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A collection of the classic
fighting series for the Sega Genesis and PS One, DarkStalker
Chronicle: The Chaos tower for the PSP is a collection of
games from the DarkStalker series, which include DarkStalkers,
Night Warriors, And DarkStalkers 3. Even though the game
is not well known by the gaming community, it has a cast
of unique characters that all sound like they came out of
Transylvannia. A vampire, werewolf, a gun-toting Red Riding
Hood and even a zombie or two are thrown in this compilation
of the DarkStalkers series. So let’s get down to the
controls.
The controls for the game are
easy to get into, but hard to master. The combos are bit
tricky to do with the buttons being too close to each other,
and the directional pad, it being so close to each other,
doesn’t allow you to pull off super attacks without
having to button mash your PSP to death, which isn’t
a good look. The characters all have unique ways of attacking,
such as Jedah’s spinning razors of death, Huitzil’s
robot laser beams and Donovan’s ability to summon
different spirits to attack. You can even customize your
controls for all of you veterans out there. So all in all,
the controls are somewhat difficult to get used to, but
it’s not going to kill your experience.
The game contains several modes
within the game. Along with the usual modes of Arcade and
Training, the mode that shows the most promise is the Tower
mode. Tower Mode Allows you to pick 3 combatants to fight
your way up the tower, with some of the rounds not allowing
you to use punches or kicks, and each room rewards the player
with unlockable illustrations and movies, so there loads
of replay potential for this game. And Tower Mode doesn’t
skimp on the difficulty; for there were even times that
I wanted to throw my PSP out the window due to the sheer
difficulty of the some of the characters you fight in Tower
Mode. There also Network play for those who want to fight
against other via wireless connection.
The visuals are old-school
2D graphics. They are crisp and clear and well animated,
while the style is quite dated due to the fact that these
games are sheer ports of the Sega Genesis and PS One versions.
The vocal work for all the characters are in Japanese, and
some of the female voices are high pitched, so be prepared
for some annoying Japanese screams. Also, some of the translations
of what the characters say when they win are quite unusual.
For example, a character in the game, Lilith says after
winning “Look, it’s wilting! Ha ha ha!”
Someone must have been on something when making these translations,
for they could at least fixed the translations to make sense.
Overall, the game is a great
launch title for the PSP. Even though Capcom has much more
popular fighting video games in it’s roster, like
Marvel VS
Capcom, Street fighter, and
others, it’s still a good throwback to old school
fighting. The game also has some issues with the load times,
which can take 10-12 seconds to load a fight, but this only
happens when you are in your first match. This is a definite
buy if you need something to tide you over while you wait
for the fighting game that’s going to define fighting
games on the PSP, like Tekken or Virtual Fighter. Until
then, DarkStalkers Chronicle: The Chaos Tower will be a
great game to get you fighting game fix.
I give this game a 4.5 out
of 5.
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