thumb|280px|right|Win QuotesThe first game in the Darkstalkers series, Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors features ten playable characters and two non-playable boss characters.
It has the same gameplay system Capcom developed for the Street Fighter II series, but with several new gameplay features such as Air Blocking, Crouch Walking, EX moves, and Chain Combos.
The game featured a Special meter similar to the Super Combo in Super Street Fighter II Turbo, which the player could fill up to perform a super-powered special attack. Unlike the Super Combo meter in Super Turbo, the Special meter in Darkstalkers gradually drains until the player performs their super move, preventing players from preserving them for later use. This game was ported to the Sony PlayStation. Character art and illustrations were done by Bengus.
Characters
- Demitri
- Jon Talbain
- Victor
- Lord Raptor
- Morrigan
- Anakaris
- Felicia
- Bishamon
- Rikuo
- Sasquatch
- Huitzil
- Pyron
Story
Demitri Maximoff decides to hold a tournament on planet Earth to see which of the Darkstalkers is worthy to rule the Demon World. Pyron, who believes he should rule the Darkstalkers, decides to enter the tournament.
Regional differences
The original arcade release saw several changes between regions. The original Japanese game, titled Vampire: The Night Warriors was changed outside of Japan to Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors. Several characters names were also changed; Aulbath, Gallon, Phobos, Zabel Zarock had their names changed to Rikuo, Jon Talbain, Huitzil and Lord Raptor respectively. The original Japanese version had several win quotes for each character as well as a border around the win quotes. Versions of the game outside of Japan only featured one win quote for each character and were left without borders
Ports
Arcade version of Vampire (left) compared to Darkstalkers (right)
Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors was ported to PlayStation in 1996, the same year Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge was released to the Sega Saturn. The Japanese version, Vampire: The Night Warriors, featured a new opening song "The Trouble Man" as well as a new ending song "The Rain," both by Eikichi Yazawa. The former was later used as the ending theme for the Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge OVA but doesn't appear in the English ports of the game. The game features an Arcade Mode, a 2P Versus mode and an Option mode. The only thing the PlayStation version lack is saving users files such as high score.
Vampire: The Night Warriors was later re-released on the Playstation 2 along with its sequels in 2005 as Vampire: Darkstalkers Collection.
Credits
Planning: Junichi Ohno, Gyo, Jun Koike
Program: Atsushi Ohuchi, Akiyoshi Eshiro, Toshihiko Tsuji, Morimichi Suzuki, Hiroshi Inaba
Object: Kurisan, Hiroshi Shibata, Keiko Kitayama, Mizuho Kageyama, Takashi Hayashi, Q, Toshikazu Matsumoto, Kimo Kimo, Who, Tohru Takaoka, Mizupyon
Scroll: Yuki Kyotani, Kaori Matsumoto, Hiroyuki Imahori, Akemi Isoe, Tamayo Takeo, Miyuki Hongoh, Saru
Sound Design: Toshio Kajino (1970.2.25) B, Tomoyuki "T.K,NY" Kawakami (1971.8.31) A
Music Compose: Anachey "Takapon" (1969.11.19) A, Hideki O.K (1970.3.28) A
Box Art
