The first in the series, fully titled Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors also known as Vampire: The Night Warriors in Japan, features ten playable characters and two non-playable boss characters. It was originally released in Arcades in 1994 and made its way into several ports.
Story
The vampire lord, Demitri Maximoff, sets up a tournament to see who is the strongest of the Darkstalkers and who shall truly be the ruler of the night.
Gameplay
The game features the same gameplay system Capcom developed for the Street Fighter II series, but with several new gameplay features such as Air Blocking, Crouch Walking 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 their super moves for later use.
Releases
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.
Home consoles
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" by Eikichi Yazawa. The same theme music 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.
Vampire: The Night Warriors was later re-released on the Playstation 2 along with its sequels in 2005 as Vampire: Darkstalkers Collection. In the US, the original Playstation version of the game was made available on the Playstation Network on November 28th, 2011.
In 2022, Capcom Fighting Collection was released worldwide, and featured the arcade version of Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors within the compilation's library. The aforementioned compilation also comes with an option to play the game's Japanese counterpart, Vampire: The Night Warriors.
Characters
The character select screen.
Playable characters
- Anakaris
- Bishamon
- Demitri Maximoff
- Felicia
- Jon Talbain (Gallon in Japan)
- Lord Raptor (Zabel Zarock in Japan)
- Morrigan Aensland
- Rikuo (Aulbath in Japan)
- Sasquatch
- Victor von Gerdenheim
Non-playable characters
- Huitzil (Phobos in Japan, playable in Vampire: Darkstalkers Collection)
- Pyron (Playable in Vampire: Darkstalkers Collection)
Trivia
- Huitzil and Pyron have endings present in the original arcade versions of Darkstalkers but no text are present. These endings are the same as their Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge endings.
- The sequel planned for this game, Night Warriors: Darkstalkers Revenge or Vampire Hunter, was originally meant to be a continuation of the story from the first game but ended up being a continuity reboot or retelling of it instead with slight new changes. Making this game no longer canon making the official start of the storyline the second game.
Gallery
Boxart
Character artwork
 Anakaris  Anakaris  Bishamon  Bishamon and Tarou  Demitri Maximoff  Demitri Maximoff  Felicia  Felicia  Huitzil (Phobos)  Huitzil (Phobos)  Jon Talbain (Gallon in Japan)  Jon Talbain (Gallon in Japan)  Lord Raptor (Zabel Zarock in Japan)  Lord Raptor (Zabel Zarock in Japan)  Morrigan Aensland  Morrigan Aensland  Morrigan Aensland  Pyron  Pyron  Rikuo (Aulbath in Japan)  Rikuo (Aulbath in Japan)  Sasquatch  Sasquatch  Victor von Gerdenheim  Victor von Gerdenheim |
Other artwork
Videos
See also
External links
| Darkstalkers series | |
| Darkstalkers series • Appearances in other games • List of Cameos in other games • Makai | |
| Original titles | |
| Darkstalkers | Main • Moves • Victory Quotes • Images/Videos |
| Night Warriors | Main • Moves • Victory Quotes • Images/Videos |
| Darkstalkers 3 | Main • Moves: A-J / K-Z • Victory Quotes • Images/Videos • Cheats and Secrets • Secret File |
| Updated titles | |
| Vampire Hunter 2 • Vampire Savior 2 | |
| Other/Compliations | |
| Vampire Chronicle for Matching Service • Vampire: Darkstalkers Collection Darkstalkers Chronicle: The Chaos Tower • Darkstalkers Resurrection • Capcom Fighting Collection • Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium | |
| Darkstalkers Resurrection | Main • Cheats and Secrets • Screen Shots • Videos • Trophies/Achievements |
| Miscellaneous titles | |
| Vampire pachislo • Capcom Action Card Game • Line Drop Spirit Catcher | |