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"I suppose it saves load time, but I wish you could select a background for the Training mode."
Came out better than the Darkstalkers (1) port (see entry 828) as this one has much more fluid animation (one gets the impression that they had the time to add to the number of frames they redrew for the earlier effort), additional modes, and much more fully fledged options, including turbo speed adjusts and so forth. Not that the animation is up to the arcade versions, but its much closer.
There's an "Original Characters" or something mode that I don't quite understand. Oh I see, you can sort of build up a custom character and unlock secret characters and options. Interesting. Oh and there's an image gallery mode, and good old Training mode.
Darkstalkers 3 was "Vampire Savior" in Japan. |
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| | | | (You press R1 at the options screen to get to EX Options after unlocking it by grinding the Original Character mode enough--see 30:12 in the video above.) |
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| | | | This version doesn't have a red screen flash on KO (or match end? whichever) like the arcade version, and later console ports (the PS2 collection)--and the other Vampire/Darkstalkers games in general--have. So I can play this version! (Ditto with the PS1 Darkstalkers 1. : ) Go PS1!) |
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| | | (* DS2 = Darkstalkers 2, which was actually called "Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge in the West, and "Vampire Hunter: Darkstalkers' Revenge" in Japan.
For that matter, "Darkstalkers 3" is an interesting name: it was only actually used for the Western release of the PS1 game! Called "Vampire Savior: EX Edition" in Japan, the PS1 version, released in 1998, is an updated version of the third arcade game in the series, released in 1997, which was called "Vampire Savior: World of Darkness" in the West, and "Vampire Savior: The Lord of Vampire" in Japan; later in 1997, two updates of Vampire Savior came out in Japan only: "Vampire Hunter 2: Darkstalkers' Revenge," and "Vampire Savior 2: The Lord of Vampire.") |
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I did not expect that final fight and end story for Lilith. : o Neat! Also it was nice to figure out how the eight colors--mapped neatly to the game's six attack buttons, plus one from picking a character by hitting all three punches at once, and one from all three kicks--and moves work (note to self: supers mostly just like EX moves: single-motion plus two P or two K, OR a sequence of buttons like eh LP,LP,f,LK,HP). |
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| | | | When you continue, the game asks if you want to use the same character--select YES, and you get to skip having to go back through character select and re-select your character and color. Much appreciated feature! : D |
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I selected Victor by pressing all three kick buttons, which yielded an extra-purple version. Victor's a partial charge character, and I'm not usually much use with charge moves, but his big headbutt (charge back, forward Punch) turned out to be pretty useful, especially the EX version (hit two Punch buttons instead of one); he's also got a huge downward leaping punch with charge down, up P, but I couldn't seem to get used to the range. :P
He's also a grapple character, having a 360-degree-motion + P throw (and a 720-degree version, although that might just be in the alternate "dark forces" mode, DF Power--not sure), but a) 360 degree throws have been killing my wrist and b) the range on it seems to be shorter than a toothpick! Couldn't land the darn thing even once, sigh.
He's got a spinny electric thing but it's a little hard to get it to go forward since the motion is backward, and an uppercut-motion rising knee on Kick buttons... Basically I find his special moves, aside from that headbutt, difficult to use. Fortunately, you can simply hold down any regular button to electrify his normal moves for extra damage, which is nice; plus, his jump kicks seemed pretty darned effective at this (low-ish) default difficulty, and you can chain them together from lights to mediums to heavies.
So, I think he can be fun to use, if I relax and just punch and kick. :P His attack animations are fantastic.
One thing I really appreciate about DS3 is that the boss isn't too crazy hard--he's maybe (at least on this default difficulty) just a little tougher than a regular character, which is what a boss should be, I like to think. ; ) (The Pyron boss insanity in DS1 (and Capcom Fighting Jam!) just makes me not want to play through that game again. ;P)
At the end I looked at other characters I want to play through the game with, and the next obvious choice is Felicia; her three-punches color is gothy gorgeousness! |
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| | | | ^ I wrote down the wrong the button code for goth-colored Felicia; it's three kicks, not three punches. : P |
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| | | Playing through Darkstalkers 3 for PS1--on a PS2--as catgirl Felicia--the faded goth colored one you get when selecting her by pressing all three kick buttons together--on the default 2/8 difficulty:
Felicia tore through the default difficulty level! : oo (Neat that she, like Lilith, has a non-standard boss encounter.) So fun to finish off her opponents with that hcf+2P EX move; aside from that, I mostly just did jump kicks and her lightning-fast chain combos.
