Li's voices.

Wow. But she also, yeah, she did work on Darkstalkers and other Capcom games, so the two of them have a lot of credits together, but he is... His name comes up with Anakara. So I think we have him to thank for it. So thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Class is back in session, and HyperX has the grade A gear you need for dorm life, remote classes, and for schooling folks online. Shop the HyperX back-to-school deals going on now at HyperX.com to help make your return to student life a breeze. Comfortable cloud headsets can keep you focused in as you cram for finals with some lo-fi beats, and stay productive with lightweight pulse-fire mice, responsive alloy keyboards, and more. Keep your GPA and your KDA high with HyperX products and accessories. Video Deathloop is a show where we watch a short clip on loop until one or both of us can't take it anymore.

Each week, one of us picked out a video, the other does not know about to their dismay. Video game cutscenes, TV show openings, music videos, and occasional horse videos are just some of the clips we've ran and we're five seasons in. Check us out every Friday. So the next one, the most Japanese character I would say in the original game anyway is Bishamon. He's literally a samurai ghost. He's a suit of armor that's got a magnificent face in the chest. Yes. One of the great idle animations is that the face is just constantly snarling and us.

So he's got, he's got armor and he's got a body of sort of like blueish skin, depending what color you choose. But he's, you get the sense that like the armor is really the one doing the business. And I think at least one of his, at least one of his victory poses is the body disappears and the armor just kind of floats around there and makes a face. is I was a big I was a big Bishamon head at the time Bishamon can throw his sword he can sort of stun you he's got he's got an air fireball that sort of locks you in place and then he can throw the sword which is almost like scorpion style it yeah closer you've got a dragon punch thing thinking about it now a lot of characters actually had air fireballs in this because Morrigan's got one Dmitri's got one oh Pyron's got one obviously because he's the final boss but no it's a you didn't can see that as often back in 94. That was another Kuma thing. Yeah, actually, when you look at Dark Stuckers, a lot of things first appeared in Darkstuckers and then became normal in other Capcom fighting games.

Certainly, I know air blocking. This game had air blocking, the original one had air blocking. And yeah, a lot of characters have moves that just work in the air, just like they work on the ground. But in this case, Anacaris and Bishimon, they have unique air fireballs. Like, you can't do them on the ground. Yeah, that's right. That's right.

Yeah, Anacarus' sort of spirit attack only works on the air. And Anacaris, he throws a sword on the ground, but in the air, he has the sort of the spirits that come out and stun you. He also's got a big hand. He's got a big hand that comes out of his armor mouth. Yes. Yeah, that's his command grab. He comes out the armor's mouth and squeezes the enemy. Which I always like, because it was one of the rare moves, Bishmon, because he got the sword and he's got the hand, he has moves that cut people in half.

And if you win the match with one of those moves, they end up cut in half with a cartoon sort of like meat, meat reddish overlay in the middle of her body. Yeah, that's kind of the thing with the violence in the series. It's not like, it's a little gory, but it feels more like Tom and Jerry violence kind of new teens-esque. Yeah, it's cartoonish. This is post-mortal combat, but it's definitely it's cartoonish. It's not, there's a lot of blood here. You've got a vampire. So it's going to be blood, but it's not like gross.

You know, there's no. No, it's not. It's not over the top. But yeah, Big Bishamon fan. So who's next? Well, we're talking about the Undead. Let's talk about Victor. Victor is basically a Frankenstein's monster.

Yes. And the notes here mention his most famous attribute. He's his butt. Yeah. What I like about Victor is he's got, you know, he's a big, he's, you know, he's one of your bigger guys, but he's not quite a Zenguey type because he's got a lot of sort of sliding moves. Although he does have almost exactly like Zangy. he's got the sort of spinning punch move where he spins his fists. Yeah, the lariat.

Yeah. But he's got a lot of sliding punches. And one thing's the cool about Victor is like his body parts sort of exaggerate as he attacks. That's right. Like if he punches out, his arm and fist grow very large. If he kicks, his leg grows really big. And you can see, like, I know, I think it's his standing high kick where his, his leg goes up in the air. And like, you can see the muscles ripple through his legs as it reaches his feet.

There's a lot of rippling. and a lot of love went into them. But also, and I think this is very clever, because we think of Frankenstein's monster, we think of the laboratory, we think of lightning. He's got electric moves. He's got electric charges. Less so in the first game,

but I believe in later games, if you just hold the button down, almost any move can generate an electric charge and shock the opponent. Yeah, yeah, that's right. It's like if you hold it down for just a little longer, the electricity comes out and shocks the opponent. So it's kind of gives it.

some extra reach as well. Yeah, which, which works for him. We have a quote here from Funamizu, one of the later quotes, but he said the designer was a woman, so I'm guessing it might be Erie Nakamura, and he's, this is his words, she seems to have a thing for butts. Suddenly Victor had a lot more moves that uses his butt. I know he's got a butt grab. Like he literally clenches his cheeks.

Yeah, he's got a butt grab. It's, it is lovingly animated. It's beautiful. I know several stages you can see the ghost of his creator in the background, which... You can also see it like his corpse. It's kind of gross. Yeah, his backgrounds have a lot of... I think depending on the game, his backgrounds have a lot of, like, torture equipment and just sort of like...

Yeah, yeah. Use tools and maybe an Iron Maiden somewhere. Like, he's... Yeah, yeah. There's an entire torture chamber seen in Vampire Saviour. It's that the stage is literally called Forever Torment. That's good. So opposite of torment, let's talk about Felicia, literal cat girl.

Yes. And this is 1994, so this might have been my first cat girl. I know we're here on the internet where cat girls are, you know, lurk behind every corner. But I think, I think this might have been my first cat girl. It was either her or the ones from Dominion Tank, at least for me. Yes. Felicia is a cat woman who wants to be a musical star, bless her. So, so, like, her early stages are all set in Las Vegas, which is, and they've got, like, cat signs in the background.

She's, yeah, the music, music, make cat sounds. I think eventually she just summons cats and they attack with her. That's right. Her basic design is, okay, we said at the top of the show, but we should say it again, this is going to get a little blue, okay? Yeah, yeah, it is. Definitely leaned into sexiness with this game. Felicia has cat ears, a cat tail, big paws for hands and feet, and some furry outlines to cover anything that would get anyone in jail. And that's about it.

She is, she's naked. That's pretty much it. She is naked and she's bouncy. Very bouncy. Yes, another lovingly animated character just right there. Yeah, and so we've only got two women in the original game, and yeah, they're both very busty and very visible. Yeah, visible, yeah, definitely. It's kind of weird seeing that costume on the kind of chivified version in Puzzle Fighter, though.

Shouldn't she be wearing a bit more? No? Okay. Also, unlike Street Fighter 2, they went ahead and, you know, in Street Fighter 2, when you get hit by a firearm attack, everyone turned into the same sort of burning spright. Yes. In Darkstockers, everyone has a unique burning, like sort of burned sprite. It's very cartoonish, you know, singed hair, sort of gray, gray black skin.

And in the case of Morgan and Felicia, it's like, you see them even more naked. Yeah, I think, I think Morgan's trying to cover herself up with her wings and have turned to dance. Yeah, that unique burning sprites and unique electricity shock sprites as well. again, something else for the animators to do every time they add a new character. Yeah, it's a long, long list of work. Oh, we got this special, we got this special, we got this special, we got this special. Oh, this special

that transforms every character? Sure, sure, boss, no problem. But since you mentioned animators, I did want to hit up a quote from, actually from the next game, but we have Funomese talking about Kimo Kno. He says, Kimoto is an idea man. His ideas are always giving the designers and programmers

no end of trouble. He'll often draw things and bring them to us with no idea how they're supposed to be used. And, you know, my favorite is one day, this is, uh, from Junichiono, one day opened up the Sprite data and there was just this giant coffin. Like, what the hell? We might need it. And they did.

They used it. Yeah. We, we better just have a giant coffin just in case, just to, just to be sure. You never know. So who knows how many of these things we have to thank slash blame, uh, Kimo Kimo for? Yeah. So, so much, so much. work put into the Spides lesson.

So back to the cast, yeah. We've got Rikow or Alibath in Japanese, and at the time, I think this was probably more of a creature of the Black Lagoon type, but these days, it's easy. He's a shape of water. He's a shape of water guy. He's a handsome, handsome fish man. And what I love is, in the game, he's very vain. Like, he is, he knows

he's a handsome fish man. He knows he's a very handsome fish man. I think pop culture in general, sort of caught up with him. Yeah. No, the Western name is actually a reference to one of the actors in Creature from the Black Lagoon. Oh, I didn't realize that. Okay. It's Rico Browning, I think his name is. He's the guy who's in the suit. So, yeah, you were on the money. That's very clever. Okay. Yeah. Anyway, I like him because he's got a lot of a splash moves. He throws, you know, he creates, creates water. He summons water. He can sort of transform his appendages into sort of like exoskeleton hard, hard objects that, you know, beat you or poke you.

I'm pretty sure he's got an infinite in the original game, or at least I've seen an infinite looping gif on Tumblr that... Yeah, that doesn't surprise me. He's like, I think he might be the only one in the original who can actually put characters in a dizzy state, because unlike Super Turbo, this game doesn't have, like, random dizzies. it's more like status effects and that's actually one of the reasons I love these games because I really hate random disease and fighting games I'm one of those people I'm like

no no randomness all almost make sense but he can like poison and kind of stun enemies briefly so I think that's probably how the infinite happens but yeah with one of the again one of the most protacular moves he sort of leans back

and opens up like these gills on his chest yeah yeah And exhales this sort of poison gas. It's really, you know, it's not just like your standard fireball. It's like it's this entire unique animation. No one else is anything like this. And then, yeah, it dizzies them and this gives you a free hit or whatever. Yeah, that's like like he arches his whole body.

