Oh dear, I do believe I have the vapors. This page contains content that is not safe for work or other locations with the potential for personal embarrassment. Such as: Succubus sideboob.

Darkstalkers was Capcom's next fighting game venture after the success of Street Fighter II. Featuring a Hollywood monster theme, eye-popping animation, and gameplay mechanics that would eventually become genre standards, it can be considered a milestone in the history of Capcom fighters.

To do: Ground explosion sprite and associated Might Launcher behavior Huitzil j.LK/MK mace transformation in-between frame Split Debug Menu stuff into subpage and consolidate with Night Warriors

Bosses

The characters Huitzil and Pyron are unplayable bosses in this first iteration of the series. However, there is ample evidence that they were intended to be playable at some point in the game's development.

By setting character select addresses FF8729 (for player 1) or FF8B29 (for player 2) to either 0B (for Huitzil) or 0C (for Pyron), both characters can be selected. The game will freeze when attempting to load the map demo prior to the Pyron boss fight if the player has Pyron selected, but aside from this they are nearly perfectly playable, with all moves able to be performed (albeit some with different commands than would be used in later games in the series).

Player 2 Colors

Both characters also have functional alternate color schemes for same-character matches, despite this being impossible in the game proper. Huitzil's alternate color scheme accidentally loads the palette for his lower body while jumping and one of his effect palettes into each other's slots, causing a rather strange look.

P2 Huitzil	P2 Huitzil - Fixed

When he became legitimately playable in the PlayStation 2 Darkstalkers Collecton, this palette issue was fixed.

Endings

Upon completing the Pyron boss fight, both characters even have endings that will play, the same ones that would be seen in the sequel Night Warriors where they became playable characters. These endings lack music, and although the Japanese release has the proper text, the international releases simply display garbage strings of "AAAAAAAAAA".

Pyron Graphics

Pyron has an unused graphic for appearing in the group shot of the game's intro. Interestingly, Huitzil is actually present in this shot. It's likely that he wasn't removed because he and Victor are actually drawn into the backdrop rather than being sprites as the rest of the characters in the shot are. Thus removing him would require actually redrawing the backdrop.



He also has unused 'defeat' graphics, as would be seen after a stage. As mentioned, he is not playable, and the game goes directly to the ending sequence after he is beaten.

Debug Menu

To do: Further investigate and document these menus and their controls

A developer menu primarily involved with character animation data can be accessed by setting RAM address FF8000 to 12BF while at the normal test menu. Submenus can be selected with the Player 1 joystick and entered by pressing Player 1 Start. Pressing Player 1 start within a submenu will return to this menu.

Note: The character often starts offscreen and the controls for positioning them are seemingly buggy. To place them in the center of the grid, set RAM addresses FF8398 and FF839C to 0110 and 0148 respectively.

Move Chara

A simple character animation viewer.

Controls

P1 Joystick: Move character (buggy).
P1 Light Punch: Hold down to play back current animation sequence in real time.
P1 Medium Punch: Advance to the next frame of animation within the current sequence.
P1 Hard Punch: Reset current animation sequence to its beginning.
P1 Light Kick + P1 Joystick Left/Right: Increment animation sequence.
P1 Light Kick + P1 Joystick Up/Down: Increment character.
P1 Medium Kick: Toggle character sprite flip flags.

Displays

NAME: Character number and placeholder name.
KIND: Animation sequence number and label.
No.: Animation frame number out of total number of frames in sequence.
COUNT: Game time in frames (1/60 second) to display this animation frame.
POS-X, POS-Y: Position of character on the screen.
REL-X, REL-Y: Relative position of Player 2 character to Player 1 character.
H-FLIP, V-FLIP: Sprite flip flags.
CHAR TP: Behavior flags.
PRIO NO: Sprite drawing priority.
KAGE NO: ID of shadow sprite.
ST: Miscellaneous flags; A = Attack, S = Crouching, G = Blocking, D = Hitstun, B = Falling/Knocked down, d = Dash, T = Throw attempt

Nage Hosei

Checks sprite selection and positioning for characters grabbed by throw attacks. Controls are as follows:
P1 Joystick Left/Right: Increment animation sequence.
P1 Joystick Up/Down: Increment attacker character.
P1 Light Punch: Hold down to play back current animation sequence in real time.
P1 Medium Punch: Advance to the next frame of animation within the current sequence.
P1 Hard Punch: Reset current animation sequence to its beginning.
P2 Joystick: Move victim (buggy).
P2 Hard Punch: Toggle victim sprite flip flags.

