See the cute little girl — the normal-looking one?
Biggest psycho of the bunch.
It's that kind of series.
Biggest psycho of the bunch.
It's that kind of series.
"Gonna be trouble
Baby I'm a trouble man
Want a fighter, come on
Don't you understand?
I'll give you double!
Baby, I'm the trouble man!"
Baby I'm a trouble man
Want a fighter, come on
Don't you understand?
I'll give you double!
Baby, I'm the trouble man!"
Darkstalkers, known as Vampire in Japan, is a fighting game series produced by Capcom; its first entry was produced during the fighting game craze of the 1990s. In contrast to the martial arts-themed fighting games of the time, the game's characters are (mostly) based on classic literary or film monsters — including Frankenstein's Monster, the Wolf Man, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon — and boast zany combos and attacks to help set the game apart from others.
This was Capcom's second fighting game franchise after Street Fighter, which means it shares many similarities with its sibling series (GamePro infamously referred to it as "Street Fighter in a Halloween costume"): Numerous characters have similar fighting styles to the Street Fighter cast, and the game features a six-button control scheme. Darkstalkers was one of the first fighting games to introduce the concept of Super Moves, bring air blocking into the mix, and expand basic combos into lengthy streams before any of the Capcom vs. games were created.
The Darkstalkers series is also notable for having quite a bit of fanservice, specifically due to Morrigan and Felicia (whose designs are unashamedly provocative — in particular, Felicia doesn't even wear clothes). Morrigan is likely best known for her appearances in the various Vs. fighting games — including Marvel vs. Capcom and Capcom vs. SNK — and even more notorious for having the same sprites recycled for over seven years (which caused her to clash in sprite style with just about everyone else). She received new sprites for Namco × Capcom and Cross Edge (which both used a slightly Super-Deformed battle sprite style akin to the preceding Super Gem Fighter: Mini Mix/Pocket Fighter), Tatsunoko vs. Capcom (and Marvel vs. Capcom 3) used 3D graphics, and with another new sprite set in Project × Zone, Morrigan's original sprites (and those of the other nine Darkstalkers to grace one or more of these crossovers) note appear to be dead for good.
A new Darkstalkers game — as in, entirely new, instead of a re-release of past content — hasn't been made since 1997. On July 21 2011, Yoshinori Ono said he is pushing Capcom hard to revive the series. In his own words: DARKSTALKERS ARE NOT DEAD! At New York Comic-Con, it was revealed that a project was in the works for Darkstalkers 4, but it would only be released if the fan demand was high enough, judging the figures from Darkstalkers Resurrection. Unfortunately, Darkstalkers Resurrection sold below expectations, and Capcom has stated that the franchise is now officially on hold.
Despite this, Capcom hasn't really "forgotten" about it: Darkstalkers has gotten representation in crossover games such as Project × Zone 2 (which features Morrigan and Demitri as a pair unit, and Felicia as a solo unit) and the Marvel vs. Capcom series (where Morrigan has usually been a playable character since Clash of Super Heroes, and various others such as B.B. Hood, Felicia, Anakaris, Hsien-Ko and Jedah joining in the second,third and fourth games). Yoshinori Ono is still very adamant about reviving the series, and a ray of hope has spawned from a Capcom press release stating that, after the release of Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, they would be interested in potentially reviving some of their dormant IPs.
On February 21, 2022, the series would finally be revitalized sorta.... Capcom announced the "Capcom Fighting Collection", a compilation of 10 fighting games, half of which are Darkstalkers entries (along with two Mascot Fighters featuring Darkstalkers characters). Unfortunately, the project producer has stated that, at least for now, this collection will not be used to gauge interest in a future title, but one can hope. A few months later, it was revealed that the first three games would also be among the titles available for separate purchases through Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium, the second wave of Capcom's Arcade Stadium series.
Games in the series:
- Vampire / Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors (1994, Arcade / PlayStation)
- Vampire Hunter / Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge (1995, Arcade / Sega Saturn)
- Vampire Savior: The Lord of Vampire (1997, Arcade / Sega Saturn / PlayStation) - the console versions brought back the missing charactersnote from Night Warriors.
- Vampire Savior 2 / Vampire Hunter 2 (1997, Arcade) - A pair of minor upgrades to Vampire Savior released only in Japan with system and roster changes.
Re-releases:
- Vampire Savior: EX Edition / Darkstalkers 3 (1998, PlayStation) - A compilation of all three versions of Vampire Savior.