So funny that if you pick "Auto" (auto-block) during character select, you're relegated to one of two slightly different character color schemes--color schemes of shame! I do wonder if they then decided that wasn't making it obvious enough, and that's when they decided to add "AUTO" in all caps under the auto-block player's bats/health meter. |
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Playing a bit of Arcade mode in DS3 as Lilith, difficulty 5/8 (previously I've mostly been playing it on the default 2/8, I think?).
The PS1 Darkstalkers 3 is REALLY good, and feels pretty much identical, played back-to-back, to the PS2 version; lower resolution, and probably not quite as lushly animated, but it looks wonderfully sharp next to the blurry output of the PS2 collection. |
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"Rapter (Zabel in the Japanese version?) looks to dunk Lilith in Arcade mode."
The Training mode here takes place on a featureless purple plain under an empty black sky. = o You can play vs COM there but it feels pretty weird and floaty 'cause there's like nothing on which to get your bearings. |
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Rough comparison of input lag in three ports of Vampire Savior on my set-up, which includes a Hori HRAP V 2017 arcade stick, a 4x2 component matrix switcher, an OSSC, Brook Super Converter adapters, and a 5ms display lag monitor. On a computer, if you're playing this video at 60 fps, you can pause playback, then advance one frame at a time by pressing the "." key, and count along with me the frames that go by between the arcade stick's light punch button being fully pressed down, and Morrigan beginning to play her light punch animation--just make sure the video playback quality is at a 60 fps setting in your YouTube player. I counted the following delay frames for the games:
Darkstalkers 3 (PS1): 3 frames of delay
Vampire: Darkstalkers Collection (PS2): 5 frames of delay
Darkstalkers Resurrection (PS3): 4 frames of delay
I was surprised that the PS1 port beat Iron Galaxy's PS3 port--their famous earlier PS3 port being the ~2 frame delay (2.5 on my setup/test) 3rd Strike. I shouldn't have been that surprised though, I suppose--the lowest lag version of SFII I have is on PS1, after all!
This is a totally unscientific test and only really relevant to the performance of other games tested on my current set-up! Will the version in Capcom Fighting Collection on PS4 beat the PS1 port??
After trying the blank black background of Training mode vs COM a bit more, you get used to the unmoored feeling pretty quick, and then it just feels super-responsive. Also, there's an option to toggle off the HUD ("cockpit") entirely! Pretty neat, then it's just you and the opponent.
Until some other version beats it in speed, I think this PS1 one will be my version to play. I like the sharp, pre-calculated 240p, it really looks nice--and I still can't say I've spotted where they made whatever frame cuts they must have had to make. Except of course, they cut the red screen KO flashes, so I can play Arcade mode--which I'm thinking I may be playing more than Training, but we'll see. |
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Playing Morrigan in Arcade mode at 5/8 difficulty (default = 2/8), in her Medium-Kick-selected bright green hair! Also messing around with the EX Options Menu, Training Mode options, and Original Character mode, starring Monty, aka a super-powered-up, custom colored Victor!
Stuff I was forgetting!
- EX Option Mode menu has VS COM for VERSUS mode!
- In addition to the EX menu, there's a DX menu I haven't unlocked yet--have to get to level 5(?) in Original Character mode? DX menu lets you turn on canceling into special moves, and double jumps. : P And has a music player.
- VS2 and VH2 have a different palette for stages, which is cool; but endings get genericized, and you have to fight Pyron ; PPP; they brought Pyron, Donovan, and Huitzil back from the 2nd game--but dropped other characters to make room; and DS3 already HAS all the characters available!
- A FAQ mentions that the two Dark Forces options already available in Darkstalkers 3 are most of the system difference between Vampire Savior and Vampire Savior 2 anyway
- So yeah I'll just leave SYSTEM on Savior : P
- The art gallery Collection pages 2-4 were indeed unlocked by gaining levels in Original Character mode--page 4 required level 4
- Actually now I remember I'd stopped OC mode because it got too easy and I didn't care about the stuff in the DX menu. : P So eh yeah I'll just stick to Savior arcade mode!!