Atari Edit

Presumably for viewing and editing hitboxes, but the game crashes and resets upon attempting to enter it.

Okuri Jikan

An animation timing editor. Largely the same as the Move Chara menu, but with the ability to change the amount of time each particular frame of animation is displayed on screen via the P2 joystick. However this actually has no effect, as the default timing values are always read straight from the ROM.

Serifu Disp

The name indicates that at one point this might have pointed to a menu for checking winquotes and other such pieces of text, but it actually currently points to an advanced sound test.

Iro Kaeru

Changes the color of the backdrop grid. Controls are as follows:
P1 Light Punch/Medium Punch: Increment base color
P1 Hard Punch: Toggle grid lines.
P1 Light Kick/Medium Kick: Increment brightness.
P1 Hard Kick: Reset color to default.

Unused Moves

Huitzil Standing Light Kick

Despite the CPU never using it, a fully-functional standing light kick exists for Huitzil that can be performed while playing as him. It has a unique animation that would never resurface in any of the following games, although its slow startup and short range don't make it very useful. It can't be cancelled into specials, nor does it have rapid-fire capability.

Huitzil EX Beam

When playing as Huitzil, it's possible to perform an unfinished EX move by pressing Down, Down-Forward, Forward, then all 3 punch buttons simultaneously. In addition to having misaligned effects and incorrect colors, this move's incapable of actually hitting the opponent. The animation freezes after the beam is fired, meaning that Huitzil will become frozen in place, uncontrollable, until he is hit by the opponent.


Some further graphics exist for this move, including an electricity effect and a Huitzil sprite with lighting similar to that seen in his Plasma Beam special.


Had the move been successfully realized, it might have looked something like this.

P3-P8 Labels

Labels for up to 8 players exist within the graphic data. This is highly reminiscent of the Tournament Battle variant of Super Street Fighter II, a special version that networked 4 cabinets together to allow for 8 player elimination tournaments. It's likely that a similar mode was planned for Darkstalkers but never realized.

Unused General Effect Graphics

Misc. Sparks

Three unused effect sprites that seem to have no associated animation data.

Star Sparks

A pair of starburst-shaped hitsparks, in small and large varieties.

Cone Spark

A conical hitspark that expands outwards.

Blood Pool

A pool of blood spreading out on the ground. Maybe it was intended for opponents who had been chopped in half on K.O.?

Water Effects

Rikuo's stage places the fighters in a shallow rainforest stream and accordingly replaces the characters' standard ground shadow sprites with special water effect sprites. In the finished game, only two types are used: a ripple effect for characters on the ground and a wavy shadow for characters in the air. However, several other unused effects exist:


Small splashes, possibly for characters' footsteps.


Large splashes, possibly for when a character lands from a jump or is knocked down.


A dissipating ripple and upward spray, possibly for when a character jumps or otherwise leaves the ground.

Ground Effects

Two types of ground spark effects, each with 3 different sizes. Possibly intended for characters landing from jumps and hitting the ground after being knocked down. The 3 sizes might correspond to the 3 weight classes the characters are divided into.

Dust Clouds

A set of dust clouds in 3 different sizes, similar to those used when characters are sliding back from a hit in many other Capcom fighters. Again it's possible that the 3 sizes were to correspond to the 3 character weight classes.

Dust Trail

A dust trail animation exists unused, similar to but smaller and less elaborate than two other dust trail animations actually used in the finished game.

Orb

A strange flashing, undulating orb.

Unused Character Graphics

Demitri Chaos Flare Effects

The effect sprites used around Demitri's hands when he fires a Chaos Flare disappear early, leaving these two spark-like frames unused.


This is what it might have looked like if the effect animation was used in full.


Interestingly, the original animatic for the move seems to show a similar effect. The effect would eventually be used in full in a slightly edited form in Capcom Fighting Evolution.