- Vampire Chronicle for Matching Service (2000, Dreamcast) - A version of Vampire Savior that allows you to select specific variations of characters from previous games (essentially making it the Darkstalkers equivalent to Hyper Street Fighter II).
- Darkstalkers Chronicle: The Chaos Tower (2004-2005, PlayStation Portable) - Port of Chronicle with an extra game mode named Chaos Tower.
- Darkstalkers Collection (2005, PlayStation 2) - Compilation of all five arcade games, with secret arranged versions of the three Savior games.
- Darkstalkers Resurrection / Vampire Resurrection (2013, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3) - Downloadable re-release of Vampire Hunter and Vampire Savior with online play added.
- Capcom Fighting Collection - An Anthology celebrating Street Fighter's 35th anniversary. Includes Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors, Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge, Vampire Hunter 2: Darkstalkers' Revenge, Vampire Savior: The Lord of Vampire, Vampire Savior 2: The Lord of Vampires, Super Gem Fighter Mini Mix, Super Puzzle Fighter II, Cyberbots, Red Earth, and Hyper Street Fighter II: The Anniversary Edition. The Nintendo Switch port marks the first time any of the Darkstalkers games have been playable on a Nintendo console.
Other media:
- Darkstalkers - A short lived American cartoon made by Graz Entertainment (sometimes erroneously credited to DIC, who was never involved with the show).
- Night Warriors: Darkstalker's Revenge - a 4-part OVA based on the second game
- Vampire: Shuumatsu no Shisha note Victor - A two volume manga by Hiroaki Wakamiya based on the first game that focuses on Victor and Emily. Rather infamous for taking lots of creative liberties with the characters and setting.
- Vampire Hunter: Darkstalkers' Revenge - A single volume manga by Run Ishida based on the second game. It was localized by Viz as Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge - The Comic Series.
- Vampire Hunter - A two volume manga by Takeshi Fujita based on the second game. Each playable character has a chapter devoted to them, plus a final Donovan VS. Demitri chapter.
- Vampire Savior: Tamashii no Mayoigo note - A Japanese-only five-volume manga by Mayumi Azuma that focuses on Lilith trying to find an identity other than being a fragment of Morrigan's powers while surviving Jedah's tournament. Features manga-only human John Statley, who lets Lilith stay at his house.
- Street Fighter vs. Darkstalkers - An 8-issue comic series from UDON Entertainment (the company behind the Street Fighter comics) pitting the cast of Darkstalkers against their more popular fighting game franchise siblings.
- Darkstalkers Maleficarum - A Darkstalkers/Red Earth crossover single volume manga that was later translated to English.
- Darkstalkers: the Night Warriors - A 25-issue manhua (Chinese manga) of a retelling of the first game. Mostly focuses on Demitri, Felicia, Jon Talbain, and Morrigan.
Character-specific tropes belong on the Characters page.
This game series contains examples of:
- Adaptational Villainy: Morrigan is frequently portrayed as an evil Darkstalker in almost every Darkstalkers media, with her crossover appearances in other games and the ovas being the only exception.
- Afterlife Express: Darkstalkers 3 featured a playable stage called Iron Horse, Iron Terror, which not only has numerous body parts but is also driven by a skeletal engineer.
- All There in the Manual: Like Street Fighter, Darkstalkers has a surprising amount of depth and background stories for a fighting game.
- Amusing Injuries: Played with. Bisecting a character both horizontally or vertically is possible with some characters due to being sliced by a sharp weapon (which can actually stick if defeated by such an attack). Other examples include Ash Face, Harmless Freezing, and X-Ray Sparks caused by attacks of their respective elements, Jedah mutilating himself to strike his opponents, even going as far as cutting off his own head, and swelling caused by Q-Bee's bee stings.
- Ambidextrous Sprite: Obvious, as it is a 2D fighter.
- Artificial Human: Emily is a biological version of this. Victor is more on the biomechanical side.
- Attractive Bent-Gender: Any male character who gets hit with Demitri's Midnight Bliss special. Lord Raptor probably gets the best of it, going from a hideous freak to a real cutie pie. Female characters are just turned into "cuter" versions of themselves, except Morrigan.