- With Victor, it's holding a button that electrifies his normal attacks |
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| | | Also forgot:
- Morrigan has air fireballs!! |
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| | | Felicia 5/8 difficulty, MP colors:
Fun Felicia! I'm not too sure about her uppercut+Punch ball-toss dash-in thing, but her uppercut+Kick had a really high hit rate, AAs really well, and covers a big chunk of the screen! I like how her mini-Felicia tracks to the foe in her half-circle-forward+2-Kicks EX (super).
Took me a while to figure out that I WAS doing her hcf+2P EX, since it looks mostly like her qcf+P move--but doesn't let me inadvertently double-tap out with a premature uppercut like her special and ES (two-button) versions do. I'm so bad with the double-tap habit!!
Oh, a Pursuit move is just the name for an attack on a downed opponent. Everyone has an u+P/K Pursuit move; Felicia has an extra dd one (Bishamon has an extra one too, apparently).
I probably abused her hcf+2P too much, but it's so good! I love how it goes right under Bishie's spirit balls. ; ) It did roll right into Jedah's super death pool though! = o
Gotta remember to save after a play-through to keep my previous high score. ; )
There's a weird little black rodent that comes outta the ground in one of her win poses (11:38) and then jumps on her head! (Also happened at the end of the previous two fights, too!)
And there's a bright butterfly who flies past in her win pose after beating Jedah (21:46; this also happened at the end of the very first fight, vs B.B.Hood, @ 5:17!), and Felicia tries to grab it and misses, and becomes dejected (like she did when the rodent jumped on her head!); but then after beating Lilith, she catches the butterfly and is happy as she holds it (24:16).
And after the fight vs Hsien-Ko, right before the boss Jedah, she turned into a cat (17:49)!
So the win poses went:
- missed butterfly
- rodent on head
- rodent on head
- rodent on head
- cat transformation
- missed butterfly
- caught butterfly |
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According to the wiki move list I used, Rikuo has a level 3 EX move (super) that only works for his LP and MP colors?!? I should have tried it anyway I suppose. : P But his tidal wave qcf+2P super worked well enough--then again I didn't really need even that as I could just air down+HK to glide into people, then low punch combo them; that only backfired a bit against Morrigan, who was good at command throwing me, and once against boss Jedah, who got me with his sorta command throw suck-you-down-into-the-ground super. 'p'
He was really strong but somehow I don't find him all that fun to play. |
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L.Rapter's got a Union Jack on his leg, which I took to mean he's British; actually, according to wikis, he's Australian. They also say his actual name is "Lord Raptor"--or "Zabel Zarock" in Japan--and that "Lord Rapter" in "some USA and European games" was a result of the name being "misspelled." = p
Oh, and that his single-eyed companion creature with the outie belly button is named "Le Malta."
I didn't really jibe with his special moves, which are all over the place: a teleport, command throws, half-circles, charge moves, uppercut inputs, a helicoptering tatsu, you name it. But his normals are fast, often with very good range, so who needs specials?
Except that I found I kind of lived for his uppercut+2P ES "Hell Dunk" move where Le Malta appears under the opponent as a huge mouth, swallows them, spits them back to Rapter, and turns into a basketball net, with Zarock dunking the opponent through their mouth. ^ _^ Looks awesome--and takes off like 30% health!
But it's hard to land on fast or flying opponents, blah. And Demitri, in the fight just before the boss (couldn't land it at all on the flying Jedah), would just do an unerring little hop to avoid getting swallowed, unless you caught him EXACTLY as he was throwing a fireball. Sheesh! ; P |
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Japanese TV ads for the PS1 version of Vampire: The Night Warriors. This video dates the ads to April 1995, but the PS1 version didn't actually come out until late March 1996 due to developer Psygnosis struggling to complete the port, at least to Capcom's satisfaction; in the end, Night Warriors released a month AFTER the sequel, Vampire Hunter, was already out on Saturn--and the belated PS1 Night Warriors still suffered from hefty bouts of slowdown during gameplay. The experience caused Capcom to skip releasing Hunter on PS1, and to handle the PS1 port of the next game, Vampire Savior, themselves, titling it Vampire Savior EX Edition (re-titled Darkstalkers 3 in the States) and packing it with numerous bonus features. |
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Okay well it's bad enough that I can't resist using his Midnight Bliss super embrace (qcfx1.5+2P, takes a super stock) to gender swap all my opponents temporarily, whether they're into such a thing or not, but then Demitri's actual ending story thing is SUPER GROSS and he really is a horrible person, urgh. |
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That zombie-ant fungus I kept trying to babble about is Ophiocordyceps unilateralis.
