The Haunted Hoard: Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors (Arcade)

Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors, also known simply as Darkstalkers or Vampire: The Night Warriors in Japan, is a fighting game starring monsters, and that already feels like a lot of fertile ground for some interesting fighters. With a roster that consists of a vampire, werewolf, succubus, mummy, and more, their classic depictions and surrounding myths could have provided plenty of unique attacks and a varied roster. The team at Capcom decided to take things a step further, these creatures of the night made all the more monstrous because their abilities have been pushed even further to make for some eye-catching attacks and animations.

 

In this one-on-one fighting game with the pretty standard structure of needing to win two 99 second rounds to win a match, the way the characters fight goes the extra mile to help it stand out from the crowd. Rikuo, for example, is a merman, but rather than just focusing on his fishy physique, Rikuo is able to transform parts of his body to imitate other aquatic life. He can lash out with a frog-like tongue, turn his foot into a conical shell for a deadly kick, and in one of the most surprising touches, when he gets hit by a fire attack, he’ll take on the shape of a seahorse to puff out a bit of smoke despite this form not being used otherwise. The entire cast of Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors features some sort of unexpected contortion or alteration in their moves to make them livelier than the often undead creatures they’re based on. Lord Raptor is a ghoul, but this zombie is also an Australian rocker who revels in his new rotten body, happy to use his bones like a mic stand while his guitar even has its own setting of chattering fangs. Sasquatch, while taking his ice and snow powers by being more closely aligned to a yeti, will also twist his leg up so he can unwind it as a rolling kick. Even characters like the more traditional werewolf Jon Talbain are able to be more than expected, his teeth and claws part of his attacks but he’ll split his jaw open for a more fearsome move or contort his spine in such a way that would no doubt break it if he was not a supernatural creature.

Simply seeing the characters in action is already a joy, although some are a bit less impressive than others. The two female characters, the succubus Morrigan and catwoman Felicia, don’t distort themselves in as extreme manners, although Morrigan can at least pack some surprises by incorporating rocket jets into her wings. Demitri Maximoff almost falls into this as well, but while his moves aren’t over the top, this vampire’s more monstrous side will come out during some of his attacks and in a fun touch, his human facade slips whenever he takes damage. The ten playable characters are rife with detailed animations for even small interactions, the game vivacious enough that even a character like Victor who is based on the famously stiff Frankenstein’s Monster finds room for exaggeration by having his parts swell in size or even jiggle. The backgrounds are just as detailed and alive, the characters in this 2D fighter not interacting with them much besides some cosmetic damage sometimes caused by the fight, but then you have the haunted samurai armor Bishamon starting his fights by stepping out of his snowy home in Japan. Rikuo’s home in Brazil is a lush and beautiful Amazon backdrop rife with animals, but Demitri’s mansion has many of his lady thralls on hand to watch and they’ll do fan dances to celebrate the victor whoever it might be.

 

In the arcade, the elaborate art on the moving characters was no doubt its biggest draw even beyond the already promising premise. When you start a fight in Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors though, you’ll find that a move looking impressive doesn’t always equate to strength. You have six attack buttons to rely on, a light, medium, and heavy version available for both punches and kicks, although it shouldn’t surprise you some characters have moves that don’t fit neatly into such categories so you’ll need to take some time to see how they are mapped out. With specific combinations of joystick inputs and buttons though, you can unleash a character’s special attacks, this often where some of a character’s truly unique battle options appear. While your regular attacks can be visually distinct and even cover a fair bit of the screen with how stretchy the cast can be, the special often define how they’ll want to approach a fight. Anakaris the mummy already has many moves where he’ll use his wrappings to form extra limbs, but his reach is far greater than other characters to make up for his slow movement and he can even briefly turn foes into helpless babies to make them easy pickings in an otherwise fast roster. Jon Talbain and Felicia can cross the ground in a flash with their specials, allowing them to get in close and slash foes up after if they time it right. Bishamon can stab you from across the arena or even get the spirit of his dead wife to hold you in place.

 

Every special move can be made more powerful as well. While Victor already can enhance many of his moves by holding inputs to charge them up with electricity, everyone can unleash a stronger version of their signature moves by building up their special meter. By attempting attacks, the meter will fill up, but it also drains slowly, meaning if you aren’t aggressive you won’t build up the energy to full very quickly. A character like Sasquatch can have hanging back and firing ice moves to build up his special bar as part of an effective game plan, especially since EX moves also exist that can only be executed when the bar is full and his ice laser can deal huge damage even if the opponents is holding backwards to guard. Most EX moves are highly strong but require identifying a perfect opening, so instead boosting up the strength of a special move will likely be your go-to since a skilled opponent or the game’s very tough computer players will know to fear a full special bar. If you don’t use the energy once it reaches max it will still deplete until the effect is gone as well, although on a per round basis you will likely only see one or two full charges, especially since the timer can even discourage that build-up strategy from Sasquatch.

