History Trivia / Darkstalkers

* WildfireFranchise: This was a fighting game series produced by Capcom from 1994-1997, which spawned three arcade games and their various home console ports. No new Darkstalkers game has been made since 1997, although some of the individual characters continue to appear in other crossover media such as ''VideoGame/MarvelVsCapcom''. Capcom released HD remakes of the second and third games in 2013 as a trial for a potential new game in the future, but disappointing sales figures put the franchise back in limbo again.

** Reportedly, work was underway on a fourth installment that either would have ran on CPS3 or NAOMI hardware before it was silently cancelled. Rumors have since spread that the potential game was to have been the debut of Amingo, who ultimately appears in ''VideoGame/MarvelVsCapcom2''. Though Capcom has yet to confirm them.

* WildfireFranchise: This was a fighting game series produced by Capcom from 1994-1997, which spawned three arcade games and their various home console ports. No new Darkstalkers game has been made since 1997, although some of the individual characters continue to appear in other crossover media such as Marvel vs. Capcom. Capcom released HD remakes of the second and third games in 2013 as a trial for a potential new game in the future, but disappointing sales figures put the franchise back in limbo again.

** KanTokumaru voices Anakaris, Bishamon, Sasquatch, and Victor.

** MiyukiMatsushita voices both Q-Bee and B.B.Hood in ''Darkstalkers 3/Vampire Savior''.

*** This came to a head when Capcom released ''Darkstalkers Resurrection'', effectively the arcade builds of ''Night Warriors'' and ''Vampire Savior'' with a minor use of HD graphics and no real unlockables. [[note]]The other games developed by Iron Galaxy Studios were either games that had never released before in home versions or included several beneficial unlocks. Darkstalkers Resurrection only had a gallery mode.[[/note]]. To say the fandom was pissed when Capcom declared it's failure meant a full fourth game release was cancelled is understating it.

*** This came to a head when Capcom released ''Darkstalkers Resurrection'', effectively the arcade builds of ''Night Warriors'' and ''Vampire Savior'' with a minor use of HD graphics and no real unlockables. [[note]]The other games developed by IronGalaxyStudios were either games that had never released before in home versions or included several beneficial unlocks. Darkstalkers Resurrection only had a gallery mode.[[/note]]. To say the fandom was pissed when Capcom declared it's failure meant a full fourth game release was cancelled is understating it.

** Lilith's graphics and code are intact in ''Vampire Hunter 2'', making her perfectly playable via hacking aside from having no voice.

** Hacking into the original arcade game reveals that Phobos and Pyron are fully playable characters with their endings from the later released ''Night Warriors'' (their ending text wasn't finished however, leaving a row of As instead). Phobos has an insane number of cut special and normal moves, likely because animating all of it would have taken up most of the original game's memory.

* UnCanceled: Yoshinori Ono of ''VideoGame/StreetFighterIV'' fame is pushing to invoke this with the series. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_skngJlTDg A teaser trailer was released affirming the possibility of it happening]], but he said it will only be greenlit as long as enough fan demand gets through to the higher-ups. This is part of the reason ''Darkstalkers Ressurrection'' was announced, though that only resulted in underwhelming sales and the teaser was never followed up on. As of [[https://www.destructoid.com/there-s-still-hope-for-a-new-darkstalkers-347008.phtml March 2016]], Ono is ''still'' trying to invoke this, and at the very least, [[http://www.capcom.co.jp/ir/english/news/html/e161205b.html Capcom has shown some interest in reviving their forgotten franchises]], bringing some hope for this series.

* CharacterTiers: Sasquatch is infamous for being top tier in every game of the series, even as he received various nerfs along the way. He's a common pick in tournament play.

** The american ''Darkstalkers'' cartoon, along with the ''Street Fighter'' and ''Mega Man'' cartoons, was distributed on DVD by Creator/ADVFilms, before going out of print due to the company going under. Sadly, while the ''Street Fighter'' and ''Mega Man'' cartoons have been license-rescued by Discotek Media, the ''Darkstalkers'' cartoon has yet to be rescued, though Discotek license-rescuing the OVA as noted above has given rise to some hope.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: Udon proposed to do an HD remake of the original series, similar to ''Street Fighter II'' and even drew up some concept sprites of Morgan. Capcom turned them down however, citing that, unlike the [=SFII=], Darkstalkers had more animation spites and just saw it as too much work to put into.