A really messy play-through; I was obsessed with executing Q-Bee's horrific fancy moves: her hcf+2P ES dashing grab (this is not a command throw; I had it confused with hcb+P, an input I never even thought to try) which mummifies the opponent and hatches Q-Bee out of their calcified skull = oo, and hcf+2K--mostly in-air--which spawns a hive that coats the opponent in angry, stinging bees.
And her win quotes mostly revolve around eating her foe, like "Which part of you do you want me to eat first?" o.o (6:22) In one win pose, she busts out a giant knife and fork! = ooo (6:11)
Couldn't seem to do much with her uppercut+2P super, which creates a huge bouncing honey ball; once, it burst on the opponent, doing some damage, and momentarily trapped them in honey--but they got out before I reached them. When I tried it repeatedly vs Lilith, it just seemed to knock her down. : P
Her qcb+K is probably a bit TOO effective against the AI. Her air HK--hitting with her long stinger--has great range.
She seems like a strong character; she is kind of scary though. : oo |
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Getting turned into the wiener dog by Anakaris' zombie breath was definitely the best thing that happened in this play-through.
Talbain's moves seem lacking in damage. Maybe you can juggle people a bit with his "Beast Cannon" in which he jerks around the screen in a series of straight bright flashes while screaming the same identical howl with each jerk, but I dunno because I hate that move.
His specials are generic martial arts moves. They could'a given him cool tooth and claw moves, or wild morphing lycanthropic hulking out moves, but no, lets give him nunchucks in one move and just like kicks or something.
In one super, he flaps his hands toward the opponent while a dragon-headed fireball shoots out. Oh-kay. At least it does some damage. In the other super, which requires a series of five inputs--normally I don't bother trying those but I got desperate for anything that would keep up with Felicia's damage output--he does one, very short range, single little claw swipe, for meager damage; apparently this is because it's unblockable. Bleh. Also the FAQs say it plays an animation of cutting the opponent in half, if it somehow manages to KO them--but that isn't too likely considering the low damage. ; PPP
His lame ending in which he emos out while ditching two young kids in the woods spells his name with an "h," "John," instead of "Jon" as I usually see it on the internet--not sure where the "Jon" spelling comes from. Even the wiki alternates between them.
The wiki move list I was trying to use showed that second, "Moment Slice" super as LP+MP,f,LK+MK, whereas I found it was actually LP,MP,f,LK,MK--and that five successive input pattern is what they generally follow so I'm not sure how the plusses even got in there--so I made an account and corrected it. : P fandom.com's email confirmation seems to be busted though, sheesh. |
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Anakaris' specials were either too slow or too hard to do so I ended up pretty much just jab jab heavy spamming, and then heavy jumping kicks vs the boss. : P Had trouble vs Rikuo and Demitri but I guess that's nothing new really. But he's so slow and the attack spamming gets tiring so I think I'll mostly stick to playing him in MvC2 where he's easier to use and has teammates to run cover for him!
His win screens are really good though and his ending is pretty weird. = o |
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Went through the whole Arcade mode not suspecting Sasquatch's big wind-up punch and kick are dp motions. : P Guess I didn't need 'em though, what with his power dunk jHP--jHK ain't bad either. I'm not sure his hcf2P super (EX) Big Freeze or Blast or whatever does good damage all the time--sometimes it doesn't seem to?--but sometimes it does, I dunno. It's slow to come out though, I'll have to try his dpHK ES move particularly.
Anyway he's real strong! This is my first 1cc of 5/8 difficulty with any character! |
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B.B.Hood's a charge character (missiles) which is NOT my forte; it's slow execution and she really struggled against tall, fast characters--like the last three! ARGH. In earlier fights I could hang back, missiling and using her Hunter super when available...only I found after a while that stopped working because in this game it doesn't hit LOW at all (it does in MvC2 ;_;), and Lilith for instance didn't jump up into it all the time like Morrigan had. And it stopped working completely against Demitri, who teleported around everything and blew through my non-EX missiles with his bat fireballs. So let's see, notes to self, against the last three I ended up having to use:
Demitri 48:09 = jHK, cLP-HP, EX missiles
Jedah 56:45 = jHP, cLP-HP
L.Rapter 1:07:35 = back to missiles & supers
I kind of love her ending. |
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Made as the sub-boss for the first Darkstalkers game, Huitzil's basically a walking gun platform; it's fun to blow away the rest of the cast for a bit, but it does start to get a little old. ; D |
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Lilith's light jab in Darkstalkers 3 for PS1 (see entry 829) on a PS2, in the PS1 Classics version on PS3 (see entry 1453), and with a rip of the PS1 disc under each of PS1 emulator duckstation's (see entry 1743) five renderers on a Windows 11 PC.