It's great animation again. It's, uh, but that's like one of the few dizzy states you can, you can actually get. Speaking of great animation, I shouldn't say that, though, they all are great animation. But also, I just think as far as, as far as flexibility is concerned, we've got Lord Raptor, aka Zabel Zarok. I think this is the one Japanese gait, this is one of the Japanese names that I think is better than our name. It's a zombie rock star. Yes. he's one of my favorites. He's so cool. He's just a horrible zombie. Right, but he's,

he's not a slow zombie. He's a cool, fast zombie. He is. He jumps. He flies. He's got an air sort of, he can sort of wiggle his legs cartoon style in the air. He's got, he's got bones to sort of jab out and become stabbing weapons. But he's also got a chainsaw. He can just, he just has chainsaw arms and legs also. He's got electric guitar. He's got a friend. I know he's got a super, I don't know if it's the original game or one of the subsequent ones where he's got a little friend who can come out and become a basketball hoop, and he sort of grabs you and mashes you into a little ball and slam dunks you. The name of that move is hell dunk. It's great. I can't remember if it was on the original, but it was definitely in Knight Warriors. So it may, it may have been in that one. But it's, again, they have to draw a unique basketball stripe for every character. I'm guessing because this is in 1984, they probably went with Raptor because Jurassic Park was still very much, you know, in the now. Yes.

But yeah, Zabel Zarok. And they didn't have a dinosaur character. Zabelle Zarok is a, is a fantastic name. Double Zs. Yeah, yeah. That is pretty up there. It's pretty great. So, yes, I'm sorry, we skipped over, we skipped over Sasquatch.

Who's, yes, he's a Sasquatch. He's a big old, goofy big foot. Right. He's got like a twisty leg. He's got ice beams. He's, I think he's like supposed to be top tier in Vampire. savior for some reason, but he feels like the forgotten dark stalker because he's, he's not getting in Capcom versus S&K.

He's one of those kind of characters, but I like him. He's very good. No, he didn't make the cut. So interestingly, yeah, he is, he's literally a big foot in that he's got giant giant sort of foot attack, but he's also, he's actually not that big, he's more squat. Yeah, he's not nearly as tall as Anacaris or Victor. He's just sort of this big, I think the kids might say thick, and he's got his exaggerated hands and feet, but he's, he's not that tall, so...

No, no, he's a little short guy. I like him. But then his attacks sort of have a lot of range. Yeah, yeah. And he's got like the... He's got one of my favorite anti-airs, which is like these pillars of ice that come out from the ground. Yeah, he's got a lot of freezing attacks. I think at one point he can just, he sort of eats you and spits you out and you're frozen. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Which if you're fast enough, you can land an extra hit before you unthaw. Also, I do like, so...

For all the unique animation of this game, the freeze animation is just across the board the same, but everyone looks like a giant frozen Coke bottle. I think that's sort of funny. I think like in some animation, there's like spins around before it's the ground. It's pretty great. Yeah, there's a flourish on it, but they're basically like just the frozen, frozen stiff. Yeah. Sasquatch Victor Rico.

Oh, Wolfman. We got Wolfman time. We got John Talbane, aka Galon. And I think this is the resident UK of UK. Brit of the game. He is, yes. He represents England. I'm not sure how he represents England, but he does. His stage is like always London, and he has some, he can load profile fireballs because he's kind of hunched down when he's walking forward. And he's also obviously very, very fast. He can dart around the screen with his dashing attacks. And he's another one that's really cool, but hasn't shown up in many other games, which is kind of a shame. I think he's, I like Talbane. One thing I like about Talbane is that they sort of, as time goes on, I think they sort of lean into the martial arts aspect. Yeah, yeah.

Because I think it's not in this game, but at least in part two, they give him sort of the Nunchucks move. That's right. Yes. And what's interesting to me is that in this game, his default sort of attack, he keeps sort of fly forward as sort of like a charged like fireball. And the super sort of extra version lets you sort of cancel that and change direction. Yes. But in future games, that becomes the default version, and the super version lets you, like, cancel three, four times. So he becomes more fast and more agile as a series goes along. That's right. Yeah, I think the maximum is like four, which is like completely ridiculous. It's just as too many. But you've got to try and keep up with where he is on screen.

Right. And since I mentioned it, it's right. Probably worth bringing up. So this is 1984. So again, it's Tree Fighter 2 very much still in the, still in the zeitgeist. This is the same year the Super Turbo came. out. So every fighting game sort of had this idea of, oh, well, the characters have to be from around the world, right? So in this game, and I think this game only, every character has a nation. Yes. They just ditch that. They ditch that with all future games. Yeah, it's like Morrigan represents Scotland. Saskatches from Canada, apparently. But no, I think they're basically, they use the same stages in the second game, but it's really not like a big thing at all. Right. I believe I should have written these down, but I think Dimitri's probably Romania.

And Her car is Egypt, of course, Bishamona's Japan. Victor, I believe, is Germany. Felicia, I want to say is America because she's very, her first, she's definitely Las Vegas. Raptor, I want to say, is Australian? That's right, yes.

He's got a Union Jack on his pants. He has, yeah. And I don't remember where Fishman is from. Maybe South America, like Brazil? Yeah, I think Brazil. And then Phobos, Hutzel is Mexico.

And then Pyron is, when Pyron appears a giant flaming crater lands on the giant flaming comet lands on the character select screen and just says Hellstorm

Right, yeah, he's the other He's kind of like Akima Like he's got his own personal Yeah, yeah, yeah But yes, let's talk about those special bosses Because in the original game, you know, again,

Street Fire 2 style, you've got your record cast and you've got your bosses and you cannot play as the bosses They are only computers No, not at all So after you beat the rest of the cast You get two more characters

to select screen we've got another one who I think I think of the Japanese name first Huizel or Phobos I guess Fobos was probably copyrighted by someone but yeah and this is a very fun idea it's it's sort of an ancient robot I believe the animation makes it clear that this is sort of like a part of a collection of robots that exist on our world and they sort of they come to life every few thousand years to sort of yeah yeah destroy civilization and restore earth somehow yeah it's it's complicated It's something about evolution.

But he's one of those robots. Yeah, yeah, he's one of those. And if you look at his design, I think, again, these days, he's more recognizable because he's based on very ancient Japanese Jomon clay figurines. Yes, yes, that's right. I never realized that. These days, I think it's become more common because if you look at Breath of the Wild, a lot of the shrines and designs in that game are based on Jomone artwork.

So if you look at Huizelphobos today, you can sort of see the similarity. But even though he's an ancient robot, I do love that he's got, he's got big bombs, he's got laser beams, he's a very agile character. He's sort of he can float a little bit. He transforms his body. He's a very, very exquisitely animated character, lots of unique attack moves, even normal moves that just sort of contoured his body and create extra limbs if needed, just fantastic drawing. Yeah, again, sort of a sentinel.

adjacent in a way because his body is constantly changing to see the needs of what he's doing. Right. Not quite as oversized. He's more human size, but. He's more, he's a little squat, like a bit like Sasquatch. He's not, he's not going to wear a tower over you, but he's got, he's got lasers and nobody else has. But like Sentinel, he's, he's part of a unit. Like you can see in the background of the stage, there's a giant robot, which I think is making other robots.

Yeah, that's right. And one of his, one of his cuter, uh, wind poses his little birds come. and sort of perch on his sort of shoulders. Now, that, that animation genuinely looks like it was Disney style. Right. He's a Disney princess. I knew it all along. No, the birds look like they're about to burst into a song.

It's great. So, yeah, I forget the in-game logic for this, but I know later games give him, like, a child companion? Yeah, like one of the versions of Saviour 2, vampire savior, that the law is like this child finds the robot and he's protecting him. But all it amounts to is this kid just following him wherever he goes on screen. A bit like Anita and Donovan. Right. But it's a cute touch because they felt the need to explain why Hutzel is there at all.

And so they didn't need to, but they did anyway. I appreciate that. That's good. Last but not least, we've got an alien. It's aliens. It's Pyron. And let me tell you, we've talked about animation, but now we really talk about animation. Because Pyron is a shapehifter made of living fire.

His idle animation is like, imagine a body in the middle of fire, and the fire sort of just flows up from his toes to his horns. And you only ever see part of his body at once. So it's kind of like he's always flowing, burning, changing. Yes. It sort of makes me dizzy. Makes me dizzy to think about him. If you're going to make an intimidating final boss, this is kind of a good way to do an unknowable flame-based entity

that just transforms into pinwheels and swirling masses of flame. He gave me a lot of problems when I was playing through this recently. I'll just put it like that. Yeah, as final bosses go, he's definitely, he's hard to deal with. His fireballs are gigantic. If they hit the ground, they create pillars of flame that can burn you. Yeah, that's the worst. I kept getting hit by those.

I'm pretty sure he can shoot them in, like, he can, he can arc them, he can shoot them up, he can shoot them down. Yeah, he's got a dive attack, he's got a spinning, it's almost like a, like a spinning kick, but he sort of creates meteors around him and sort of zooms across the screen. Yeah, yeah, he sees, he's kind of a problem. He tells me what? Yes, he does, a lot. He does that a lot. They toned him down a lot when they made him. playable, but so, but the first version is, he's, uh, he's a big problem.

4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 original plus 2 CPU only. So that's pretty good. For 94, with the amount of animation, it's pretty solid, I must say. A pretty solid debut as the series goes. Yeah, especially since this is like the first one. And, you know, they've had to, obviously, they've got a basis in, you know, mythology for some of these characters, but they still have to design them. And if you look at the concept art, they went through a lot of different designs.

They iterated on them quite a bit. So as far as new things go, we've also, we mentioned a few things. We mentioned the air blocking. We've got, we've got guard cancels. It's the first game to have guard cancels in the Capcom chain.

