When it comes to 2D fighting games from Capcom, most people will have the words “Street Fighter” in their minds. As famous as the Street Fighter franchise is, the Darkstalkers fighting series was also popular back in the ’90s. The one thing that made Darkstalkers popular in the first place was its unique selection of supernatural characters. Capcom has now released two of the more well known games in the franchise with the digital release of Darkstalkers Resurrection.
The compilation includes Night Warriors: Darkstalker’s Revenge and Darkstalkers 3. Are these old-school 2D fighting games still fun to play in 2013? Find out as we take a look at the HOTs and NOTs in our review of Darkstalkers Resurrection.
Hot
Great Fast Paced Gameplay
One thing I like about 2D fighting games compared with 3D ones are their insane fast paced style of gameplay. Darkstalkers games may not be as insanely fast as the Marvel vs. Capcom series, but they’re still fun much like the older Street Fighter games.
This is mainly thanks to the combos and super moves you can execute in this game. Some of the characters have wacky yet effective attacks such as fireballs, uppercuts and even ice attacks. Sasquatch even eats his opponents and freezes them. Felicia uses her sharp like claws to scratch her opponents.
Each fighter in the game has numerous special skills they can execute plus several super moves on top of this. It’s always cool to experiment with many of the characters just to see how effective they really are in battle.
Unique Selection Of Characters
The one thing that separated the Darkstalkers franchise from all of the other 2D fighting games out there was its weird yet wonderful selection of characters. Where else could you play as a mummy, vampire, sasquatch and other supernatural like characters? Most other 2D fighting games in the ’90s tried to emulate the character designs of Street Fighter too much so they weren’t able to break out of the pack. Darkstalker’s unique approach immediately made it popular with fans.
Some of the characters modern fans will recognise that are from Darkstalkers include Morrigan and Felicia. Both of these characters went on to become even more popular thanks to their addition to the rosters of both Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and 3.
Excellent 2D Graphics
The character sprites are large and very diverse. As I already mentioned, the selection of characters in this game is great and it’s something you don’t see often in modern video games. There’s no run of the mill bald space marine featured in Darkstalkers Resurrection.
As great as the game looks in HD, you do have the option of changing the look of the game entirely. If you’re an old-school type of gamer, you can change the view of the game entirely. Much like with Street Fighter III, you can literally play the game from the view of an arcade machine. There are also several other options at your disposal too such as making the screen smaller of even adding scan lines to the screen. It’s a nice touch for fans that grew up playing the Darkstalkers games on an actual arcade machine back in the ’90s.
Lots of Other Content
Another great thing about Darkstalkers Resurrection is the fact that you are getting two great games for the price of one. Night Warriors: Darkstalker’s Revenge is a great game in itself, but you also get Darkstalkers 3 on top of this. Not to mention there’s a plethora of modes you can play through such as Arcade, Training, Challenge and offline and online multiplayer.
Depending on how many achievements you unlock, you can also spend points you’ve accumulated on character artwork and ending movies too. If you want to see all of the movies and artwork Darkstalkers Resurrection has to offer, you’ll be sure to be occupied for several hours to collect them all…