** The american cartoon. In short, ''all'' the characters were pretty much InNameOnly caricatures of themselves filtered through heavy {{Disneyfication}}.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
** Capcom's original intention was to make a licensed fighting game starring monsters from the Franchise/UniversalHorror franchise, but the deal fell through. The initial premise can still be glimpsed in certain characters who were obviously modeled after Universal monsters (Demitri = Film/{{Dracula|1931}}, Jon Talbain = Film/{{The Wolfman|1941}}, Victor von Gerdenheim = [[Film/{{Frankenstein 1931}} Frankenstein's Monster]], Rikuo = [[Film/CreatureFromTheBlackLagoon The Creature from the Black Lagoon]], and so on).
** Rejected monster ideas included a nurikabe (a {{Youkai}} in the form of a giant wall) that would've constantly been in guard mode, and a takeoff on Literature/TheInvisibleMan who would've only been identified by a pair of gloves that'd be floating on the screen.
** There were plans for a fourth title in development for the CPS-III system. It is said that Vampire Ace (or Vampire Soldier as it's been called in some places) would have had the core gameplay of Vampire Savior with CPS-III fluid characters. The reasons for the cancellation are unknown.
** Every character's final design and story is a far cry from the original intention:
*** Demitri had a much more minimalist, agile-looking design.
*** According to the ''[[WordOfGod Darkstalkers Graphic File]]'', Morrigan was originally going to be the "cute" character of the series, while all of the sex appeal would go to Felicia.
*** One of Morrigan's preliminary character designs eventually became Jedah, which is probably where they got the preliminary sibling relation from.
*** Lord Raptor was supposed to be a vengeful zombie soldier from WWI, hence his birthdate being stated to be in the 1800's--they forgot to change it to reflect the metal image.
*** Bishamon himself was going to be possessed and not wear any armor.
*** Rikuo looked "like something straight out of the Franchise/CthulhuMythos".
*** Anakaris was a slender pyramid guardian.
*** John Talbain looked more man than wolf and had extremely long claws on one hand.
*** Sasquatch was an animalistic brute bound in chains.
*** Victor was a complete lift of Karloff's Monster before being modified into a robot.
*** Huitzil was a much more modern robot designed for labor. He also had an unfinished super in the first game that was abandoned and never brought back in any of the sequels.
*** Pyron's looks varied too wildly to do justice in such a small space as this.
*** Donovan underwent through a large amount of changes:\\
\\
He was originally a stereotypical Caucasian Vampire Hunter with a broad-brimmed hat that covered his eyes, resembling a masculine Vampire Hunter D or Van Helsing. As designs changed some Asian martial artist themes were added with braided hair and a nunchaku like weapon. Finally we were given the Hinduism/Buddhism themed dhamphyr.\\
\\
He was also much stronger in the location test build of ''Vampire Hunter'' than he was in the finished product. Some of his strengths that were lost include a completely different Blizzard Sword special that caused his ice-covered sword to come crashing down from the top of the screen, a Kill Shred special which had his sword spinning through the air vertically rather than horizontally, thus covering a much wider area, and a Change Immortal EX that would cause huge amounts of [[ScratchDamage chip damage]] when blocked.
*** Hsien-Ko's design, though consistent throughout the games, was originally going to be much younger.
*** In the early stages of development, Lilith was Morrigan's older sister who had the blood of angels mixed in her. She physically resembled Morrigan, the only exception being a pair of angel wings on her head that [[IAmAMonster she hid out of embarrassment]].
*** Q-Bee was a mutated insect with command over other bugs.
*** Early in development, Jedah was an angelic bishie called "Belial, Jr.", which would have made him Morrigan's adoptive brother.
*** Some rough animation concepts shown in ''Darkstalkers Official Complete Works'' give insight into ideas for moves that didn't make the cut. An anchor could have been among the many weapons Hsien-Ko produces from her sleeves, Huitzil's Confusioner could have involved him summoning a large radio-controlled drone with a grabber claw, and Demitri's Demon Billion seemingly could have been a utility super that allowed him to perform different moves while transformed into a cloud of bats, including jabs, uppercuts, and converging bites.
** The first game was planned to be ported to the [[UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis Sega 32X]].
** ''VideoGame/MarvelVsCapcom2'' [[OriginalGeneration original]] character Ruby Heart was originally conceived as a character for Darkstalkers.
** The "Darkstalkers Are Not Dead" teaser, which was never followed up on after the poor sales of ''Darkstalkers Resurrection''.
** Much of the cast from this series were considered for the roster of ''VideoGame/MarvelVsCapcom3'' (specific ones include Talbain and Donovan, the former being Ryota Niitsuma's personal choice for a fourth ''Darkstalkers'' character). Only Morrigan, Felicia, and Hsien-Ko were included in the final game, though at the very least Amaterasu got a Talbain-themed alternate costume and many of the characters appeared as cards in the ''Ultimate'' update's Heroes and Heralds mode.
** After the success of their ''Street Fighter'' toys, SOTA announced plans to produce a ''Darkstalkers'' action figure line. Prototypes for figures of Morrigan, Lillith, Demitri, Anakaris, Donovan, Lord Raptor and Jedah were produced, but the line never officially made it into production.
** In 2011, UDON (the makers of the American ''Comicbook/StreetFighter'' comics) pitched an HD update of ''Darkstalkers'' in the vein of their hit ''[[VideoGame/StreetFighterII Super Street Fighter 2]] HD Remix'', which would have featured newly redrawn sprites. The proposal was rejected, but the prototype Morrigan sprite [[https://twitter.com/LilFormers/status/1009236527191412737 later found its way online]].