- Beam-O-War: While it's usually not actual beams, projectile attacks invoke this when colliding: each one has a "strength" value depending on multiple factors such as attack button used, whether the projectile is an ES version and so forth, meaning whichever projectile has more strength remaining in the end destroys the opposing projectile but is usually slowed down afterwards as a result. Interestingly, in the American cartoon adaptation, all they ever did in battle was shoot lasers from their hands.
- Bee People: Q-Bee is a Soul Bee, a species of bee humanoid that feeds on life energy.
- Black Blood: Everyone, but Jedah specializes in this. See the Character sheet for more details.
- Blood Knight: Everyone to an extent, it is a fighting game, but especially Morrigan and Demitri.
- Breakout Villain: While Pyron has seniority over him, Jedah is by far the most popular antagonist of the series. His sinister design, Dark Messiah persona and brutally gruesome attack animations have cemented him as one of the most memorable characters of the entire cast. He appears in Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite as the sole Darkstalker outside of Morrigan herself.
- Brick Joke: In-game mechanics. During Hsien-Ko's projectile, she throws a random object. One version throws it up above. It falls down one or two seconds later. The move is hilarious when it connects.
- Calling Your Attacks: Largely averted compared to many other fighting games. The only moves whose names are shouted are Demon Cradle, Soul Fist, Shadow Blade, Kienzan, Tenraiha, Soul Flash, and Shining Blade.
- Capcom Sequel Stagnation: Shortly after the release of Vampire Savior, Capcom released two minor upgrades to Savior in Japan titled Vampire Hunter 2 and Vampire Savior 2. The only difference between the two are the roster: One bring backs the missing characters from Night Warriors by replacing a few of the returning characters from the original Darkstalkers and the other brings back the entire Night Warriors cast by ditching all the new guys from the first Vampire Savior. Eventually, the console ports rectified this by having both versions combined.
- Cat Folk: Catwomen are a Cat Girl style of Cat Folk that are their own distinct race of semi-human monsters. One of their more prominent members, Felicia, is a playable character.
- Cats Are Mean: Inverted, as the Catwoman's race is one of the friendliest kind of monsters ever.
- Character Portrait: Seen for each character as a Victory Pose (below), while saying their Victory Quote.
- Clothing Damage: Whenever anyone is burned.
- Combos: Darkstalkers was the pioneer of the zigzag "magic series" combo system, where players can chain normals from weakest to strongest, which can then typically be canceled into specials and/or supers, making this series a grandfather to the Marvel vs. Capcom series, Guilty Gear, Melty Blood and countless others.
- Compilation Re-release: Capcom's Fighting Collection includes the mainline Darkstalkers installments.
- Cool Versus Awesome: The series' reputation for actually adhering to continuity aside, this trope is the backbone of the plot.
- Crossover: Characters from this series appeared in Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo (Morrigan, Felicia, Hsien-Ko and Donovan), Pocket Fighter (Morrigan, Felicia and Hsien-Ko), Ken's stage in Street Fighter Alpha 2 (Morrigan, Felicia, Hsien-Ko, Mei-Ling, and Lord Raptor), Capcom Fighting Evolution (Demitri, Anakaris, Felicia, Jedah and Pyron), and the Minna to games Minna to Akashic Heroes and Street Fighter x All Capcom.
- Cute Monster Girl: Considering this games' roster is filled with all manner of hideous monsters, all of the female characters are simply gorgeous.
- Demoted to Extra:
- To date, the only characters of this game which have made playable appearances in other Capcom-produced gamesnote are Morrigan* , Felicia* , Anakaris* , B.B. Hood* , Donovan* , Hsien-Ko* , Anita* , Jedah* , and Pyron* , with the other characters appearing in cameos at best.
- The whole franchise itself has been Demoted to Extra, seeing as after 1997, it's been nothing but crossover appearances and re-releases.
- In the UDON comic series, only Morrigan, Felicia, Demitri, Talbain, Victor, Bishamon, Donovan and Pyron put in major significant appearances. The rest are relegated to the background (Lord Raptor, Hsien-Ko, and Rikuo, in particular, only have cameo appearances).
- In the OVA, Anakaris, Rikuo, Victor, and Sasquatch make their only canonical appearance in the entire series in the opening of the final chapter, where they all get curbstomped by Pyron.
- Deranged Animation: A chainsaw-sprouting zombie, a snowman-spitting yeti, a Frankenstein monster who attacks with his butt, a shapeshifting merman, etc. All rendered in very exaggerated, cartoony animation. According to an issue of Gamest magazine, negative reactions to this animation style might have been one of the reasons Darkstalkers never really caught on in the West.
