Review RossBonaime 4/5 · May 28, 2025
As I'm working my way through the Street Fighter franchise, I decided to take a diversion into the world of Darkstalkers games, as it's certainly an important bookmark in Capcom's fighting games of the 1990s. It's interesting playing the first Darkstalkers in the context of Capcom at the time, a company that had just made several iterations of Street Fighter …
As I'm working my way through the Street Fighter franchise, I decided to take a diversion into the world of Darkstalkers games, as it's certainly an important bookmark in Capcom's fighting games of the 1990s. It's interesting playing the first Darkstalkers in the context of Capcom at the time, a company that had just made several iterations of Street Fighter II and was interested in moving onto other games (finally).
Darkstalkers almost seems like a direct attempt to do something wholly different from Street Fighter. At times, this can play a bit like Street Fighter II, but it's actively trying not to be too similar to their real bread and butter. I appreciate how they're attempting to think outside the SF box with this and try new things in this genre that they've inadvertently created. For example, look at how strange it is to control a character like Anakaris, who feels almost like Dhalsim taken to an extreme. Or huge characters like Victor von Gerdenheim or Sasquatch, who take up so much of the screen with their huge sprites. You can feel Capcom having fun and testing the waters a bit, and it's a bit of a sigh of relief after so many SF iterations.
I also wonder how much of this game was Capcom trying to match the darkness of Mortal Kombat, which was coming up as a major competitor at the time. It's dark and gothic in a similar way, but with a playful attitude that wouldn't become borderline offensive. This is mostly centered around Universal movie monsters, and it often matches that spirit.
Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors is such a smart, fun little eccentricity of a fighting game, and it's a series that I wish Capcom would revitalize in a more major way. This is a great concept that's done quite well here, and I'm definitely excited to continue exploring this franchise after mostly ignoring it as a kid. As a counterpoint to Street Fighter II and likely Mortal Kombat, this is a decent combination of those two worlds that I'm surprised I didn't love more as a kid.
