Darkstalkers Resurrection Review

I’m a pretty big fighting game fan. From my obnoxious Street Fighter phase in 2010 to my addiction to Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale the last few months, there’s no genre I find myself coming back to again and again like the fighter. One thing I noticed though is that I generally tend to gravitate toward the newer
ones. If a fighter feels dated I usually don’t really enjoy it, at least the way I do newer fighters like Street Fighter 4 or Marvel vs. Capcom 3. I can have fun with it, but there’s usually a lack of modes, a smaller roster, and the fact that everyone else has been playing 10 years longer than I have so there’s no point in getting better. With Darkstalkers Resurrection, this isn’t the case.

My background with Darkstalkers only goes about as far as buying the first game as a PSOne classic and playing 10 minutes of it before realizing that it was a terrible port. It didn’t take much thought to come to the conclusion that the arcade versions were the way that these games were meant to be played. Until last month however, this wasn’t possible. But with the release of Darkstalkers Resurrection, it’s not only possible to play these games in their original form, but with a whole lot of extras. This game contains 2 Capcom fighters from the 90′s, Night Warriors and Darkstalkers 3. Make no mistake, the two games are similar, but it’s really cool to get them both for $15 (considering it’s Capcom we’re dealing with, I don’t think anybody would’ve been surprised to see both games go for that much on their own).

There’s not much plot to it, but the idea is that a bunch of movie monsters and other mythological creatures are battling it out, each with their own hysterical and unique moves. Name a monster and they’re probably in it; from more common creatures like mummies and zombies to the more obscure like succubi and jiangshi, there are all kinds of characters represented and odds are you’ll surely be drawn to one of them. These are easily some of the most creative designs that Capcom’s ever put out and they’re still unique and lovable today, from the adorable Felicia and Sasquatch to the intimidating Jedah and Demitri. The characters all have a lot of moves and they’re each bursting with personality, giving the game a really fun and unique feeling. Even if the franchise has been dormant for over a decade, a lot of the cool characters have lived on through crossovers because they’re just so fun and popular. The characters' awesome and diverse personalities and playstyles are a big draw to the game.

You're sure to fall in love with at least one.

The gameplay itself may look like a Street Fighter clone on the surface, but that’s not the case. While they’re the same at a level, there are certainly a lot of differences. Dashes send some characters flying into the air, each character has multiple supers and EX moves that they can stock up without limit, and instead of using rounds, the game gives each characters 2 lifebars. The characters all feel super diverse and I found myself having a lot of fun with all of them (my favorite being the heavy-hitting Sasquatch). The game allows you to play normal or turbo mode, the difference between them being very obvious, but I don’t have much of a preference because they’re both pretty fun. At a technical level there are a whole lot of options, but at a casual button-mashing level it’s also a really fun fighter since all the characters are so unique and have such fun moves.
The game looks really nice considering its age. The animation is super fluent and the characters are all detailed. The backgrounds are also really detailed and nice looking. There’s always something going on in the background, be it funny or…well, terrifying. There are several filters and graphical options; crisp, smooth, classic, widescreen, stretched, and even the option to look at the game from the viewpoint of someone in an arcade. The game also sounds nice with some energetic and fitting music. The game gives off kind of an eerie vibe but also has a good sense of humor and knows not to take itself too seriously.

Just like the arcades!

While some would say SF4 or MvC3 are too technical, the reason I think a lot of people are turned off is because the game gives you no clue as to what you’re doing. There’s a training mode to experiment in and some combo trials to help your execution, but as for finding the use for these combos and moves, you’re left to figure things out on your own. This game completely corrects this. There are still combo trials and training, but a whole new mode, Tutorial, gives you exactly what you need if you don’t know what you’re doing. It gives you 5 different levels to help with the basics to more advanced tactics. It doesn’t just tell you how to do a move, it tells you when to do a move, and shows you how you should do it, and explains the benefits of doing it then. It didn’t feel like I was testing myself trying to complete the later levels of the tutorial, I felt like the game was honestly helping me figure out how exactly some of these things should be done. And that’s awesome.

Other new features are pretty similar to those in Street Fighter 3: Third Strike Online Edition and Marvel vs. Capcom Origins, with in-game achievements and ranking up, which allow you to unlock concept art and videos in the game’s vault. The biggest addition would obviously be online play, which worked really well from the little I played. You can save replays and upload them to YouTube, and even watch them in-game with your friends. You have a lot of options with your online play, from standard ranked matches to quick/player matches which give you control over all the options, even things like banning specific characters.

The strange combination of comedy and horror makes for a really unique fighter.

It’s hard to recommend a 1990′s fighting game to anyone who dislikes the genre, but I have to say that the game does a really good job at making itself accessible with its tutorials and diverse cast. Those who would scream “Street Fighter clone!” are quickly proven wrong by the chaotic nature of the matches and the unique and fun atmosphere set by the horror elements. Playing for the first time I found myself bursting out laughing at some of the outlandish moves that the characters were doing, and I liked that it didn’t seem like there was an overflow of useless moves; I didn’t notice any super or normal seeming like “okay, no reason to ever do THAT move.” There are ranged characters and up-close characters, fast characters and slow characters, and the game just does a really nice job of making everything diverse and interesting. If you liked these games back in the day, the online play and other new features make this game a no-brainer. And if you’re into fighters and never got the chance to play Darkstalkers, I highly recommend this. The balance isn’t perfect and certain things do feel dated (particularly in Nightwarriors, the older of the two games) but the excellent tutorial mode has you figuring out the basics and advanced techniques as well in no time and the smooth online play adds lots of incentive to keep playing and trying to get better. Two really unique fighters that I’d say are worth your time.

9/10