"A Pleasure to Look at, a Wonder to Hear, but a Pain in the Ass to Control"

Monsters are pretty bad ass. Fighting is pretty bad ass too. Hey, while we're at it, video games are pretty cool as well. What if you combined all three? Well by golly you'd have the Darkstalkers series.

Perenially taking a back seat to that other Capcom fighting series, Street Fighter, Darkstalkers has languished in relative obscurity, at least to the US consumer. Which makes it surprising to see Capcom releasing this game for the launch of the PSP, Sony's first foray into the lurid handheld gaming market. Now, in the past handheld fighting games have really had a hard time being fulling realized. Most of the time this can be said to be from a lack of buttons. Most people agree that a good fighting game requires at least six buttons and a D-Pad. It wasn't until the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP were released that a significant handheld system has had the necessary button configurations to house a proper fighting game. Capcom is releasing Darkstalkers Chronicle as the lone fighting game in the US launch of the PSP.

The series has always been staunchly two-dimensional, and well that's a good thing. I don't really see this series working well in the third dimension. It's one of the most over the top series I've ever seen. Like I said before the concept of the game is that you have various monsters of the past all coming together in one form or another and duking it out. Well think of that and women in skimpy outfits almost (but not quite) letting it all hang out; gigantic characters that may at one time or another be one of the following: glowing, in an elaborate costume, have a companion doing something odd in the background, or just look plain weird; and moves that take up the entire screen. Oh wait, this is a Capcom fighter. 'Tis expected.

This time around the game is almost a tribute to past games in the series. Well a tribute in the sense that it basically has all the games of the past combined into one. Or at least I think that's what it is. The manual is pretty shoddy and not translated well. I can't really make sense of much of anything and little explanation is given to every mode and move available in the game.

The gameplay is pretty standard though, if you've played any other 2D fighting game before. You have kicks and punches of three types each: light, medium, and heavy, each mapped to a different button. These are the basic mechanics for the brawling in the game, but as with all newer fighting games, there are various special moves and combos available for each character. They do differ from character to character. For example, this one character going by the name of Demitri who could be called the Ryu of this series has a Hadoken-esque attack (even the same button combination as in Street Fighter II!) while other characters have different moves. Needless to say though, they are all quite over-the-top with huge fists, changing into cannons, enormous explosions, bright lights, and what not. One thing somewhat innovative to the series is the dark force mode executed by press any two punch and kick buttons at the same time. Basically the screen changes to a weird, psychedelic coloring in the background not unlike something from a Grateful Dead concert, and in your character gets some special power. Just what that special power is though, I'm not quite sure because the manual chooses not to elaborate on it. I'm pretty sure though it has something to do with certain character's special moves because I was able to do some very - let's say unorthodox- things in this mode. On Darkstalkers 3 mode there is the option to never restart the match and keep playing continuously, which I think works out a bit better than the standard mode where you start a new match every time a character is defeated. It makes things... interesting.

This might seem like a simple yet effective game to play, and yes it is like that. However, there is one rather glaring flaw in this. The button response at times can just get awful. Not all the time, but most of it. Sometimes the mapping is wrong and the button you press does that of another button or that the response is just plain slow. I mean really, there's no way around it. The control here is flawed. Now is it still playable? Yes, I'd say so, but you're going to have a hell of a hard time figuring out how to perform some of the more complex maneuvers available to each character. Some of the special moves won't present too much problem though, like the aforementioned Hadoken clone. This is perhaps the main reason why this game is not much of a success.

Though, one thing I respect this series tremendously for is just the general quality of its lineup of characters. I don't think a single one of them could be described as boring. You have succubi, a vampire, a mummy, a yeti(!), a werewolf, and a robotic golem type thing among many others. Each and everyone one of them are bursting with originality. Most fighting games have some characters that you really can't see yourself playing as. That's definitely true in here, you could play with just about everyone in this game and have a great time doing so. They also are all voiced and quite nicely at that. I can't stress this enough, this is perhaps the strongest cast of characters in any fighting game.

The game also looks very, very nice. It might be 2D, but it's easily one of, if not, the nicest looking PSP launch title. Talk about colorful, this is bursting at the seams with vibrance. The sprites all look beautiful and their animations are rather complex. If this is the look of the future of two-dimensional fighting games on handhelds, I'm definitely up for some more. The backgrounds themselves are also very animated and while they try to show grim locations most of them are done cartoonishly. That could be said about most of the game. While the game is done in grim locales and deals with morbid creatures of fantasy, it shines it all up in a sugary veneer. It can be quite comical. What's also nice is the fact that you can play the game in it's original 4:3 aspect ratio or choose to stretch it out to fit the PSP. It defaults to the stretch but I strongly prefer it in 4:3. What's also nice is that you can put in some wallpaper there instead of the black bars that would normally be there.

Also enticing about this game is the rather excellent soundtrack. Not only is nearly every song an immediate classic and well composed, they are of extremely high quality. They seem to have even more clarity than your average MP3. The soundtrack has a gothic ambience to it. It could very well be described as one of Brian Eno's ambient soundscapes combined with modern avant-grade metal by such bands as Arcturus and Ulver. If you don't know follow music much, don't worry. It kicks ass. My personal favorite track (and perhaps moment in the game) is during the final battle. As the character lowers himself onto battle a choir comes and has this kind of chant thing going; good stuff. Out of all the games I've played so far on my PSP, this has perhaps the greatest soundtrack available. It even beats the one for Wipeout Pure.

Naturally as this is basically a compilation game, it has its share of unlockables. All of the videos of the characters are unlockable, and each character has one for each game (providing they were actually in the game when it was released, and they weren't added to the series in Darkstalkers 2 or 3). This greatly adds to the replay value of the game even though the movies are of very low quality. What's also nice is the standard two player versus mode. There is supposed to be an Internet mode, but I can never get it to work. Replay value is rather high, but that's expected from a fighting game.

In conclusion, what is a rather standard fighter is brought up by a wonderful cast of characters, tremendous graphics and sound, and great replay value. However, it is brought down quite a bit by it's unresponsive and hit-or-miss control, the lack of a well translated and otherwise helpful manual, the low quality of the extras, and just a general feeling of being unfinished. I still enjoyed this game, but it was more for its aesthetic values. It really just seems broken on the PSP. Capcom seems to have a slew of portable fighters rearing to go on the PSP, let's hope they look and sound as tremendous as this one does, but play just as well. Morrigan is calling.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 11/20/05