Vampire Savior: The Lord of Vampire

"One weird fighting game"

I was hesitant on buying import games for the Sega Saturn, when they stopped making production. One, I can't read or understand Japanese. Two, I was concern on getting these 4MB expand RAM cartridges that are Sega products after hearing some negatives stories. Like the Gameshark inserts are larger than the Sega back up carts, causing problems on the slot. It didn't happened to me, but I do difficulties loading the Gameshark from to time, plus I had an 8 Meg cartridge which almost destroyed my Saturn. Finally, I don't know anyone I can trust in modifying my Saturn to play imports. I finally submit and bought an Action Replay Plus cartridge plus 2 import games. VAMPIRE SAVIOR, a fighting Capcom game, is one of them I got. I am very happy with my decision and so far, I have no problems. Yet.

VAMPIRE SAVIOR is a STREET FIGHTER-like game which is sequel to VAMPIRE and VAMPIRE HUNTER (DARKSTALKERS and NIGHT WARRIORS in the U.S.). There is a VAMPIRE SAVIOR in the arcade, subtitled either ''Jedah's Damnation'' or ''World of Darkness'', but it's missing characters, such as Donovan, Pryon and Phobos (Huitzil). This game, subtitled ''The Lord of Vampire'' has all the characters. Every fighter from NIGHT WARRIORS plus 4 new characters. First, there's Q-Bee, an insect girl, which the programmers got the idea of that character from an old Roger Corman movie, THE WASP WOMAN. Second, is Lilith, another Succubus, who is related to Morgan in a strange way. Then there's Bulleta, a basket carrying girl, looking like the Little Red Riding Hood who wields a AK-47 and a machete. In America, she is named Baby Bonnie Hood (HAH?!?). Finally, there's Jedah, the demon behind all this. He was resurrected, created battle stage dimensions and summoned all the Darkstalkers to collect their souls in the fight. Got this in the storyline, which is written in English in the manual, but it was used as a backdrop and covered mostly by instructions written in Japanese. It also said that Jedah is one of the ''3 lords of Darkrealm''. I don't know who are the other two are, but my guess be one from the Aensland clan (Morrigan) and one from the Maximov clan (Demitri), based on the idea I got from watching NIGHT WARRIORS, THE ANIMATED SERIES. Anyway, some of the Darkstalkers face Jedah as the end boss and must defeat him.

If you played NIGHT WARRIORS, you'll notice the familiar characters look and move the same in this game and that's a good thing. They do have different moves and some with new powers, though. The new characters look great. In fact, the 4MB cart really help graphics a lot. The animation is very detailed with no missing frames. The loading time is quicker and there's no slowdown during play. The background stages looked spectacular, although some look boring with no animation like the Concrete Cave. The over all look is very pleasing to see.

The sound effects are same from NIGHT WARRIORS, even have the same announcer. This is good for those who are tired of hearing a different announcer on every STREET FIGHTER game. The music, however, is totally different and sound terrific. The sound is mostly techno, by the themes sound different from each other. From brooding Goth to Japanese pop. The problem is that the stage music are not in a loop like the rest, but are on CD tracks. That means when the stage theme ends, there is short silence as it loads for the replay. It's a good thing, really, because you can listen to all 19 tracks on the CD outside the game.

The controls are tight and responsive, but there are times I have trouble pulling even the simple special moves and they don't come when I need them the most. There is an AUTO mode in the game, but it only works for blocking and it does not have auto combo like in NIGHT WARRIORS. It doesn't even have a training mode option to practice the moves in.

The game plays is the same as the last game, with a few differences. It has the Enchanted Specials (ES) and Extra Specials (EX) like before. Now it has a new move called Dark Force. With a cost of one Special Gauge, you and the opponent go to your character's unique dimension and use special moves from there to attack in a small amount of time. The fighting rules are different, too. It's not best two out of three rounds like before. You must eliminate your opponent's health bar twice with no restarts between knockouts. The over all look is stranger and crazier than the previous. With B.B. Hood looking sweet one minute than going postal the next. Demitri changing both male and female Darkstalkers into young girls and Jedah grabbing the opponent, rubbing it on the ground, then slamming it on a giant contract sheet to get part of it's soul. The stages looking weirder as well, as you fight on a side of a building, on a train with living eyes and mouths and even inside a demon's womb. This game is good to rent and better to buy, even if you're not a Darkstalkers fan. It plays like NIGHT WARRIORS, but it stands out on its own. Some of the game sold have the 4MB cart included, but it only works on the Japanese Saturn system. So, either modify, buy the import system or get the Action Replay 4M Plus, if you want this game.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/07/03