Pyron Projectile

Pyron's spriteset contains a pair of spiraling projectiles, one horizontal, one diagonal, complete with impact animations. Their intended purpose is unknown.

Pyron Unused Normal Attacks

Two normal attack animations for Pyron seem almost finished and ready to use, but go unused for reasons unknown. They are what would come to be used for his standing Forward + Medium Punch and Jumping Hard Punch in subsequent games. In this game his Forward + Medium Punch uses the same animation as his Forward + Light Punch, and his Jumping Hard Punch uses the same animation as his Jumping Medium Punch.

Orbiter Blaze Dissipation Effect

Many of Pyron's attacks spawn graphics separate from his primary character sprite as he returns to his idle state, allowing the various flares and blasts he manifests to have a few extra frames of animated dissipation. One such graphic intended for his Orbiter Blaze special exists unused. It possibly went unused because this special stays actively spinning indefinitely until Pyron reaches the ground.

Huitzil Music Notes

A set of stylized music symbols exists in Huitzil's spriteset. The graphics are located near those for his one-man band winpose (in which he produces several musical instruments and begins to play them in unison), so they were likely intended to be used with it.

Huitzil Spotlight

Also stored near said one man band winpose is a spotlight or floor light-like effect that presumably would have materialized under his feet during the winpose.

Huitzil Catapult

This small object with 3 frames of animation exists among Huitzil's parts. No fully-assembled frame uses it. A developer interview in All About Vampire mentions a scrapped move involving a catapult on Huitzil's back, which seems to fit this object's appearance and range of motion.

Huitzil Separated Parts

In this game, Huitzil is sprited in such a way that he is made of many separate body parts that are layered together to create a whole sprite. However, a separate sprite index containing each of these separate parts as individual sprites exists, likely for developer reference purposes. Included within these are rough draft versions of a few of the weapons used in his attacks:

Huitzil Close Standing Medium Kick Legs

These particular leg parts intended for Huitzil's close standing medium kick go unused.

Huitzil Crouching Light Punch Drill

Additional frames for the fully-extended pose of Huitzil's crouching light punch exist that allow the drill to spin.

Huitzil Jumping Medium Punch Spikes

A couple frames of Hutzil's jumping medium punch are missing a spike on the ball his arm has transformed into. However, his raw tileset and index of separated parts contain a couple unused spike sprites that seem to fill those gaps.

Huitzil J. MP	Huitzil J. MP - Fixed

Huitzil Close Standing Hard Punch Arm

An alternate arm part intended for a frame of Huitzil's close standing hard punch exists unused. It makes the transformation of the arm a bit smoother.

Huitzil CS. HP	Huitzil CS. HP - Alternate

Huitzil Standing Hard Kick

The weapon part used in Huitzil's standing hard kick is a rough mockup. A finished version can be made by combining other parts.

Huitzil S. HK	Huitzil S. HK - Fixed

Huitzil Recovery Landing

A special animation intended for Huitzil landing after being hit in midair exists unused. Although his midair recovery animation actually does show his quadruped legs deploying, upon landing he plays the same animation he uses for landing from a jump.

Huitzil Slice Recovery

This unused two-frame sequence was intended for Huitzil recovering from a standing sliced-in-half animation.


Here's how it would have looked in context.

Huitzil Intro

Despite seemingly being complete, Huitzil's intro animation goes unused, making him the only character in the game to lack one. It would eventually get used in the sequel.

Huitzil Smoke

Sprites for two small bursts of smoke, one diagonal and one horizontal, exist unused in Huitzil's sprite set. The horizontal one would see use in a slightly modified form in the sequel.

Huitzil FX Palette Oddities

Huitzil loads a turquoise and steel blue palette seemingly intended for his personal effect sprites into memory when active, but most of the sprites this palette was seemingly intended for don't end up using it.

In-Game	With FX Palette

The electricity effects in his throw animations use his main body's palette, rendering them grey with a few stray red pixels. Assigning this FX palette gives them the more fitting steel blue with no stray colors.

In-Game	With FX Palette

The beam from his Plasma Beam special flashes rapidly between the yellow global effect palette and the palette used for Huitzil's lower body when jumping, the latter of which does not seem to fit the sprite at all. However the turquoise section of this personal effect palette seems to fit perfectly.