- Ditto Fighter: The hidden "Marionette" and "Shadow" characters from Darkstalkers 3. The former switches to a random character every match, while the latter starts off as a random character and turns into whoever you defeat for the following match with an unique posession animation.
- Dominant Species Genes: It is mentioned that an offspring of a Cat Girl and a normal human is always a cat girl.
- Double Standard: Somewhat. Demitri's power of turning males into females does not go the other way around for the females. They just change into cuter or sexier women. This makes sense in character, though.
- Dub Name Change:
- Anita to Amanda (Night Warriors and Graz cartoon).
- Aulbath to Rikuo.
- Bulleta to Baby Bonnie Hood.
- Gallon to Jon Talbain.
- Lei-Lei to Hsien-Ko.
- Lin-Lin to Mei-Ling.
- Phobos to Huitzil.
- Sasquatch to Bigfoot (Graz cartoon only).
- Zabel Zarock to Lord Raptor.
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- The very first game had quite a few quirks compared to every game that followed. Upon filling the super meter, a temporary "power up" mode was activated which boosted attack power by 25%. Performing a special move (which would automatically come out as its ES version), an EX move, or allowing the time limit to expire would end the power up state and empty the super meter. Most special moves had separate light, medium, and hard ES versions. Although air blocking existed, it didn't work against most special moves. Many moves which were originally multi-hit would become single hit in the subsequent games. Nearly any special move that could be performed in midair could be used as a midair guard cancel. Some of the iconic voice clips such as Demitri's "Demon Cradle!" and Bishamon's "Kienzan!" were not yet present.
- Demitri was pretty clearly the star in this one, and Felicia was treated as just another monster and much more frightening, as shown prominently in an original commercial and the opening to Night Warriors (pause at 0:10).
- Ending Theme: Almost everything Darkstalkers-related ends with the song "Trouble Man," with the exception of the western PlayStation 1 port of the first game.
- EX Special Attack: The Trope Maker. This is the first Fighting Game to feature a super meter with multiple levels that can be spent one at a time for ES Special moves.
- Fanservice: There's probably a Darkstalkers character for everyone, no matter what your kink is. Even Pyron (pyromaniacs) and Huitzil (robophiles) appeal to some people.
- Fantasy Kitchen Sink: There are demons and two or three demon worlds, fine. But there are also mermaids that are seemingly unrelated to them. And big foots. And space aliens. And time traveling Egyptians. And Frankenstein Monsters. And living samurai armors. The term Darkstalker essentially refers to any being outside of current human science and understanding, Makai being the main source of them.
- Female Feline, Male Mutt: Catwoman Felicia and wolfman Jon Talbain, naturally.
- Fetus Terrible: The Shintai, better known as the Fetus of God, was created by Jedah in order to reset reality.
- Finishing Move: Some attacks leave the opponent mutilated if they're used to deplete their last health bar. Finishing every opponent with such an attack in Vampire Savior is one of the prerequisites to fight Oboro Bishamon.
- Flanderization: Applicable to Morrigan over time. Although she was always a sexy character, she was originally fairly reserved about it. She wore a revealing outfit and some of her winquotes were a bit provocative, but that was about it. However by the time of Darkstalkers 3 she and Lilith were
embracing nude in official art (which, to be fair, was later removed in the remastered version), and then Marvel vs. Capcom turned things up to eleven with Male Gaze portraits, BDSM winposes, and a super attack (Eternal Slumber) which involved molesting the opponent behind a curtain as boudoir music played. Though on a lighter note, these depictions are largely outside of canon material (such as the ones in the Marvel vs. Capcom series, which has been declared non-canon), not to mention some other portrayals make her a bit more dorky than meets the eye with her liking for video games and whatnot (in other non-canon crossover franchises). - Friendly Enemy: In some of their later appearances in games like Project × Zone, Demitri and Morrigan get along fairly well (in the sense that Morrigan teasingly refers to him as "Demi-Demi" and acts her normal flirty self around him while he grumbles a lot). Morrigan is also genuinely pleased to see Felicia.
- Gashadokuro: One very similar to the famous Kuniyoshi print is painted onto the wall of the Abaraya stage in Vampire Savior.
- Gravity Is Only a Theory: The Tower of Arrogance stage in Vampire Savior is the side of a skyscraper. Yes, the side. As in, the stage's background is the ground below. Still everyone acts like they're standing on firm ground.