We've got what I call intentional chain combos. Because in the original Street Fighter 2, combos were kind of an accident. They sort of lean into them when they realized how good they were. But in Darkstockers, the combos are thereby designed in that most characters, you can link lights to mediums to heavies. most of them. Not everybody works this way, but almost everyone has some sort of simple to execute

combo in that regard, which makes it sort of easier to punish things, makes it easier to link into special moves. These are things that you've sort of learned by accident in Street Fighter 2, but here in vampire dark suckers, you just sort of, you start there. It's like, oh, let me try linking this, let me try linking this. And in most characters, it works pretty easily. Yeah, I think with the first iteration of this, the limit was that it had to be the same type. Like, you couldn't mix punches and kicks yet. They added that in Night Warriors, but it's still, you know, much easier to get your head around. And that's, that's something that they eventually bring into the Marvel versus series, you know, just working your way between the different strengths of attack.

And it works really nicely. And it's, it makes, it feels good to get a combo that way, I think. One thing that's very unique to this game is the special meter. So special meters in general were pretty new to Capcom games. I mean, this is 94, so Super Turbo is the first street fighter to have a special meter. So in Dark Sucker, your meter builds up as you attack. Once it gets full, it's automatically active and indeed actively decreasing. And once your meter is full, whatever next special move you use becomes a new move.

Yes. So if you're throwing fireballs, you're doing fireballs. fireball, fireball, fireball, your next fireball is going to be a big fireball. It's just automatic. You don't choose it. It just happens. Now, characters do have unique super moves, so you can strategize and use your super move

when your meter is full, but you can't save it, and you can't sort of, like, surprise people with it. It's like, no, your meter is full, it's active, it's actively dwindling. You're going to use it now, or it's going to go away? Yeah, I thought that was a really interesting system, especially since

you can, I mean, the main problem is you'll sometimes just use it by accident because you weren't quite ready for your meter to be full. So you waste it on like a fireball when you wanted to use a special. But it does kind of make you go on the offensive and just try and use it before it goes or before your opponent gets it. But there's also, there's some very silly commands for the super moves. So, you know, good luck. Good luck getting them out before the meter runs out. Yeah, and again, to bring up

up a super turbo again, so this is the same year as Akima, Akima debuted, and of course, he had his infamous, you know, low punch, low punch, forward, high punch, high kick, or did I skip one? But, you know, it's just a bunch of buttons and commands. A lot of the special super moves in this game are just like that.

I'm pretty sure Anacaris's, you know, Farrow judgment move is like medium punch, low punch, down, low kick, like, it's a bunch of buttons and pushing down, and then you throw out that sort of, magic beam. Some of them feel like you're inputting some kind of magical incantation on the joystick. It's wild. If we can go across company, you know, King of Fire is 94, also 94. And I'm pretty sure some of those supers have you charge up. Yes. I'm pretty sure they do.

This is bonkers. Bonkers commands, you know, some whatever people were drinking in Osaka back in 1994, they must have been really hammered because these commands are. All these series would tone it down in the future. They definitely would. My wrists are thankful for it, quite frankly. Some of those, because, yeah, charging up, what madness, what decadence. But one of the things I think is very important is that this sort of creates, at least I think it creates the sort of the concept of X moves,

because since every special move, almost every special move has a sort of extra special variant, In future games and indeed other series in general was sort of takes the idea of, oh, you want fireballs? Okay, here's a big fireball that you can use by spending meter. And this, it just sort of becomes, it's the default in this game. And future games were sort of introduced this as, oh, here's an optional big fireball. Here's an optional dragon punch that does more hits. Whereas in this game, it just, it becomes automatic. Yeah.

I think that sort of influences future games like, oh, well, we can just make X moves of, which is sort of like, you know, extra versions of special moves. yeah i think one of the other early games to have it is of all things street fight to the movie the arcade version that that has ex moves i think they work a little differently like as long as you've got meaty you can use them as much as you want but they would eventually sort of settle them into what we what we know today as x moves um but it's dark stalkers kind of to me sort of starts off this trend of capcom experimenting between Super Turbo and Alpha. So they're throwing as many ideas as they can just to see what kind of sticks.

And some of it does, some of it doesn't. But I think, you know, this is in baby steps. They're just coming off Super Turbo. I mean, what are they going to do? They're going to do alpha is what they're going to do, because that comes out the next year. That is right, yes. In a very short amount of time,

as we learned in our Alpha episode recently. So that game was rushed. Yeah, because like between Super Turbo. Turbo and Alpha, Calcom released five games, five fighting games. That's nuts. That's like all in the space arts. Their output during this time is just incredible. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes.

Speaking of Experimental, I wanted to mention one of the unique feature of Darkstalkers is that the fireballs, like projectiles all operate on sort of a priority. Yeah. Invisible priority meter. Like, in Street Fighter 2, if, you know, if you and Ken threw a fireball and they touch, the fireballs just participate. Whereas in this game, there's like a momentum thing going on where...

There is, yeah. If, uh, if Dimitri throws a fireball and Morgan throws her sort of spirit bat, when his fireball comes close, hers will sort of push his back a little bit. But if it's, if it's a super version, it will override hers. Like, it's very complicated and every move has sort of this unique sort of momentum thing going on. Yeah, it depends on like the strength of the projectile and what projectile it is, I think. So it's, it's definitely different from how other fighting games are doing it. And that's something that continued throughout the series.

So they didn't ditch it. They kept with it. Hmm. But also, the fireballs in general would sort of transformers the series go along. Like, I know in this first game, Morgan's sort of spirit bat thing is just a regular,

it goes the length of the screen, Fireball. Yeah. Whereas in future games, I believe it has very limited range, or at least the lower punch one does. Or am I thinking of Lilith? Yeah.

Lilith. Lilith has like a really silly fireball that can be, You can basically plant it as a trap because it barely travels the screen, but it sticks around. But no, I think, I think some of Morrigan's later fireballs do, like, don't reach the full length of the screen, though, that's right. So, but obviously the X-1 does. I think Sasquatch also, Sasquatch has sort of the big ice beam in this game, but I think later game, or he has sort of the snowman thing, which is like limited range fireball. Yeah, that's right. Snowball.

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So, it's time for a sequel, and it's time for a new name. Yes. Ditch the old one. Right. We have a quote from Juichi Ono again. It doesn't feel like a sequel to us, but we're like a standalone new game. We reprogram so many things from scratch, like the timing windows, for each attack. Wow.

But it comes out the next year. It's only one year later. I don't know. So, again, we got regional confusion here. But so in America, it's called, or say worldwide, Night Warriors, Dark Suckers Revenge. In Japan, it's Vampire Hunter, Dark Suckers Revenge. Either way, 95 Arcade, 96 on the Saturn. And what have we got this new?

So, well, they've reformatted the whole super move thing. So now it's more in line with what we think of today in that you build up meter, you have a stock of meters. I think you've got a max of nine. And you can, you use it when you want to use it. Yes, you're no longer at the mercy of a constantly draining meter, which is nice. I think I skipped the quote. We actually had a quote for the, for the original version. It was very deliberate.

We had for, oh no, again. We wanted the fights to be more varied and exciting. This way you can't just wait around forever while your gauge is full. But now you can. Now you can build it up and save your specials for when you want them. Really confusing because of the way we call moves now. So in part two here, the super moves, quote unquote, the ones that are like unique supers, they're called enhanced specials or ES moves, whereas the enhanced versions of special moves are called X moves or eX moves or e, no, I got it backwards. I got it backwards.

It's enhanced specials, which we call X moves nowadays and X for the big super moves. It's, I don't blame you for being confused. That's always confused me as well. I got it backwards. Easily done. But no, this one also adds pursuit attacks, which is rare in 2D fighting games. You don't see that as often as in 3D, at least I always felt. Right.

You can, when you knock someone down, you can jump on them and hit them on the ground. Yes. I think most, if not all, characters have a sort of ES version of the ground attack. Yeah. although my favorite is that Anacaris has a unique super move that dodges the ground attack and sucks you into a vortex and then you fall down like portal style and hit the ground and take off the end of it. Of course, Anakaris has a move like that. Yeah. Funamizu says the real nuts and bolts of the development work took about five months.

Wow. In the world of video game production, that's really not a lot of time. You don't say Funamizu also working on three-part alpha at the same time. Wow, that is, that is not long at all. Yeah. So as he notes, we used a lot of the old backgrounds with minor adjustments. So yeah, you don't get, you don't get a lot of unique quote unquote content this time around, but they clearly made a lot of changes, a lot of refreshments.

They add a lot of new colors. One of the things I like is that, yeah, every character has a dark color. They call them Goki colors, is in Akama's name in Japan, Goki, Akama. And they had an idea of, oh, what if when you choose a character, with dark colors, they've got unique abilities and a unique attack, but... Oh, no. Again, yeah. Five months.

Regrettfully, it would have required us to redo every character, so we abandoned that idea. It's because Samo Shoddai did try that with Samo Shodan 3. There's like a different, I think it's bust and slash in there. Yeah, you got, yeah, different colors and different poses. Yeah. It's a lot of work. Yeah, it is a lot of work. But, yeah, as I said, I sort of, I started working my way backwards, but you can, you can

definitely see that Night Warriors is a big kind of upheaval from the first game. It's a lot of its ideas sort of gel together a bit nicer. And it did add one of my favorite characters, so maybe we should get on and mention them. Yes. So in Night Warriors, first of all, the, the computer-only bosses are now playable. So you get to enjoy, you get to enjoy a robot time. to enjoy Pyrr on Time, but there are two brand new, unique characters for this game, and as the name suggests, the two new characters are sort of posed as opposition to the

established characters. These are characters that are, I guess, they're vampire hunters or night, like, they're fighting against the monsters, even though one of them is kind of a, well, they're both sort of monster-ish. Yeah. Again, monster adjacent. They're right next to them. So we've got Donovan and his little companion, Anita, and Donovan, I believe, in canon is sort of half monster, or like the spawn of monsters. I think sometimes he's described as a dompier, you know, kind of a half vampire, but it's unclear what kind of monster he actually is, but he's he's half dark stalker, basically.

