While it hasn’t ever been one of the company’s more famous or successful franchises, for some reason Capcom opted to open it’s
PSP account not with an entry into one of it’s world-famous
Resident Evil or
Streetfighter franchises, but instead a
Darkstalkers game, and one with a real mouthful of a title at that.
Darkstalkers Chronicle: The Chaos Tower was one of the handheld console’s launch titles, and was it’s sole fighting game release upon launch, so naturally it was one of my first games for the machine.
For those of you, and let’s face it there are a few, who’ve never heard of the
Darkstalkers series, a brief explanation may be in order. In the peak of the
Streetfighter craze, which saw countless companies try to best Capcom’s iconic 2D fighter, Capcom themselves decided to branch out a little, and one of the results was a game called
Vampire Saviour. When the game was released in the west, it was re-titled
Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors. The game took the basic
Streetfighter formula, a 2D fighting game where the Best-of-Two-Rounds principle applies and special moves are performed by either rolling the D-Pad in circular motions or ‘charging’ a direction before quickly hitting the opposite in conjunction with one of 6 attack buttons(Light, Medium and Heavy Punch and Kicks respectively). To spice things up, the series implemented a Super-Move, but in a different way to how the
Streetfighter games implemented such moves. While Super-Moves could still only be accessed after charging up a Meter to completion, done by landing attacks, instead of entering a special move-command, performing any of your regular Special Moves caused them to be ‘Supercharged’, in other words they inflicted more damage and got a cooler looking animation. Where the game really differed from the other fighters on the market was that its characters were rather unique. You see, instead of having a cast of martial artists, the game featured a slew of classic monsters who fought with their supernatural abilities. This meant you could duke it out between a vampire and the Frankenstein monster or see who is tougher out of a Kung Fu practitioner Werewolf and a Mummy.
Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors proved successful enough to warrant 2 sequels,
Night Warriors: Darkstalkers Revenge and
Darkstalkers 3. All of these saw ports to the
Sega Saturn and
Sony PlayStation, both of which introduced new characters and made alterations to the gameplay mechanics, most notably with regards to how Super Moves work, and the series took off enough to warrant 2 cartoon series, Japanese and American, before the franchise was cut-short by the decline in popularity of 2D fighters. However, Capcom didn’t let the series die completely, with various characters, most notably the Succubus Morrigan, appearing in their various ‘Vs.’ games, before the online title
Vampire Saviour Chronicle was released as one of the final titles for the
Sega Dreamcast in Japan. This made the fact Capcom decided to rejuvenate the all the more puzzling, if the game wasn’t deemed sell-able a couple of years ago to Western Audiences, what has changed?
You see,
Chaos Tower is essentially an improved version of the
Dreamcast game. Instead of being a completely new entry into the
Darkstalkers series, the game is more like a compilation of the 3 games, with all of the characters introduced in the series included, and the ability to play as them in the style of any of the 3 games in the series, even if they never appeared as playable characters in the earlier games. For example, you can select Jedah, a character introduced in
Darkstalkers 3, and play as him in the style of the first game, where there are no real Super Moves, only improved versions of Specials.
The game has this healthy roster of 18 characters, spanning from the awesome Werewolf Talbain and Mummy Anakaris to the somewhat less inspiring ‘monster hunter’ B.B. Hood and Bee-Woman Q-Bee, each character has a fairly unique playing style, with the exception of Morrigan, Lilith and Demitri, who all play similarly to
Streetfighter‘s Shotokan fighters.
As well as a healthy range of characters, the game also offers a wide range of modes. There’s your Arcade mode, which offers you 4 ways to play, based on the way the 3 original games played, as well as the newly crafted
Darkstalkers 3[SP] mode. These modes don’t affect the game all that drastically, mainly with regards to the Super Meter, although the
[SP] mode also affects the way the game’s rounds are set-up, taking on a format similar to Rare’s
Killer Instinct, where you are simply issued 2 Health Meters, and when one is depleted, you simply move on to your next one, regardless of your opponent’s energy.
The game also offers a Versus mode, which, while not exactly an online mode on par with the
DC game, but the wireless compatibility means that you may be able to find other people to play. Possibly the game’s most unique mode is the Tower mode that it takes it’s title from.
In Tower mode, you select 3 characters, before choosing one before each fight and taking on a series of enemies, on occasion having to comply with various stipulations such as no jumping or special moves. The reason you select 3 characters is that damage is held over after matches finish, meaning you have to alternate between fights, to allow the characters’ energy to recover. When you win fights, you progress up the tower, but when all 3 characters lose, then it’s game over. It’s almost a cross between a Survival mode and a campaign mode, and while it’s nothing spectacular, it is a fun alternative to arcade mode, and rounding things off is you basic training mode, and ‘Chronicle’, which is a gallery of all the artwork and Arcade mode endings that you can unlock by playing Tower and Arcade mode.
The aesthetics of the game are impressive. The sprites and backgrounds look crisp and clear on the smaller
PSP screen than they do on a full-size TV, and the animation is, as far as I can tell, spot on, meaning that this may actually be the first graphically perfect Capcom 2D fighter ever to appear on a Sony games machine, and also the first to not subject the player to eons long loading times.
The sound keeps up a good level of quality, with voices, sound effects and the slightly creepy, slightly catchy music all sounding very clear coming out of the
PSP‘s small speakers.
So, you’ve got a Capcom fighter with good graphics, sound and a healthy selection of modes. All in all it’s a good game right, 4/5
at least right? No. Now, I’m not someone who will write a game off because it’s a 2D fighter, hell I’m the opposite, and I do feel that s game,
Chaos Tower should merit at least 4. However, as long as it’s on the
PSP it never will. You see while the game uses the same 6-Attacks button layout, which all respond fine and is a piece of cake to get used to, while Sony were marketing their latest toy and making it look sexy, they seemingly forgot to put in any sort decent way to control games. Sony’s D-Pads have always been bad, but this just highlights how completely and utterly
useless the
PSP‘s D-Pad is. While going in straight directions it works fine, trying to get the game to respond to diagonal commands is folly, which, naturally, in a game where D-Pad rolls dictate everything, ruins things a lot. While, after a while, it is possible to garner some semblance of control, making the game somewhat playable, it’s still crippling what was potentially a great game.
When all is said and done, I feel giving the game any less than 3 would be doing Capcom, who have created a good product, a disservice, anything higher may actually encourage people to buy it.
Chaos Tower turned out to be a double disappointment for me, because I was really looking forward to it, only to have this potential enjoyment ruined, and the appeal of the
PSP in general severely marred in my eyes. So while I feel Capcom are free of blame here, I wouldn’t recommend the game to anyone. It will just disappoint you as to how a major international company can, on it’s 3rd attempt, actually seems to be getting worse at designing controllers.
Darkstalkers Related Reviews
Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors for PlayStation
Marvel Vs. Capcom:Clash of Super Heroes for Dreamcast
Marvel Vs. Capcom 2: New Age Of Heroes for Dreamcast
Capcom Vs. SNK: Millenium Fight 2000 for Dreamcast
Review also posted on Dooyoo.co.uk