- Grimmification: Baby Bonnie Hood is one to Little Red Riding Hood.
- Head Swap: Morrigan and Lilith, with Lilith having smaller breasts as well. Also Dee is Donovan's head pasted over Demitri's body and combination of both of their movesets.
- Hitodama Light: The demonic samurai Bishamon is accompanied by balls of flames; not only do they symbolize his own possession by cursed armor, he can dispatch them as an attack to temporarily "possess" (paralyze) an opponent.
- Home Stage: The Night Warriors had a stage for every character, simply named after what each country the fighter was from.
- Vampire Savior: The Lord of Vampire have more creative names, with some characters sharing a stage.
- Abaraya for Bishamon
- Concrete Cave for Jon Talbain, B. B. Hood and Lilith.
- Deserted Chateau for Morrigan and Lilith.
- Feast of the Damned for Demiti.
- Forever Torment for Lord Raptor and Victor.
- Green Scream for Rikuo, Q-Bee and Sasquatch.
- Red Thirst for Anakaris.
- Revenger's Roost for Donovan.
- Tower of Arrogance for Felicia.
- Vanity Paradise for Hsien-Ko and Sasquatch.
- War Agony for Victor and B. B. Hood.
- Fetus of God/ Majigen for Jedah.
- Vampire Savior: The Lord of Vampire have more creative names, with some characters sharing a stage.
- Humans Are Bastards: According to
Word of God, the reason why B.B. Hood (a cute, sweet and innocent looking girl who resembles Little Red Riding Hood) was created was to prove that humans can be just as bad as monsters, if not more so. She's completely human, but far more evil and insane than anyone else. - Idiosyncratic Combo Levels: In Vampire Savior.
- Insect Queen: Q-Bee is the queen of the Soul Bees; monsters that imitate the appearance of humans then prey on their souls.
- Insistent Terminology: The Japanese word "Makai" is consistantly used instead of "Hell" in-universe.
- Job Title: The Japanese titles. Vampire is Demitri's, Vampire Hunter is Donovan's, while Vampire Savior is Jedah's. Just who's supposed to be The Lord of Vampire is a little harder to tell.
- Kick Them While They Are Down: The Pursuits, ranging from normal jump in and kick to EX-pursuits like Anakaris' teleporting on the enemy, piercing them with the upside-down pyramid that his legs had shifted to and then summoning a giant sarcophagus to add an extra weight on him.
- Killer Rabbit:
- Pico and Alto, two of Felicia's four catgirl companions that come out during her super, are both children, but still more than capable of wrecking you. Alto also comes out to help Felicia during her Kitty Helper special.
- Sasquatch's exploding penguin friends.
- Kung-Shui: Much like its predecessor Street Fighter II, certain stages in the first two Darkstalkers games feature background objects that can be broken when a character is knocked into them. Examples include wine barrels and windows in Talbain's stage, light posts in Felicia's stage, and sarcophagi in Anakaris's stage.
- Leitmotif: In addition of usual character BGMs, everyone also gets a unique victory tune.
- Light Feminine and Dark Feminine: Felicia (light) and Morrigan (dark).
- Lighter and Softer:
- Demitri and Morrigan’s interaction in most of their crossover and guest appearances has been brought down to a much lighter note than originally portrayed in their home series; Demitri wants Morrigan to be his mistress, he hasn’t been shown to be really in love with her, he admires her beauty and strength but all Demitri wants to have is the Aensland household under his thumb, getting Morrigan with it is just an welcome bonus to his harem; Morrigan on the other hand is a free spirit and isn’t particularly interested in Demitri nor does she want to become a submissive mistress, to the point she would rather let herself turn into stone than become Demitri’s mistress in his ending for Vampire Savior. Come their later appearances and in some of them Demitri and Morrigan seem quite close enough to be at least considered acquaintances, with Morrigan teasing Demitri and calling him by nicknames and the guy actually getting embarrassed, being composed in her presence, not wanting to make her his plaything.
- The american cartoon, naturally as it was produced for a younger audience.
- Mecha-Mooks: The mass-produced Huitzil probes from the Night Warriors OVA.
- Merger of Souls:
- Morrigan fused with Lilith, who was originally a part of her soul Split at Birth and henceforth exists as a Split Personality capable of manifesting in an independent body, as can be seen in Marvel vs. Capcom.