Right. So he's got, he's got some evil powers, but he's basically human being who's got a big ass sensual. sword. They laugh sometimes. It's a really cool looking sword, I must say. And he can surf on it. Yeah. I don't think I've seen another sword like this in games before or since. It's sort of like, it's got like a curved blade, but it's almost like a, it curves to like a spiral point. Yeah, yeah. It's got like a, it's got a little knife. Right. It's got a chunk cut out of it. And he can throw it. It can come back. It can slash up. It got, it's got like lightning and fire attacks. There's a foot, right? Does it summon a foot? It was. It was someone of foot.

One point. Yeah. Yeah, he can do the big stepy. He just giant foot just stompes on you. But he's a, I think he can plant it in the ground for stuff as well. He's kind of a stance character, which is, I've never been very good at playing as him. But he also has like these spirits that appear behind him. So he's basically a jojos.

Yeah. He's very clearly a jojos. I think he is. I think he's very much, you know, this is definitely, this is 95. So, you know, stands and jojo are very much. much in vogue in the manga. And we know, we know everybody in Capcom is reading Jojo at this point.

We know they are. Yes. And this is 95, you know, this is a few years before they actually made a Jojo game officially, but yeah. Yeah, yeah. He's definitely, Jojo's in the zeitgeist. For sure. And I think, I think his future games would reflect, Donovan would not

stick around that long. I don't think he would become very popular, but the other brand new character would become an instant fan favorite and be in everything from future games since. And lots of other non-doxer games, we've got Sienko, I think I pronounced this right, H-S-I-N-Co, Sienko, although the Japanese is just called Le-Lay, which I think is a much similar name, and also Le-Day is like the kanji is like the kanji for like a spirit or ghost, so like literally she's like ghost-ghost,

spirit spirit. Yes. And she's a juncture, a hopping corpse, which is a character you see in a lot of old video games, is sort of jumping, jumping humanoid with outstretched arms and a little hat on. I mean, I remember, I think the first one I remember seeing was in Super Mario Land. I was about to say, that's the first one I saw as well. Those creatures that sort of jump at you, and you can jump on them, but they get back up unless you jump on them and knock them into a pit. Yep. That's her. But of course, because it's dark suckers, she didn't just hop around. She's got a twitchy arm and twitchy head, and she's got giant sleeves with big claws in them, and she throws things from under her claws. She's got an air

where she disappears and just becomes a little footsteps. Like, oh my God. I think, I think that was like an early example of an air dash as well in, in five games. She was, she was, she was one of the trailblazers. Oh,

and her sister. Yes. I can't mention, yeah, her sister, Lin Lin is the sort of, I don't know the official name for it, the sort of little paper on her face,

the little purse paper on her face. And Fudemiza says in the beginning, they were twin sisters who fought together, but eventually Linlin became a support character as far as the cloth in the face. but she appears in some wind poses and I think maybe even a super but yeah huge star

welcome to the fold yeah she I like I like Shanko she's really fun and she's another one who can get dizzies from from the she's got like a move where she throws

items that she drags from her sleeves and some are heavier than others and they incur a dizzy state so you can get a free hit but it's funny that it's only the heavy ones that do that right and you can't

control it. It is random. Yeah. Which I'm sure is, you know, probably hell for tournament people, but for, you know, for filthy casuals like ourselves, I feel like it's just, it's just fun. No, she's one of my, one of my favorite designs. She's a lot of fun. And it feels like they had a lot of fun sort of designing her as well. She's cool. Well, yeah, I mean, she's a new female character for the lineup. So, of course, her gown is exposed, you know, exposes her cleavage. Yeah, that is true But unlike the other two, she's not quite as bouncy, let's say

No, no She's got bounce in her outfit, not her anatomy Those big sleeves, those big honkin sleeves Yes, with like a million weapons inside, it's great So yeah, because both Dark Suckers and the sequel come out on home consoles in 96 I remember skipping the PlayStation version of the original game and just getting the Saturn version of this game. So I remember playing a lot of this one at home.

I seem to remember the PS1 version of Dark Stalkers 1 was so delayed that the Saturn version of Night Warriors came out before it. Very possibly. Yes, that's pretty unfortunate, but I've never actually played that PS1 version. But no, the Night Warriors port is supposed to be pretty good on Saturn. And, yeah, I can totally, I can totally understand skipping the first one. Yeah, and if memory serves me, I think this is also one of those Saturn games where it's like, by default, some of the animations are locked. But if you open up a secret menu, you can unlock more animations.

I don't know why they did those things, but like, go for it. It's in a secret menu. Yeah, I think it's something like if you have a mirror match, you can set the option so that it has more frames of animation. because this was, this is like just before the four megabit cartridge, I think, or the one megabit. As I recall, this is, this was released, like, as is in the US, so I didn't have to report this one or anything. Yeah. And I don't think any of the US Saturn games even had the option to get the plug-in carts. This is strictly a disc game.

So some things are trimmed, but it, as I recall, it looked very good. It definitely, you know, they made some cuts. Obviously, you got to deal with loading times, but I think for its era and considering how much you get, I believe this was a pretty, good port, as all things considered. All right, now I think what's, I would call some main event, right? Because I feel like with part three, with part three, I feel like everything really clicks Yes. In this series, in my opinion. And even though, unfortunately, not everyone is here, because memory limitations mean they had to cut some characters. We get new characters. And I feel like if you're only going to play one version, you probably want to go with this version. Vampire Savior, which I believe is the name across all reasons, I think. That's right. Although the PlayStation 1 version, as you mentioned, was called Dark Stakers 3.

Yes. But that was only the home. The arcade version was always vampire savior. That's right. Yeah. There's like hidden in the data, there's a, there's a Dark Stalker's damnation title screen, but they just never bothered using it. So it's just a vampire savior. Yeah, I think also other subtitles are Lord of Vampire. Yes. Did I imagine Jedda's lament? Or maybe I'm imagining that. Well, technically there was another one. World of Darkness. Because White Wolf, the people who publish vampire, the, what is it, like a RPG book?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, apparently Capcom made a deal with them, and they sent a vampire savior cabinet to their offices. So there's like flyers and marquees that say World of Darkness to tie it in with the vampire stuff. I don't fully understand it, but it's that, that is there. That's very forward thinking. Collaboration. Yeah. So a lot, a lot is, seriously, a lot has changed for this brand new game. Most, I think mostly is the fact that they've sort of revamped the way fights work.

Yes. There's no longer rounds, really. So basically each character has two bats. There are two bats inside of you. And as you fight, you know, your life goes down. Oh, we should mention this introduces sort of, I think this introduces sort of like white damage. Like as you take damage, there's white damage and there's red damage. and your white damage will heal

if you don't take another hit. Yes. So you kind of like your auto generate some, you auto regenerate some health as you're fighting unless you just get your ass beat, in which case it's all gone. Yes, that's right. But when it's out, when you get K-O'd,

you lose one bat. And the winner does not get anything back, white damage may it comes back, but they do not get a full refill. So the fights, the fights sort of go much faster. I think there's only one timer too. I think there's only one long timer.

Yeah, there's just one timer. It's more kind of killer instinct style. Yes, killer instinct had a similar thing. It's more like one long round rather than multiple rounds. And the fact that you can recover health encourages you to just go as aggressive, just always be attacking, just, you know, or try and run away if you can. It's a, it makes it really exciting, though, very, the other thing is like the game is way faster as well. Like, it goes, it's probably as fast as Capcom fighters get outside of Marvel, and it's, it just goes like the clappers. It's great.

I didn't write it down, but I think, does it give you a turbo option? I think it gives you an option, right? There is a turbo option. Yes. Yeah. I'm the weirdo who never chooses turbo, but I remember, you know, when playing me on arcades, whoever I play always chooses turbo. And I'm like, okay. I'm one of those people.

I think it's easier to keep up with the Marvel. watching high level Marvel 2 play gives me a headache that is that is too much for me to process that's going too fast that's turbo speed with three with three characters that's great yeah this at least is still it's still two on two yeah so as part of the revamp so they've made all new stages

they only made a limited amount though so we've we've lost the idea of unique characters unique same one major exception we'll talk about that later so instead as you play the game you just sort of go through sort of a round robin of stages and you fight whoever you fight there. And all the stages are just, they're just weird. They're just some weird stuff.

I think they're wonderful weird, you know? I think, oh, yeah, absolutely. What's the, like, there's like, there's one where you're fighting on the side of a building, not the roof, like the side. Yeah, and you can see, like, the street people moving, moving by on cars at the, like, at the very bottom. Right. Yes. There's a, there's like a weird train.

It's just a weird train with a mouth on it. Yes. That stage is called Iron Horse Iron Terror. Thank you for remembering the name. I love that name. Thank you. They all have excellent stage names. Right.

And it's right. That's right. You get to see the name of the stage before you choose it, which is wonderful. Actually, you don't choose it. But when it comes up, it tells you where you're right. Yeah. And also new stuff. The new Dark Force system, every character has a unique sort of ability.

Although some of them are not that unique. Like, I sort of compare, in my mind, I compare it to sort of like the gems and Marvel for superheroes. Like, you sort of activate this, you activate ability and every character does something. Like, maybe it's super armor. Maybe you get a helper. Maybe you deal extra damage. Um, the only unique, unique one in my opinion is Anacaris, because Anacarus puts in two and you basically get as a top half and a bottom half. Yeah. Which I must say, they retain that, I believe, for Marvel Capcom 2, because he's in Marvel Capcom 2. And I think he gets to keep that move. He does. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. There's like,

Bibi Hood gets, you press a button and she does a projectile so you don't have to charge it. And Margin gets like a mirror image. Some of them are definitely shared, but it's, I really like that system. It helps kind of make each character feel even more unique, but, you know, gives them, you know, something that the other characters may not necessarily have. And I think it works really well. So for the roster, unfortunately, they had to make a few cuts. Yes, they did. So we lost Donovan.

Like I said, Donovan, he was never popular. I'm sorry. I know he's not his fans. But clearly, the fact that he didn't make the cut for this game, I think, says, like, no. He's not, no one likes him. Also, unfortunately, the two boss characters don't make the cut. No. We have a specific quote from Funimiza who said, removing Fobos opened up a ton of memory for other uses.

