Darkstalkers Chronicle (PSP)
Riv , 2005/08/13 00:13

Publisher:	Capcom
Genre:	2D Fighting
Players:	1-2 Players
Rating	Teen
Pros:	--Combines Darkstalkers, Nightwarriors, and Jedah’s Damnation into one awesome trilogized game. --First true fighting game available on the PSP.
Cons:	--It’s still pretty dated and basically is Darkstalkers 3 with a few extras.. --For some reason you have to view endings from the menu instead of actually getting them when you beat the game.
Also Try:	--Street Fighter Collection (PS2) --Capcom vs. SNK 2 (PS2) --Project Justice: Rival Schools (DC)

With the launch of the PSP it was a give-in that someone had to make a good fighting game for the system. Capcom in all their wisdom decided to capitalize on the lack of launch titles by releasing Darkstalkers: Chronicle at an early date, basically making it the only fighting game available for the system at the beginning of the PSP’s life.

While Darkstalkers 3 is a dated game, the fact that the PSP can handle the game so smoothly is quite impressive.

Now if you’ve never played Darkstalkers before, it’s basically Street Fighter II with monsters, which happens to be one of the main novelties of the game. If you’re someone who is into monsters, horror, Halloween, and all that shit, and if you’ve never played Street Fighter II, kill yourself.

The monsters are as follows, for those of you who are interested:

A vampire, a Frankenstein, a zombie, a mummy, a chinese ghost, a vampire hunter, a merman, a werewolf, a suit of ghost armor, a succubus, a yeti, a catwoman, a Mayan Robot, an alien made of fire. Also new to “Darkstalkers 3” are four new challengers as described below.

Baby Bonnie Hood: An evil little red riding hood who has prepared for the big bad wolf by arming herself with grenades, missiles, uzi 9mms and other weapons. She is a contract killer of monsters.

Queen Bee: A giant humanoid bee woman.

Lillith: Another succubus, considered to be Morrigan’s sister or an extension of Morrigan’s own consciousness who longs for her own body. As opposed to having big breasts like Morrigan does, she has a big ass.

Jedah: A demon. He wants to revive some sort of evil giant baby who is called the “Fetus of God” in the Japanese translations of this game. He attacks his enemies with long claws and a scythe and tries to steal their souls and such. He is the final boss of Darkstalkers 3.

There’s not much to write home about in the graphics and sound. If you have played the Darkstalkers games you already know what to expect, and there really isn’t anything else to write. Capcom hasn’t changed the graphics or sound in this game in years and they aren’t about to start now. It’s basically just one big port-over that plays perfectly. To sweeten this deal given that Vampire Savior is a bit dated, Cacpom decided to trilogize it, allowing you to play as any version of any character from all three games. For example you can choose to play the Darkstalkers 1 version of a character, and play using the Darkstalkers 1 engine if you preferred the moves and combos of a character in that game. That’s kind of interesting. Using these modes you can unlock intros from all the Darkstalkers games and endings as well.

Also of note is the fact Capcom added extra endings for Oboro Bishamon, Jedah, Pyron, and Anita. Naturally you’ll have to figure out how to unlock these, likely by combining certain play modes with certain characters.

The game also has a Chaos Tower mode, where you play with stipulations like NO BLOCKING, or CAN’T USE SUPER MOVES. You unlock special gallery art by doing so, but this isn’t much to write home about or anything special, but it will keep all the completionists out there pretty busy.

Really I don’t think I could stomach five straight hours of Darkstalkers, so you’ll probably never have to worry about running out of battery life, however this is an excellent game to keep on you for waiting at doctor’s appointments, being on break at work, or when you have to take a shit that’s going to take a long period of time.

-- Riv - jasonrivera@jasonrivera.com