- This is the basis of Jedah's Assimilation Plot in the third game. He plans on absorbing all of Makai's souls into his body, creating a perfect being (the Shintai) and then resetting all of reality so that he can save his world.
- Monster and the Maiden: Donovan Baine is a Dhampyr (half human, half vampire) and travels with a human girl (though one who has psychic powers) named Anita. Donovan looks after Anita and wants to help her with the trauma she got from being shunned by other humans due to her psychic powers.
- Monster Mash: All the classic universal monsters have representation of some kind.
- Morality Pet: Emily for Victor, Anita for Donovan, Harry for B.B. Hood, and Cecil for Huitzil.
- One Game for the Price of Two: Vampire Savior 2 and Vampire Hunter 2, both which were simultaneously-released Japan-only updated rereleases of Vampire Savior.
- Vampire Hunter 2 features the entire Vampire Hunter roster by omitting the new characters from Vampire Savior (Lilith, Jedah, Q-Bee, and B. B. Hood).
- Vampire Savior 2 brings back Huitzil, Pyron, and Donovan from Vampire Hunter, but does so by removing Jon Talbain, Rikuo, and Sasquatch. The Saturn and PlayStation ports avert this by including all 18 characters, due to the fact that the CPS2 arcade hardware which the series ran on simply didn't have enough ROM capacity to hold the graphics for all of the characters. These versions would serve as the basis for the Vampire Chronicle port released on the Dreamcast, which in turn would later be rerelased as Darkstalkers Chronicle: The Chaos Tower for the PSP.
- Our Demons Are Different: "Demon" is used as a general synonym for "monster." A few characters are literal demons, like Jedah. One background character has four arms with two crossed to seal away most of his power that is capable of wiping almost every other demon out in the story.
- Our Monsters Are Different: For every original monster.
- Palette Swap:
- Happens when fighting against the same character, PC or NPC. The player can also voluntarily incur this trope when selecting the character with different buttons.
- In one case, this is actually used as a story point. When playing as Jon Talbain in the third game, his final boss is a glowing version of himself, representing his inner wolf. Talbain's normal intro is transforming from human to werewolf, and sometimes changes back to human as a victory pose, while the so-called "Image" Talbain simply appears in a flash of light and never turns back into a human. This version is selectable, and plays no differently than normal Talbain except for different graphics on one attack (using the second game's graphics instead of the third's for the Dragon Cannon).
- People Farms: It is said "Class C Entities" are used as slaves and livestock by higher classes, and that humans are automatically Class C.
- Popularity Power: Donovan wasn't ultra popular (unlike Anita), but he still managed to be something of a crowd favorite due to his playstyle and appearance. Although his plot progression in Night Warriors/Vampire Hunter justified his removal from Vampire Savior, later revisions, such as Darkstalkers 3 added him back onto the roster.
- According to this article, Donovan (much like Jon Talbain) was considered for MvC3, but then dropped.
- According to this article,
- Posthumous Character: Belial Aensland, Morrigan's (adoptive) father.
- Promoted to Playable: Pyron and Hutzil in Night Warriors and Oboro Bishamon in the console versions of Darkstalkers 3.
- Pulling Themselves Together: Certain attacks in this series will slice opponents in half on hit. However, due to the supernatural nature of the cast, that's not as fatal as it sounds, and they will proceed to reattach themselves a moment later. Unless said attack was used as a finisher, that is.
- Punch-Kick Layout: The series uses a six-button system with three punches and three kicks. Punches can be canceled into kicks for performing combos.
- Put on a Bus: Huitzil, Pyron, and Donovan are absent from Vampire Savior, having been removed to free up memory for the newcomers.
- Recycled In Space: Many people think of this series as "Street Fighter WITH MONSTERS!" It even shares the world-traveling theme.
- Regenerating Health: Vampire Savior has a variation on this, where the portion of damage can be healed as long you are not hit.
- Rubber-Band A.I.: In Vampire Savior, it is not unnatural to completely annihilate most of the computer's life bar, only for it to suddenly start wiping the floor with you.
- Scenery Gorn: Some of the other stages also include bloody torture racks, trains with eyeballs on them and God being born.
- Scenery Porn: Many of the stage backgrounds are elaborate and detailed, and visually add to the fighting experience.
- Schizo Tech: A large assortment of weapons and architecture that are both modern and ancient can be observed in the series such as flintlock rifles alongside flak cannons.