All I can say is, I'm sorry. Oh. Because let's face it, those two characters in particular just have a ton of animation. So I think they cut them, like, okay, by, by two. By losing these two characters, we need to add four new people. So we lose three, get four. And one of the ones we lost, it's all right. Yeah.

Like, at that point, I think they mentioned it in like interviews. Like the CPS2 was basically, they were reaching the limits of what they could put on there. And especially with a game like Darkstalkers where they've got four times the amount of animation frames as like Street Fighter, they're going to run out of space. That's probably why they ditched character specific stages as well. well, which is unfortunate, but sometimes you just have to throw the robot out. Yeah. But, I mean, again, nothing went unused. Again, we have Funomese quote saying that they went from 32 megabytes to 64 megabytes

just for sound effects. Yes. And we really, we haven't really touched in it so far, but the sounds and music in Darkstalkers sounds completely different than anything else at that time. I really get, we really should hammer home. This, I think this was the first. game. I remember seeing the Q sound sort of intro for. That's right. Yeah.

And the main composer, we have his name here, Takayuki Iwai. He was the main sound composer for the series. He didn't stick with the series alone. He also did. He did X-Men. He did Marvel superheroes. He did Alpha 3. And Alpha 3 also has a sound that's unlike anything

else. Yes. That is very true. Alpha 3 threw out all the music from Alpha 1 and 2. Like, okay, everyone's got incredible jams now. Everyone's got James. Even Rue's got jams. Ree with jams at last. So let's talk about the new faces.

Some of them are easy to sum up and some of them are kind of weird. So I think we mentioned already. Let's talk about Little Red Riding Hood, a.k.a. Baby, Bonnie Hood, aka in Japan, I think this is the better name, Boletta. Yes. Boletta. I mean, she's Little Red Riding Hood with guns. That's, that's it. You got it. Okay, so my favorite thing about her is some of her normal attacks, make it look like she's not actually meaning to hurt you. Like, she sneezes and her arm jabs out, or she sees a mole on the ground, so she sticks a knee out. She's trying to play innocent, and then sometimes the mask just comes off, and she's garotting your foot with a knife.

Exactly. She sings to herself. She literally goes, she skips. If you crouched for long enough, a little flower appears, and she marvels at it. But don't be fooled. In canon, her profession is monster. She hunts these monsters. She's like, she's basically replacing Donovan, which is like, I'm sorry, that's a trade-up.

That is a trade-up. That is a trade-up, absolutely, yes. She's got guns. She's got bombs. She's got knives. This game taught me the Japanese word, Abayo, which is kind of like a really gruff way to say like, you know, goodbye or so long.

You know, it's kind of like you're out of here. Yeah. Because it's a throw. She grabs you and basically slits your throat with, but it's not quite so gross, but like she basically slits your throat and says, Abayo and like cheer out, which is also, it's very,

it's very masculine. It's like, you know, Japanese language is very gendered. And, you know, she obviously presents as a very young, you know, innocent girl, but during some of her moves, she talks suddenly in a very gruff, masculine voice, which again, so funny. Yeah, one of the best. It's so good. Funomizu credits her design to Akiman, you know, just well-known regular Japanese, Japanese artist on the Capcom side who did a lot of characters this time.

And he acknowledged that when she was created, there were some grumblings around the office, like, are we just pandering the otaku by making a Lolita character? but I really think she's very different from that kind of thing I would say she's like a secret monster you know she's like a secret monster you know she's got she's got the dark side to her she's got oh my god

I forget what it's called but one of her supers is she she remembers her grandma yeah I guess your dead grandma and then she starts crying and she stabs you and she grabs you and she throws you into the puddle of her tears which is surprisingly deep and like yeah

yeah Yeah, she's also got one where she offers up an apple that's, of course, a bomb that explodes. She's got like a Molotov cocktail flamethrower. Yeah, her picnic basket has got missiles in it. Yeah. When they had to translate her for Marvel Capcom 2, I'm sure they had to make almost no changes because all her moves are, you know, projectiles, bombs, explosives. Yeah. They have great range.

She's an amazing character. Lovely. Yes, yes. Um, not in Marvel Capcom, too, but certainly has her fans. QB, it's, uh, it's a queen bee lady. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a bee lady. Yes. Um, so they said, ever since the first game, they've wanted to have an insect related character.

Uh, Funamizu again credits Acki Man for her concept. And yeah, she's, I want to say, I mean, Bola is obviously, she's a little girl. So she's not really sexy unless you're, no, very deranged. Uh, I think QB is also not, not so sexy, which I think, is, I mean, she's basically a bug lady. Yeah, I think that's kind of the, the purpose. It's, she's, she's meant to be a little off-torting kind of. Right.

She's got like, yeah, she's got a weird bug body to her. I mean, she has arms and legs, but she's got some exaggerated proportions. She's got like the big bug eyes. But she also has, I think we've got to mention this, it's not a super move. It's just, I think it's like a special throw where she, I swear, this is someone's, this is someone's fetish, okay? Oh, this one's gross. Yeah, she stings you and impregnates you, and then she dies.

Yes, and she bursts out the egg that she makes out of you. So it doesn't do that much damage. It doesn't do that much damage, but it takes like five or six seconds to fully execute. Yeah. And everyone has a unique sort of egg version. Yes, they do. It does more damage to your opponent in real life. It's morale sapping is what it is.

And she's also got one that is a super move. She gets an army of bees to sting your character. And they have yet another unique sprite for being stung by bees. Oh, this is 97. So this is pre-Nichael's Cage, Wicker Man, isn't it? Yes, yes, it is. This is a QB scares me, and I'm not sure if I like it. She's someone favorite.

We know she's someone's favorite. Yeah, oh, absolutely. So also, actually, now that I look at it, three of the four new faces are ladies, so good for on Capcom. Yes, yeah. We got Lilith. Well, Lilith is unique. So Lilith is kind of a new Morrigan. Like, I think in Canon, she's a clone of Morgan.

Can I put my canon nerd glasses on for a second? Go ahead. This story. This backstory. When Morrigan was born, part of her power was sealed away. And over 300 years, it gained a form and temporary. body, and that's Lilith. Right.

Yes. So here she is. Let's, I mean, let's say, I think you and I, we, we have, we have opinions on gender. I think you and I. But Lilith has opinions on gender, because apparently the concept began as a gender neutral clone. Yes. We got a quote here.

Why don't you go ahead and talk about this quote we have from the complete work? Oh, yeah, sure, sure. So this is from Harrow Murata. They worked on story and concept for Dark Stalkers. This one comes from an interview they did in the art book. So we were exploring the concept of a girlish boy back in 1997. So I guess you could say we were ahead of the times. In the end, we took a somewhat vague approach where Lilith is physically female because she's a copy of Morrigan.

But a general appearance does not emphasize one gender over the other. Right. So I think she's got like a boyish haircut and she's flat chested. But I think through modernize, I look at her as Lolita Morgan. I don't know. And certainly, they definitely, you know, baby Bonnie Hood and QB are not so sexy. I think Lilith is very sexually, you know, sexually presented because she's got a move where she just, she becomes naked with a bunch of bats, you know?

That is, that is correct, yes. And she's, I also, I think she's naked in the intro, too, like the attract mode. Yes, yes, as is Morgan. Right. Like Morgan appears and then Lilith appears next to her. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Both naked. Yeah.

Yeah. So they know, they know, gender neutral, whatever. They know she's hot. We only hope she's of age. We can't talk about Lilith without talking about the greatest super move in fighting game history. You mentioned to the top of the show. Please tell us about the gloomy puppet show. Gloomy puppet show costs two bars of meter, and Lilith throws a top hat at her opponent.

If it hits, she dresses into a bonny costume and says it's showtime, and then you play like a five-second rhythm mini game. Like you use all six buttons to like a little VTal pop up and you have to press them in time. The more beats you hit, the more damage it does. It is so ridiculous. It's great. You'll never hit with it because it's like telegraphed from a mile away. But yeah, it's pretty great. Yeah.

It's hard to hit with. It uses a ton of meter. And you have to work really hard to get maximum damage from it, which I don't, I don't think even in the end, I don't think it does that much of damage. No, it doesn't, but if you can do it, it's, it's an incredible pop-off. It's just, just, just styling on your opponent, just. Absolutely. It's great. Speaking of new supers, I think we have to mention Demetri's new Midnight Bliss attack.

Yes, yes, we do. Or as I call it the ultimate no-homo, because it's a very short-range, sort of like, almost like a short-range Akama, like Shunogsatsu, like he sort of slides forward. Yeah. But if he grabs you, he says, come on, baby. and transforms the character into a sexy woman. Yes. If it's a woman already, she becomes extra womany, extra femme, high femme. Yes.

And then he drains their blood because, you know, he's a vampire to what he does. Yes. And again, every character has a unique sprite. Yes, they had to do it for the entire cast, even the ones that they cut because they put them back in the console versions. Yeah, they come back. Yeah. Do you have any favorite midnight bliss? Any favorite midnight bliss rights?

Let me think. I think, I think QVee turns into like a nurse with like a syringe, which makes sense because, you know, she's a V. Lord Rafter turns into like a, like a goth punk girl kind of thing. They're all pretty good, but those two in particular stand out to me. I remember Anacharis looks particularly good. Yeah. Like a mummy lady, like kind of like almost like a hyalrophic drawing. Like really, yeah, very shapely, but also just sort of like still otherworldly, you know?

Like, cool, very cool. Oh, wait, there's also Felicia. Her tail, like, makes the shape of a heart. This is very cute. All right. We've saved the best for last. It's time to talk about the new last boss who has his own stage, Jedda. His name's in the title.

I'm going to say it. Pardon my French. Jedda fucking rules. Okay. Jetta rules. We have a quote saying from Okada saying, Oh, he's for maniacs. He is a maniac.