My ~4 year old mid-range gaming laptop: a "Sager NP6858CQ 15.6-Inch Thin Bezel FHD 144Hz Gaming Laptop, Intel i7-10750H, GTX 1660Ti 6GB, 16GB RAM, 1TB NVMe SSD" (see entry 1744) https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B089KW3Y1R bought in summer 2020, outputting to a 60 Hz 1080p Asus 5ms monitor. Component output via OSSC for the consoles. Hori Real Arcade Pro V 2017 PS3/PS4 arcade stick--through a Brook Super Converter on the PS2.
1:20 - PS2 2 frames
5:44 - Classics PS3 4 frames
9:16 - Duck D3D11 4 frames
10:35 - Duck D3D12 4 frames
11:49 - Duck Vulkan 3 frames
12:54 - Duck OpenGL 2 frames
14:26 - Duck Software 3 frames
I ran duckstation with Vsync off (default), and 9x (4k) Internal Resolution Scale--except for the Software renderer, which doesn't upscale. duckstation's Graphics menu says the Software renderer is the slowest, but the D3D ones were slower for me. You'll notice where allowed I'd set the Adapter to my laptop's NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti, so it wouldn't be using the integrated Intel UHD Graphics chip--ASSUMING the GeForce would be the faster option. But OpenGL and Software only allow the "Default" setting for Adapter; so to be sure I went back and tried Vulkan on "Default"--but it stayed the same (3 frames). So I don't think having Adapter set to the GTX slowed down the D3D or Vulkan response times.
Darkstalkers 3 is just as responsive in duckstation's OpenGL renderer as it is on an actual PS2! This rules! No more bothering with my PS1 physical discs, I'll just rip any I want to play and run them in duckstation! And I'd bought the Kitchen Panic PS1 Classic off the PS3 JP store even though I own the disc, because I didn't want to be bothered getting my JP PS2 out--but turns out that was a waste, 'cause now I can just rip the disc and play it in duckstation woooo. : D
If only PCSX2 would run PS2 games w/o adding input delay... Well, I'm gonna do a specific test w/ it on VF4E...but I'm pretty sure it'll still be adding a frame or two. : P Oh hang on. PCSX2 has all those renderers too--and in the little test I did with it once, I left it on Default--so probably D3D11. There's still the others to try!! = ooo
I used ImgBurn https://www.imgburn.com/ (see entry 1741) for ripping the Darkstalkers 3 PS1 disc, and CHDMAN https://wiki.recalbox.com/en/tutorials/utilities/rom-conversion/chdman (see entry 1742) (that's with handy automated scripts; CHDMAN's basic form comes with MAME--see entry 1541) for compressing the rip (duckstation (see entry 1743), PCSX2 (see entry 1665), and Flycast (see entry 1615) can all load games as .chd files, which tend to be about half the size of uncompressed ripped .iso, .bin, or .gdi files).
Hilarious ripping anecdote! Yesterday was my first attempt at ripping PS1/2 games. Dug out my old lappy--my new one doesn't have a DVD drive. Test-ripped two Taito Memories JP PS2 games successfully, and thought woo got this down--although I did notice the drive was a fussy about recognizing the discs at first. Later in the day I tried Darkstalkers 3 (PS1)--and only got the drive to show the disc contents once, for about five seconds; then it just whirred and blipped and I could barely get it to eject the darn thing. Same with every game & dvd I tried after that.
That drive had always felt a bit fragile--only laptop optical drive I've used though so I don't know--so I thought maybe it's had it, even though I never used it much before. Spent a stupid amount of time ordering an external DVD drive from Amazon (jeez they're only $20-$34.99! = o (Just below Amazon's new free shipping price hmm) I thought they'd be ~$120). Then thought wait maybe the lens got dirty somehow; got the lappy back out, ejected the drive, blew on it with my slobbery breath--worked perfectly. Canceled the order, wey-hey!
Vulkan is the successor to OpenGL, developed by the same tech industry consortium behind OpenGL (originally developed by SGI). |
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