- Shapeshifter Weapon: Many characters, including ones you might not expect, will transform their limbs to make stronger attacks.
- Slapstick: Everyone suffers goofy, over the top injury in this game. Morrigan, already about as sexy as she's going to get, even gets one more than anyone else if Demitri uses his infamous Midnight Bliss on her.
- Some Dexterity Required: Be prepared to work your digits off if you want to pull off those EX moves. Anakaris is a repeat offender with his Pharaoh Magic and its variants' input commands. Demitri's Demon Blast/Billion and Midnight Bliss are performed using a Bizarro version of the Shoryuken motion.
- Stripperific: Felicia, the resident Cat Girl, fights in literally nothing save for strategically-placed bits of her own fur, making her the most extreme example in a genre already infamous for this. The actual succubi who deliberately dress to entice men are more modest in comparison, since they're at least wearing something.
- Succubi and Incubi: The Succubus race, whose only known members, Morrigan and Lilith, formerly provided the trope image. Notably, Morrigan is depicted as relatively benevolent and Lilith as innocent and misguided, rather than outright malicious as most succubi in fiction. Notably, neither of them have actually killed any humans in-canon as they don't need to fully absorb a soul, just a small part of it is necessary. Even then, there are other ways they can survive, from feeding on dreams to living off a fluid that they secrete when they're excited or being stimulated, hence why Morrigan despises being bored.
- Supernatural Elite: The house of Aensland is the ruling family for all of Makai.
- Three Round Deathmatch: The first two games play it straight but Vampire Savior opts for its own approach, which is similar to Killer Instinct. Rather than completing two full rounds, each character starts the match with two "bat" icons under their vitality bars. When one character's health is depleted they fall down and lose a bat icon, stand up immediately with a refilled health meter, and the match resumes on the spot with the victorious player continuing on with their health as it was when the losing player's health was emptied. Lose two bat icons and the match is forfeit.
- Trope Codifier: Upgraded the limited chain combos of the Street Fighter series into the famous weak-to-strong magic series that is now used by every Guilty Gear-like and Doujin-style fighters.
- Trope Makers: A lot of now common fighting game mechanics debuted in the Darkstalkers series. Multiple-level super meters, EX Moves (called ES Moves in this series, EX Moves are supers), air blocking, air dashing and so on...
- The Twelve Principles of Animation: More squash and stretch than you can shake a stick at.
- Updated Re-release: Zigzagged with Night Warriors. It's treated as a sequel to the first game, but much like Super Street Fighter II, the returning characters have the exact same stories and endings.
- Victory Pose: Seen for each character at the end of a fight round, as well as for their more detailed versions saying their Victory Quote. See Character Portrait above.
- Video Game Dashing: The first Capcom fighter to feature dashes, and notable for putting various innovative spins on the mechanic. Dashes in Darkstalkers vary wildly from character to character, and can be anything from standard ground dashes to leaps, to diagonal flight, to low slides, to teleports.
- Video Game Perversity Potential:
- Darkstalkers 3 (and only Darkstalkers 3; Vampire Savior lacks it) features a character creator mode, which is nothing more than recoloring the individual colors found on the sprites of the existing characters. Since Felicia is already technically fully naked, it doesn't take much to change her white fur into the same color as the rest of her skin. The same can be done for other characters, but not to as great effect.
- Night Warriors introduced special round victory markers that indicated how you defeated the opponent that round. Defeating them with a special move gets you an "S", defeating them with an EX special move gets you an "EX"... Guess what you can spell.
- Voice Actors: Darkstalkers is notable for being the first Capcom game to use professional voice actors. The voices in previous games such as Forgotten Worlds, Street Fighter and Street Fighter II had all been provided by miscellaneous Capcom employees and their acquaintances.
- Voice Grunting: During gameplay after a hit.
- Wing Shield: Morrigan and Lilith are able to harden their wings to protect themselves from harm. Dimitri can also use his Cape Wings in a similar fashion.
- Wrestler in All of Us: Every single character has a special throw or two. However, Anakaris totally inverted this because he lacked a basic throw. note
- X-Ray Sparks: Whenever anyone is shocked (except for Pyron, who doesn't seem to have a skeleton, instead having a constellation inside of him, and Jedah, whose skeleton is replaced by a mess of runes; Q-Bee simply appears as a miniature version of herself with a crown when shocked).