Yes. Who was the voice actor? Hold on. Let me just, because he has this incredibly manic laugh by Yes. Ishin Chiba. There we go.

Oh, yeah. That guy gets a lot of work. Oh, yeah. Yeah. He's got a laugh that echoes through your head. And I think his design is pretty great. He's a demon, but he's in a business suit, which makes total sense. Yeah.

And his, I mean, officially he's like the lord of vampire. He's the lord of this world. And he's sort of always hovering. He's got these sort of weird sort of bat-like wings. His idle animation off the charts, he basically just bleeds from like his body. Like he sort of leaks out some blood periodically. Yeah. As he hovers there, he can chop of his own head.

He can grab you and inflate you and sort of make you burst into like a blood bubble. Yep. Which I think, again, everyone has a unique animation there. They do. It's like a Sprite effect or something. It's like some sort of like warping effect. His unique stage, let's talk about it. His unique stage is the fetus of God, where you fight in front of a giant monster baby in the womb.

Yes. Oh, my Lord. And the music, oh, my God. The music for the stage is just the absolute, it's a jam and a half. It's so good. It's so good. That music goes in incredibly hard for a stage set in front of a giant. fetus. And his super's, I think, I'm pretty sure this, uh, Jedda taught me the Japanese word for

contract, uh, which is Kayaku, because he's got a super move where he throws a sort of like a slosh on the ground. And you, you have to time it. You have to, you have to hold the button and time it and let go of the button when you want the slosh to attack. Because it grabs. And if it grabs you, it pulls you into the ground, sloshes you back and forth in like blood or whatever. And then a giant contract appears and it slaps your body. And it. under the contract. And he laughs and says, Oh,

which means like contract complete. And I love it. I love it. That's so good. And everyone has a different, I don't think they're unique spines, but they do have a different signature when they slapped against the contract. It's great.

High damage, high, he's very fast. He moves, he's got the, he's basically got a sife. He can sort of basically someone a sife. And he can throw it. It spins around. he's just all around I love Jeddah I love Jeddah

yeah no no I could definitely see why but a lot of his attacks like have him separating his body parts from him it's great design all around and I think he makes a better boss than Pyron personally because he's just

I think he's just better yeah I mean I was sorry to see Pyron go but again I think it's I think it's an up trade I think it's an upgrade yeah that's a trade up and I think history reflects this because as far as characters who appear in other games, Jedda appeared in a lot more games from that point on,

including some outright, you know, dogs, but whatever. He got to show up again. And now a word from our sponsor, BetterHelp. Metronauts co-host, Jeremy here. As someone who comes from a happy home and has a successful career doing things I genuinely love, I realize that I don't honestly have much to complain about in the world. But that doesn't mean I don't get discouraged or worn down anyway. By pandemics or politics or other stressors a whole lot bigger than myself,

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a quick but effective start down the road to managing or overcoming whatever it is that weighs you down. That's Better, H-E-L-P, dot com slash retrogaming. So, we should mention these were Japan only, but after Vampire Saver came out, I guess because they didn't want to just leave it with that roster. Yeah. They ended up making two arcade only, Japan-only revisions.

And the names are really confusing, and I swear to God, I never get clear which one came first, which one came second. There's Vampire Hunter 2 and Vampire Sunderer 2 and Vampire Seasons. Savior 2. Yes. But really, realistically, they're both just like super vampire savior. Like, they're basically just revisions on the game because, yeah, all they do is they mix up the roster. They bring back Donovan and Huizzo and Phobos, but Hunter 2 takes out all the new faces from vampire saviour. So it's basically like, here's an enhanced version of, uh, night warriors, if you want. Yeah. Whereas Vampire Savior 2 brings back Donovan and the bosses, but takes out what I can

only imagine we're mathematically the unpopular characters. Calvane, Rikow and Sasquatch, all get cut. Poor Sasquatch. So, no game, no arcade game has all the characters in it. That doesn't exist. No. Home versions, yes. Arcades, no. It's very confusing.

They also made some, like, engine changes, but you'd have to kind of be, like, really into those games to sort of figure it out. There's stuff like, there's, like, throw loops and stuff in the chains type chains work, but it's, um, it's certainly an interesting strategy for getting those missing characters in.

Let's put it like that. I mean, let's face it, it's 1997. So, like, you know, if this was a modern game, of course, they would just, you know, they'd make you pay for them and put it on as DLC. But at this point, the only way, you know, the only way to DLC is to make a new goddamn arcade board and send it out. So, yeah, that's what they did. And it was all, only in Japan, only Japan. So we never saw them here.

But of course, thanks to, you know, the modern release, we mentioned at the time that the Capcom collection, the fighting collection includes all five versions. So if you want to play these games, pick up that collection, you can get your pick of all them. They're all there. Yes. All the dark stalkers are there. And I'm assuming that they're untranslated or? Yeah, those two are. There's like some basic text only endings. So there's not, but like the wing quotes will be in Japanese, but it's, you've got the English version of vampire saviour. So the only thing I wish they'd added for the collection was notes on what Vampire. what those two versions actually change

because they're just kind of there and you have to figure it out yourself. But that's a lot of retro collections don't have enough instructions for me. So that's probably a me thing. Well, I guess in that case, I'm sure if you go online, the fans out there, I'm sure

have framed me to. They've absolutely done the work. Yes. And unfortunately, that's kind of the end of the series. Yeah. Or is it? No. No, it is. Honestly, it's the end quote-unquote of the series, although we do get console ports and we get console revisions and we get console enhancements. We'll talk with them. But honestly, that's it. Like, 1997, those arcade releases are kind of the end as far as making new, quote-unquote, Darkstalkers. We actually have a quote from Funimisu in 1998, so after everything's out and done, regarding a sequel, I'd like to return to the original concept for Darkstalkers if we made another game. Well, to be honest, I don't want to make another one.

Oh, no. He laughs. He's laughing. He's laughing. Good. The reason is we'd have to keep adding characters, right? And if you have more than 15 characters, the game becomes a nightmare to balance. And there will end up being characters that we as developers don't even want to make.

What the hell? No one even plays this guy anymore. He laughs again. So I think they just ran out of patience with this series. Yeah. They worked too hard. If they flew too close to the sun and burn their wings. Yeah.

Yeah. that sounds about right. Although it's, I can completely understand 15 characters being a nightmare to balance. And then you look at something like Marvel versus Capcom 2. It's like, oh no. Yeah, because guess what? They didn't balance it. They gave up. Like, nope. They sure didn't. Yeah. Here's, you know, here's Coboon. Here's a server bot. It's a tiny little sprite that no one can hit. And here's Magneto. We have a God tier and we also have a roll tier right at the bottom. all right so let's let's move on to the console ports because they are there's there's things to say about them they're they're really interesting um they're not new quote unquote new games but they have a lot to say um i'd like to lead off with the one that i think the one that i bought and one that i played the most of because it was kind of like the first unique and i think for me it was like the best home port at the time uh officially called this is complicated because it was early as the internet vampire chronicle for matching service A Japanese-only Dreamcast release, I want to say 2000, maybe 2001, I definitely, I imported it, I got it from my Dreamcast. Oh, nice. It includes all the characters, but more than that, it lets you play as different versions against each other. So, like, when you pick your character, you pick the version of the game the character comes from, and here's what gets, here's it gets weird, you get to pick versions that didn't even exist.

Yes, that's right. So it's like if you wanted to play Jetta Dark Sucker style where he didn't even exist You can play They made a new version of him that has different moves I don't know how they did this But they clearly went above and beyond To make this sort of a

Because I think another one that does this was the The Street Fighter 2 anniversary collection I want to say in the early 2000s on PS2 Where you pick Which version of Street Fighter You want it like It's all the characters are there but you get to pick which version of the character you play as?

Yeah, yeah. I think they did like one of those on PS1, and they also did Hyper Street Fighter, the Anniversary Edition, which had everyone. Which I believe is in this Capcom collection. Yes, it is. That's the only street fighter in there. You get to pick, like, pick your street fighter.

Yes, they couldn't get away with having a fighting collection without Street Fighter. Right. But at least they gave us a unique street fighter. That's not in the anniversary collection. Yeah, yeah, that's right. So yeah, Dark Suckers on, Vampire Chronicle on Dreamcast lets you pick all these characters

otherwise it basically plays like vampire savior like you can't go back to the old modes but you can sort of pick new styles of characters which makes it pretty unique and definitely if you enjoyed them in their case like oh I wanted to play the characters well here you are here's other characters

go nuts yes and the matching service bit was something that Capcom appended to games that had online sadly I think there's ways to play Dreamcast stuff online, but I don't think these Capcom games are, because they did stuff like this for Alpha 3 and I think TechRomancer. They had an online version of Techromancer.

The Dreamcast had a built-in modem, you know, it was the way of the future. We just didn't know it. Yeah, we didn't know it. And Vampire Chronicle eventually got a port to the PSP. Yes, yes, it did. And this one did come out in America. So you can actually buy this, I think, I think the shop's still online as of this recording. You can buy this on Vita if you want.

You got Vampire Chronicle Chaos Tower, which has this sort of pick your character mode, but it also has sort of chaos, because again, it's on handheld, so you're probably going to play this by yourself unless you've got a friend nearby. Yeah. It has the new Chaos Tower mode that lets you pick a team of characters and you basically fight your way against computer opponents through a tower. and each stage has sort of unique qualifications. And depending on how you win the match,

you go to a different part of the tower. It's actually very interesting. It is. And it's sort of a robust single-player mode because as you work your way through the tower, you unlock bonus content on the game, you know, like art gallery and videos and stuff like that. So as far as handheld versions of the game go,

like it's certainly, you know, obviously you're playing on a handheld, so no fight sticks, but it's a pretty interesting take on the game. And I think if you love this series, I would recommend it because it lets you experiment with it and lets you just play with it at length. That was like one of the first PSP games I ever got

and I played the hell out of it, but I could never clear the tower mode. It gets very difficult. So maybe if I had a fight sticker, it'd be a little easier. But no, it's a, that was like a launch title for the PSP as well. It was like very close to launch. I want to say it's 2000, maybe 2005 or 2006. So very early in the PSP life.

