Darkside Story is a Beat 'em Up video game created by Korean company Sonnori (of AstonishiaStory fame), for DOS on 1995 (later for Windows as part of their Romance of Package compilation 10 years later). The game later received a Mobile Port called Darkside Story M on 2007.
In this game you will play as Suhee, who lives in a suburb with her dentist father and her mother (who is never seen in-game), living peacefully. But one day...her father goes missing. So Suhee must go to the most dangerous streets of the city to find him. But then Suhee soon finds herself in a middle of an alien conspiration involving little people from far away, sewer mutants, and a trash man wrecking havoc...yes, it's that kind of game.
Darkside Story plays like a standard beat'em up, but aside the Multiple Life Bars, Suhee also has Hunger Points (HP, not to be confused with the Life Bar) and Feeling Points (FP): the former is increased by eating food found in many objects on the streets, the latter is increased by landing combos, defeating enemies, and by not getting knocked down. These meters change Suhee's fighting style depending of how full are the two meters, resulting in a variety of combos and stats.
A sequel was announced for PC, as well as a Gamepark GP 32 port of the first game, but then both projects were cancelled for unknown reasons.
Darkside Story contains examples of:
- Action Girl: Suhee, obviously, who can fight aliens with her bare fists.
- Cast from Hit Points: As with all other beat'em ups, pressing Attack+Jump at the same time will make Suhee execute a crowd control move.
- Checkpoint Starvation: this game (and its ports) doesn't have any checkpoints of any kind, so if Suhee loses her last bar, it's Game Over.
- Cycle of Hurting: in this game, most enemies can maul you to death if you let yourself get cornered, and no, there's no Mercy Invincibility here, even during the crowd control move.
- Guide Dang It!: To enter the forest zone, you have to find a key on the backside of a black chair on the house next to the entrance. It doesn't help that the game is entirely in Korean.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Suhee when she's in "Angry" mode. In this mode, she will stomp the floor when walking and moves more slowly. Justified in which she has been beaten pretty much, and that reduces her Feeling Points.
- Last Chance Hit Point: In a vein similar to Double Dragon, if Suhee's Life Bar gets empty, the next attack that knocks her down will defeat her, until then, she can still fight.
- Multiple Life Bars: In a sense, Suhee only has a large life bar divided in hearts, you start with three, and you can extend it by collecting green bottles (referred in game as "Vitamins") by one heart each or by advancing in the story.
- Lizard Folk: Lizard people with the ability to breathe fire are an enemy type.
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Porting Disaster: The Windows version, it doesn't add anything to the main game, the movement on certain segments (the navigation segments on buildings) is atrociously slow, and the game is full of glitches. - Stance System: Suhee has three "fighting styles" depending on her mood, determined by the HP and FP bars:
- "Happy": HP and FP at 2/3 full and above: Fast movement, combos and grapples gain more moves. Suhee sings happily.
- "Normal": HP and FP between 1/3 and 2/3 full: Standard movement and combos.
- "Angry": HP and FP below 1/3 full: Slow movement, combos and grapples gain less moves but are slightly more powerful. See Hair-Trigger Temper above.
- Shoryuken: one of the moves that Suhee can perform, although only in the middle of a combo.
- Wizard Needs Food Badly: Suhee's HP decrease with time, if she doesn't eat something, she will lose a full health bar and her HP will refill.