Huitzil Plasma Beam Unused Frames

Several frames of animation of the charge up and muzzle flash effect for Huitzil's Plasma Beam are omitted in-game, likely for timing reasons.

In-Game	With All Frames

Demitri Bite Grab

Demitri has unused sprites and animation data for what would seem to be a second normal throw, similar to the one he would later become able to use in the third game in the series.

Demitri Bat

This bat animation exists unused in Demitri's spriteset. Judging from the angle and the similarity to the bat sprites used in his intro, this might have been intended for a home stage CPU character intro (as some other characters in the game display) which would have involved the bat flying from the background.

Rikuo Alternate Back Dash

Rikuo has an unused back dash animation that has similar features to his forward dash (arms becoming long fins, legs liquefying). In the finished game, his back dash is a repeating backflip.

ES Sonic Wave

A version of Rikuo's Sonic Wave projectile that expands to a larger size than the regular one exists unused. This was presumably intended for an unrealized ES version of the move. Once he became able to use an ES version in the sequel, its normal size was reduced and the ES version's size became equal to this game's normal size. Thus this large variant remained unused.

Morrigan Intro Graphic

Morrigan's graphic in the intro sequence extends a bit beyond the bottom of the visible screen, revealing that she is in fact not wearing anything.

Name Labels

Franken/Frankenstein

A pair of unused name labels, one for under the lifebar during play and the other for the character select and VS screens exits. The former reads "Franken", the latter "Frankenstein". These are likely abandoned names for Victor, the Frankenstein's monster-based character.

"Demitori"

Demitri's lifebar name graphic is actually misspelled as "Demitori" (a direct romanization of the Japanese phonetics). Apparently there was no time to actually fix the graphic, as the finished game employs a slapdash fix: the tiles are overlapped in such a way as to hide the "o". The misspelled name was shown as is in some pre-release promotional screenshots:


The graphic was given a proper fix in the sequel.

Unused Sounds

Horn

A honking horn in 2 different pitches, intended for Huitzil's one man band winpose. It wouldn't actually get used until Vampire Hunter 2, albeit at a higher pitch than either of these.

Mooing Cow

The sound of a cow mooing, intended for Bishamon's stage. According to a developer interview in Gamest, this ended up getting removed because it was annoying.

Guitar Sample

An instrument sample of a guitar exists, unused by any of the game's music.

Laser

A looping, laser-like sound effect. Although it has instrument data defined, no sound effect code seems to use it.

Regional Differences

Title

Japan	International

The game, as well as the series in general, is titled "Vampire" in Japan, and "Darkstalkers" everywhere else. The subtitle "The Night Warriors" applies to both versions of this first game, which often leads to confusion given that the international title of the sequel was also Night Warriors.

Character Names

Four characters have different names in Japan. According to developer interviews, the international names are actually the originals.

Japan	International

The kung fu werewolf is known as Gallon in Japan (a pun on a Japanese word meaning "hungry wolf"), Jon Talbain everywhere else.

Japan	International

The rocker zombie is called Zabel Zarock in Japan, and Lord Raptor everywhere else.

Japan	International

The curiously attractive fishman goes by Aulbath in Japan, Rikuo everywhere else.

Japan	International

And finally, the Mayan killer robot is called Phobos in Japan, and Huitzil everywhere else.

Japan	International

Furthermore, Raptor/Zabel's monster type varies between regions. He's classified as a Zombie in Japan, and a Ghoul internationally.

Winquotes

Japan	International

The Japanese version's winquote screen contains a decorative border graphic around the quote. The international version's quotes take up too much space to fit within this border, so it was removed.

Furthermore, the Japanese version contains a total of 18 winquotes for each character, as opposed to the international version's 4 per character.

Voices

In non-Japanese versions of the game, most Japanese voices were removed except for grunts and cannot be enabled by normal means, and there does not seem to be a way to reinstate the voices via the test menu.

Revision Differences

In the 940630 build, Rikuo's crouching hard punch cannot be blocked while crouching, which is extremely awkward given the attack's look and other properties. In subsequent builds it was made able to be blocked while either standing or crouching.