And certainly well-rearned, removed from the original Dreamcast game. So I don't know how they can't with that idea of, hey, what about this Dreamcast game? Let's put it on PSP. But they did it. Yeah, it's probably the same thing that led to Powerstone collection on the PSP. Yeah, well, I mean, a lot of Capcom fighting games got a really good PSP version. Yeah.

Yeah. I know the Alpha 3 on PSP is amazing. It's got everything. Yeah, it's really good. What's that even called? The upper, double upper height? Mathis. I think it's Max.

Exactly. You joke, but those were legit. Intimate versions of Street Fighter Alpha 3. No, they had all the characters, absolutely. Yeah. And one more we should mention of its era, a PS2 Japanese-only collection. I think, did you add this to the notes? Yeah, I added this.

I've got a copy of this. Okay. So it's basically the five Arcade Dark Stalkers games. It's only got the Japanese versions of them. But did you ever play Street Fighter Alpha Anthology on PS2? I didn't play that one. I played all the alpha games, but I didn't play that collection. Ah, right.

Because it's kind of similar to that, and that it's got a range of versions of the three different versions of Saviour, which add in the characters that were missing. So, like, Saviour 2 adds in the characters that they cut out and stuff. And they add a new character, D, which is a head-swapped version of Dimitri with Donovan's head. He was like, I think it was like supposed to be a cut character from Xavier. but they were like, there's no way we can fit him in. Because, like, Donovan's story is like he becomes a monster, et cetera, et cetera. And so this is like a sort of one-if. And he's very clearly cobbled together.

Like, it's just a head swap. But it's cute that they added it at all. And like, his ending shows Anita grown up for like a single frame. So I'm amazed they went to that much effort. But it's also got like an art gallery. It's, if it wasn't for the recent, if, wasn't the fighting collection, this is like one of the best versions to go for if you want to play all of the arcade vampire games.

Yeah, because, I mean, if you look at it just from a math standpoint, like this has more dark suckers in it than the fighting collection, because it has all those games and it has extra stuff. Yeah. So they could have gone with this instead of the arcade versions, but I guess they really wanted to stick with the arcade mindset. And so they went with that. But yeah, I mean, I guess there is no, there is no ultimate absolutely everything, Dark

search collection out there, but this is probably the closest you can get. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, before we get to the end, so before we get to the end, quote-unquote, of Dark Stuckers, I want to talk about really quickly, sort of the other stuff that came up. Obviously, there was a lot of animation that came in the 90s. There was a Japanese OVA animation that I remember watching and looking very good, sort of telling the larger story. Yeah, yeah.

I actually watched that recently because it came out on Blu-ray. Oh, please. Tell me more about it. I haven't seen it in 20-plus years. It's basically a Knight Warriors, so it's focused on the second game. So it's mostly about Morrigan, Dimitri, and Donovan. some characters basically appear in exactly one scene

and then never show up again but it's the animation and the color choices are really good and you do see characters do like their special moves because they kind of have to but no it's pretty all right it's nice that it's on Blu-ray now

if you want sadly the American TV series is not on Blu-ray yet a true crime you say sadly but I don't have fun memories of this thing This was, I mean, I guess if you're into the Street Fighter American cartoon, I guess this is right up your alley, right? Because it's just more absurdity.

I must admit, I've only seen like brief clips of it, because I'm pretty sure it never aired over here. But I've heard stories of the U.S. Dark Stalkers show. We'll just leave that there. There were plenty of comics. I think both in Japan and America, I think they made some comics. I think there's probably still some comics going on. I want to say Udon probably made some comic interpretations, right? I've never read them, but they did like a streetfighter Dark Stalkers crossover one a couple of years ago.

That makes sense? Which is, yeah. Well, hey, you said the word crossover. Let's talk about crossovers because, yeah. So the first one is probably the weirdest one. So in 1995, the very next year after Darkstalkers, in Marvel superheroes. Yes. Anita is a hidden character in Marvel superheroes.

Just Anita. Yeah, just her. on her own. And I don't know how to explain this. I mean, the only thing I remember her, but is she's got a super where she summons doll heads, right? Yes. And that does more damage if you block it than if you just take the, take the heads in the face. I think, I think she's supposed to be like some kind of test character, just to, just to mess around. It's kind of like had their foo Akuma into X-Men Children of the Atom, but she's definitely a lot weirder than Akuma was. Yeah. If you've got the,

delisted Marvel Superheroes re-release on PS3 and X-Vox, you can unlock her in that if you want, and you can annoy people online with her. Fantastic. So, you mentioned Pocket Fighter. So there are three Dark Suckers in the Pocket Fighter game.

Yep. Not surprisingly, it's all ladies. There's a pattern here going forward. When Dark Suckers appear in other games, it's usually the ladies, and I think Capcom is winking at the fans, like, oh, we know what you want. It's usually Morrigan. Yeah. To me, it's, I mean, it's a little

frustrating to me. It's because I love these games and I love so many of these characters. Like, yes, I get it. They're sexy ladies and yes, I'm attracted to women, but I'm not, I'm only attracted to women and like this game is more than sexy women. You know what I mean? Like, it's kind of frustrating in that regards.

Characters like Sasquatch and Bishamon feel like they should have been in more games personally. It's, I get why they make that choice and, you know, Morrigan is basically the poster poster character for the series. Hands down the most popular character of this of this series, for sure.

But they were also in Super Puzzle Fighter, so I guess it sort of makes sense that they picked them. But yeah, no, I get you. I get you. Yeah, so Pocket Fighter, you got Morgan, Hysenko, and Felicia. You mentioned Eskinavis and Capcom on Yes.

And Pocket, that's got Morgan, that's got Felicia and Baby Bonnie Hood. Yeah. That's literally my introduction to Baby Hood. So I'm glad that they threw her in as an extra. There was, pretty recently, somebody found a prototype of a sequel that did have Bishamon in it. So it hasn't been dumped, but there is a screenshot showing Bishamon fighting Hal Maru from Samurai Showdown. Nice.

So, yes, he nearly made it. He was so close. Cursed. Cursed Armour's cursed. Yeah, yeah, definitely. So in the versus series, so Capcom versus S&K was unfortunately too vanilla, they just stuck. with the Street Fighter and King Fighters. But Capcom SK2 did add Morgan.

She wasn't the first one, like as a secret character. Oh, secret. I'm sorry. Yeah, no, no, it's, she's easily missed. You wouldn't be blamed for thinking it's just Street Fighter versus King of Fighters. But I think that's the game where her old sprite sticks out the most because so many of them, so many of the other characters got redrawn and she doesn't quite fit in. It's still a great sprite, but she's, she's, she's,

sticks out a little lesser. Yeah, I mean, in our modern day, we talk about filters, you know, like Instagram filter, whatever, like, Morgan and Capcom escape versus two, like, she is running all the filters. She's cracker, like, it's like Vaseline on the lens, you know? Yeah, yeah. She's really blurry. So, Marvel versus Capcom, the proper series, uh, Morgan is there day one.

She's in Marvel versus Capcom. Uh, in two, which, you know, kind of the catch-all, two ads, Anacharis and Baby Bonnie Hood and Felicia. Yes. I love that they put Anna. Harris in Marvel 2. He is out of his element there. He's a big slow guy. Does not fit at all, but he's there because he's weird. He's there. He's enjoying himself, I hope. Marvel Capcom 3, the first, you know, 3D entry in the series. So, of course, Morgan is

there. Of course, Felicia is there. Isenko showed up, so good for her. Yeah. And more recently, I think the game is probably done for, but Jedda showed up in Marvel's Capcom Infinite. as did Morgan and I got to love fans when they announced Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite and they said Morgan would be in there, fans immediately edited in her old Sprite into the screenshot. They sure did.

They know. Jedda is pretty fun in Marvel Infinite. Like they captured I wasn't sure if they could capture like these kind of animation style in 3D, but they did the best job that they could. Marvel Infinite is

a very sad case. Yeah, there's a lot. There's a lot there that we could talk about someday, but it's not retro. We'll hold off on that. We'll hold off on infinite. Give it 25 years. What else we have? We've got. Oh, that's right. In the lone S&K version of the versus games, SVC Chaos, they grabbed Dimitri. That was kind of a strange full, I think. I was kind of surprised by the choice. I know, I know exactly why. Why is that? My theory, of course. They wanted to do Midnight Bliss rights for everyone. Oh, of course. And they did. They did.

That's some galaxy brain stuff right there. If you wanted to see Midnight Bliss, Mars people for Metal Slug 2, your wish is granted. They just color it purple and give it a bow. Oh, my God, of course. Of course. Of course. That's right.

Another game that they probably added Demetriian for that version is Capcom Fighting Jam. Oh, yeah. Yeah. This is, so I think this. This game warrants its own deep discussion someday because it is just a hot mess and so unfortunately emblematic of what fighting games were like in the early 2000s, like the doldrums. Like this is what Capcom was putting out on PS2. But yeah, that Capcom Fighting Evolution, aka Capcom Fighting Jam, basically has a grab bag of characters from a bunch of different series. Yes.

So there's a whole Dark Circuit's team, which is Anacaris, Demetri, Felicia, Jedda, and Pyron. that's right Morgan didn't make the cut Morgan decided no I'm not putting that on my CV She refused to show up That's it Yeah

That's the Incan reason She stayed in her trailer Yeah But yeah They added Demetri And he has a Midnight Bliss animation For everyone I think they sold Gashapon

Of the different Midnight Bliss designs From this game as well So I'm guarantee If Capcom can sell it They sold it Yes

I've spent some time with Capcom fighting evolution it is it is a turd I still have my copy all these later I still have my copy probably because I couldn't sell it

yeah you'd frequently see it in like secondhand PS2 stores just nobody wants to buy it it's no a deeply unfortunate game and miscellaneous grab bag last of all

okay so oh Morgan did show up in Tatsunoko versus Capcom which is a really fun game. I've really disappointed that it ended up only on the Wii home ports. I'm a good game. I'm a huge fan. I'm a huge fan. I really like Tatsunoka versus Capcom.

