Darkstalkers 3

"Great 2-D Fighter"

One thing you'll notice right away about the game is its cast of characters. They're all monsters of some type. On character is Demetri the vampire, another character is Rikuo the merman, Talbain the werewolf and more. Another thing you'll notice about the game is the graphics. They're are amazing and very detailed. The characters are detail greatly from either their muscle to even their hair.

Gameplay 7/10
Fighting games should have a large cast of characters to choose from and that Darkstalker 3 has.There are about 25 characters you can choose from. They look cool too. The control are very responsive making combos easier to pull off. The only downside is that you can do more then 10 hit combos. You can't even do air combos. What's up with that. Oh well, maybe I'll just play MvC2 if I want to do combos. Well Darkstalker still is a fun game. What this game is best at are secrets. There are secret characters to unlock, picture to unlock, and even extra menu you can unlock. Unlocking them will probably take about a month. Unlocking the secrets are half the fun of Darkstalker. If you ever get bored with arcade mode there will always be original character mode to play. In OC mode you can choose a character and change them. You can name them, change there colr, and fight with them. You also gain experience points which will raise your power, life, or SS gauge(special move gauge). It adds a bit of RPG element into the game.

Graphics 9/10
As I have said before, this game has amazing graphics. The stage has nice backgrounds. There are certain things that moves making each stage look more lively.

Music 8/10
The music is great. I think each character has their own track. The SFX is good too. I don't think the sound matters much in fighting game but it is a disapointment that there are no character voice.

Challenge 6/10
The game is easy to beat even on the toughest difficulty. You only have to beat 6 characters to beat the game and each character can be beat under 25 seconds. NOT GOOD

Replay 8/10 The replay in this game depends on the secrets. You will spend a lot of time unlocking them. Then you will spend more time playing the game using the secrets. The only bad thing is that you can beat arcade mode in about 10 minutes for each character.

Overall 8/10
This game is fun to play for awhile. I say it will last you 3 months maximum. You might want to rent this game to be sure, but anyone who likes fighting games should go ahead and buy the game.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 10/12/01, Updated 10/12/01