Incidentally, you actually get to select your game speed when starting a run through the game’s set of battles, three settings let you slow things down if you find the animations sometimes hard to track or speeding it up if you want a truly fast-paced bit of action. However, if you are going solo, you end up tackling a fairly hard gauntlet of not only the entire rest of the cast beyond your chosen character, but two special boss characters who don’t exactly play fair. Already the game is good at predicting or possibly even reading your moves, but the ancient robot Huitzil and final boss don’t have to rely on special bars to do some incredibly powerful attacks or tricky maneuvering. Huitzil in particular has a copy of Sasquatch’s beam attack but without any limits on it, the player often having to hope it doesn’t come out since its size means even an attempt to jump over it will likely still lead to injury. There isn’t much of a story to be had here either, characters not saying much in their win quotes and the starting scene doesn’t establish why the characters are fighting, to the point I’ve found various claims on what this first Darkstalkers game is actually about. What appears to be taking place is some tournament between supernatural creatures who are referred to within universe as the Darkstalkers, and the winner will be granted some sort of incredible power. How this manifests changes depending on the ending, Anakaris’s ending clearly granting him some special power while Lord Raptor has to seek it from someone else and Felicia’s finale doesn’t even acknowledge that a bid for power was ever on the table.

 

Player versus player battles will be where Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors ends up thriving instead. Even a novice can enjoy seeing the incredible ways moves manifest but against a more competent player they’ll learn how well a good eye for an incoming attack can lead to a reliable counterattack. You’ll start to notice certain smaller elements that set the cast apart the more you play as well, like Jon Talbain and Lord Raptor being good at crawling across the ground quickly to close in or Anakaris who can float to avoid low attacks. There’s even a midair block, although only if you’re already leaping backwards, so while you can start to see that many moves look quite different across the cast but perform similar functions, there are still some mechanics to be found to add a bit more substance to how you fight in general and as specific night warriors.

THE VERDICT: Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors is a fighting game that really wows the player with all the work and imagination put into making its monstrous fighters even more unnatural with crazy attacks and detailed animations for even the smallest of interactions. The 10 playable creatures have distinct advantages that go beyond simple ideas like being a slow heavy hitter or speedy fighter, and the special meter is a decent way to add mid-round bursts of excitement. The solo play against computer players can be outright brutal, especially when facing the boss characters, but against another human opponent it’s easier to appreciate both the impressive sights and solid fighting fundamentals that are easy enough to understand even when you’re playing as a floating mummy who can turn his arms into a giant cobra.

 

And so, I give Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors for arcade machines…

A GOOD rating. Darkstalkers is the kind of series that continues to expand and improve with each iteration, meaning returning to the first entry can make it feel like you’re missing out on certain characters or some of the more impressive moves found in future entries. However, Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors also got things right immediately when it came to what makes this gothic horror fighting game work so well. You want to know your characters better because their special moves and useful attacks are often not just effective but exciting to see. The night warriors are mostly a fluid and flexible bunch where the first time you encounter one you’ll be constantly surprised by how a recognizable monster has been distorted into something unique to this series, even if some characters like Morrigan feel like they could embrace the exaggeration a bit more to match the rest of the cast. The solo play being so tough can be discouraging though and doesn’t couple well with trying to understand the moves of your opponents when you’re first starting out, but two player competitive battles are made more exciting by how the contorting creatures can produce interesting attack ranges beyond what a human body could muster. Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors does clearly build on Street Fighter so people coming from that more famous Capcom fighter can immediately find some familiar move inputs with characters like Demitri, Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors also keeping its specials usually fairly easy to learn save for those already situational EX moves. Some movesets can feel like they still have a lot of room to grow, Jon Talbain’s specials leaning a lot on just firing the werewolf around the battlefield as a fireball in different ways. Generally though, there’s still variety enough for people to find preferences and fight in ways special to a character, making Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors still a good time even for those more familiar with its deeper sequels.

 

Perhaps a fighting game that brings in famous mythical monsters without extreme alteration could have worked, but Capcom’s willingness to literally stretch and reshape what some creatures can be leads to a special fighting game where even basic moves can be incredible sights to see. A lot of artistry was put into making this game look excellent without it interfering with the strong fighting mechanics, and while perhaps the relationship between looks and function could be stronger, Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors makes its monstrous battlers delightful to play as and captivating to see in action.