It's very fun. Happy to Morgan got in there. Yes. Good for her. Morgan also playable in the Dreamcast version of Gunbird 2, which is like, remind me, isn't that like a shooting game? It's like a scrolling shooter. Yeah, it's Psycho, shoot him up.

Right. And Capcom published it in some territory. So they snuck Morgan in. And B.B. Hood isn't Cannon Spike, but I forgot what Cannon Spike is. That's another Psychio one, actually. It's like an arena shooter, like Smash TV. Oh, okay, okay. A bunch of weird, like weirdo-com characters like Sir Arthur,

someone who looks a lot like what's her face from Aliens versus Predator. Lynn, Lynn Kurosawa. It's not Rhinu Kurosawa, but it looks enough like her. And one of the characters from Three Wonders. Yeah, no, no, really. Keep cut. Yep. Yes.

Okay. I've never played canon spike myself because the June cast port is really expensive. Hmm. Yeah. So that brings us to the last official release of this game, honestly, which was Dark Suckers, a.k.a. Vampire Resurrection, a HD remaster, Night Warriors, Vampire Savior, much like in the vein of the Marvel games and several other games. Capcom did a lot of this in, or circa, you know, about 10 years ago.

This was 2013. Yeah. Here's an HD version of these two arcade games. They're download only in most territories. Here in Japan, they sold a physical version, but they sold it for twice the price, just because Japan. Yes, yes. And obviously, it's not a complete collection, but it's like if you had those consoles and you wanted to play some Darkstockers, I would say very good versions of those games. They are. They come with like little tutorials as well to sort of teach you how to play as the characters. But yes, because it was done by Iron Galaxy, you did a bunch of Capcom ports and it's pretty good. I would say maybe superseded by the most recent version, the fighting collection. But if you're really into Darkstalkers, then I would say give it a try. You've got a couple of filters as well, you know, and you can unlock the ending.

to view whenever you wish. So that's something. 10 years since the last official vampire release. I know it's part of the collection, but like, that's not called Darkstar's collection. It's called Capcom Fighting Collection. They should have called it Dark Stalkers and Friends.

That would have been good. And I think what makes this the sad part is, you know, around the time of Dark Starkers Vampire Resurrection, there was that sort of infamous Darkstalkers' Is Not Dead tease. I want to say a New York

Comic-Con. Yeah. There's only like off-camera footage of it. There's no clean version of it anywhere. And so it really seemed like Capcom, you know, definitely, you know, Capcom does all the time. They release old games and tease it and it's kind of like, hey, what if you bought this old game? Ha, ha, ha. We might make a new one. Just kidding.

Wouldn't that be hilarious? I really feel like the re-release that H.C. Remaster was part of their strategy to build up interest for new Dark Sockers. And they teased it again with DarkSuckers. is not dead, and then for whatever happened, and we may never know until someone gets Yoshio, you know, Ono's on with Sony and Pentothal.

It's like, we'll never find out what the true story is, but I think I think they started working on it, and I think they canceled it. That's my thing. Yeah, that sounds about right. And here's, here's the evidence that I offer is my theory. Street Fighter 5 has Fang.

Fang is a big Chinese guy with big hop and sleeves, and he basically throw stuff out of the secret sleeves and he can poison you and I'm telling you that guy started life as a 3D incarnation of Sienko. That's my theory. So I think they were working on a, you know, Street Fighter 4 style reimagination of Darkstalkers and either something didn't work or somebody didn't sell well enough and like, well, we're not doing this now. And they canned it and they took those animations and they made Fang and Street Fighter 5. That's my theory. I have no

inside information. I do live in Osaka, but I've never been inside Capcom HQ. No can sue me for telling my truth. That's my, that's my personal opinion. I'd never thought about that. That, that is a good point. It just, it was the first thing came to my mind when I saw that character in a trailer. I'm like, that is, that's a goddamn hopping corpse. That's Sienko. What the hell? On, on the one hand, it's, it's sad that there's no new dark stalkers, but vampire savior is so good. How would they do a good sequel to it? That is the question. And also, yeah, the fact is that Capcom doesn't really make 2D fighting games anymore. So it's kind of like, even if you did make a modern style game, it wouldn't be animated the same.

It would be the sort of, you know, the new Street Fighter style where it's all, you know, it's all a bunch of Polygon models so they can change the costumes. And actually, speaking costumes, it's right. Capcom is perfectly happily to sell you Dark Suckers costumes for other games. You know, I'm sure Street Fighter 5, I'm sure Street Fighter 6 is going to have Dark Suckers costumes. There's at least five Dark Stalker's costumes in Street Fighter 5. That's just off the top of my head. I'm sure Dead Rising has probably got a bunch of bobbleheads in the background. Like every, you know, we couldn't go into all the cameos these characters make another games.

Oh, hell no. Yes. These are just the, you know, the instance of the character actually showing up and being playable in a fighting game or adjacent fighting game. Yeah. But yeah, cameos at the wazoo. I know, to this day, I'm sure when you go to TGS, they're going to have Dark Circle merch in their booth. So it's like,

Capcom is perfectly, you know, perfectly happy to sell these things to you on items, but they don't want to invest in making a new Dark Sarkers game, which I just, I find really sad. But as you said,

would a new one be even that great? I don't know. But I still, I still wish they'd try. I still feel like this series. Yeah. I guess the best case scenario, honestly,

would be hire whoever, you know, whoever the mad men are who make Guilty Gear these days where it's like, oh, it's a 3D game, but it looks like anime. Like, you have to hire those people. Like, okay, make us a new Dark Suckers.

That would be worth it. But I think they're busy making Gelticiers. The other company I'd think of is the people who make French bread, Undernight in Birth and that sort of thing. Those wonderful Dogeon fighting games. Yeah, those people are keeping the flames of 2D alive. That's true. For sure, for sure.

Capcom could hire them, but that would cost money. Yeah, yes. So, yeah, I think Dark Suckers is dead, but in a way it's undead. So it lives forever, right? Yeah. Yeah, it lives forever in our hearts. And don't the Capcom. Yes, yes.

So let's take comfort in knowing that Capcom at least remember they had those ROMs and was willing to sell them to us. So thank you, Capcom. Thank you very much. And thank you, Aunt, for joining me on this conversation. You're very welcome. I will happily talk about Dark Stalkers for multiple hours. The idea was to have you join the show as part of a panel of other. established guests, but unfortunately, some scheduling conflicts came up at the last second.

So just you and me, thank you very much for carrying so much water on your retrognost debut. You're welcome. Thanks for having me. Please let people know more about you and what you do and where you're on the internet. Because I feel, you know, you do a lot of work out there. I'd like people to know what you're up to. Thank you.

Okay. So I write a tiny little website called gaming hell.co. UK, where I just write about old games that I like. there's no there's no real sort of a system for picking what I what I write about so you know this month I wrote about Konami's vendetta a couple months ago I wrote about um paneled upon anything can show up so that's gaming hell.co.uk and I also I've started streaming recently somehow I just again it is there's no there's no rhyme or reason to I just I just pick stuff that I'm interested in and I can talk about for multiple hours.

So that's Twitch.tv slash tepid snake. And if you go there, you get to see I have a pingtover, which is just an MS paint drawing that I cracked out in about two minutes. But yeah, that's most of the things I'm doing on the internet. Please look forward to my website updating every month, maybe, if you're lucky, who knows. I have to ask. Yes, go ahead. What's gaming hell.com if you've got the DoCocco, UK?

I have no idea. I just picked up the dot co. UK because it's probably porn then. Probably, yes. No, it's to make sure people know that I'm from Britain so that they know that I'm not stunning words wrong. It's that's, that's, we add those extra use on purpose. I appreciate you.

I appreciate that gesture. Yeah. Do you have a Twitter? Do people want to find you on Twitter? I do. Oh, boy. it's Sarah S-S-S-S-O-A-T-Y that's S-O-W-E-R-T-T-Y. Gaming Hell has a little mascot who is just a girl who likes games

and all the permutations of gaming hell were already taken. So I thought, why don't I use my mascot? That's a good idea and won't be awkward to say it out loud in a podcast years from now. Well, that's right. We'll link to that Twitter, of course, when we tweet this episode. So people will see. Good. But to listeners, just listen out there,

Take careful notes. You know, they said all the words, so, you know. Yeah, I did. Okay. Again, thank you very much for having me. I don't do podcasts very often, but this was nice. And I get to talk about Darkstalkers for a couple hours. That's all right with me.

That was my secret plan all along. I wanted to talk to Darkstalkers for hours. And I'm happy I found someone who also was willing to do that. Happy to be of assistance. So let's wrap up the show by talking about Retronauts. This is Retronauts. you've listened to Retronauts. Thank you for listening to Retronauts. Thank you for supporting Retronauts because we exist because you support us. You can do that by going to patreon.com

slash Retronauts. For $3 a month, you get episodes one week early in advance and you get higher quality audio for $5 a month, which is just $2 more. Come on, that's nothing. What you get, you get two bonus episodes every month, exclusive episodes that never go live on the other feed, and you get exclusive weekly columns from me. I write the columns and then I read them to you as many podcasts. This is great. It's $5 a month. Come on. You know you want to give me

$5 a month. Give us $5 a month. It goes to me trickle down. As for me personally, I've been Diamond Fight. You can find me on Twitter and Twitch as Fight Club, F-E-I-T, that's my last name, CLUB. That's a noun or a verb that you've probably heard of before. And they say podcasts aren't education.

I'm doing my part So we've reached the end of the show So what's your midnight list? Look, go A set to pajamas Who guys take it? I'm probably wearing a Jill Valentine Resident Evil 5 body suit

Minus the mind control computer on my breasts Yeah, that makes sense Good night Good night I'm going to be able to be. Thank you.