* FranchiseKiller: The hastily-released [[NoExportForYou Japan-only]] arcade [[UpdatedRerelease updates]] ''Vampire Savior 2'' and ''Vampire Hunter 2'' are widely regarded as having heavily damaged public interest in the series. On top of being [[CapcomSequelStagnation slightly modified versions]] of ''Vampire Savior'' (and said modifications being largely disliked), [[OneGameForThePriceOfTwo the roster was split between two separate games due to hardware limitations]], and the ''Vampire Hunter 2'' [[NeverTrustATitle title was misleading]] due to the original ''Vampire Hunter'' being a fairly different game gameplay-wise. Even the fact that three previously dropped characters were brought back into the mix wasn't enough to counter all the negatives, and series' remaining fans quickly abandoned these versions in favor of previous entries. Every ''Darkstalkers'' release since has been some kind of port of the existing entries in the series.

* KeepCirculatingTheTapes: The OVA was initially released by Creator/VizMedia on VHS and DVD, but those releases are now out of print. Fortunately averted now that Creator/DiscotekMedia has picked up the license.

* NoExportForYou: ''Vampire Hunter 2'' (Which features everyone in ''Vampire Savior'' sans the characters introduced in that game) and ''Vampire Savior 2'' (Which features everyone in ''Vampire Savior'' except Jon Talbain, Rikuo and Sasquatch; plus Pyron, Huitzil and Donovan) never left Japan. We ''did'' get ''Darkstalkers 3'' though, which is sort of a mash-up of the two.

** Rejected monster ideas included a nurikabe (a yokai in the form of a giant wall) that would've constantly been in guard mode, an old man dressed in a salaryman outfit and a takeoff on Literature/TheInvisibleMan who would've only been identified by a pair of gloves that'd be floating on the screen.

* CreatorsPest: Capcom Japan seems to hate Gallon, if their complete refusal to do ANYTHING with him is any indication. So they'll never pick up on all of the hints fans have been giving them. [[YankTheDogsChain Sadly]], even despite Niitsuma's preference for him, Talbain STILL didn't make the cut for ''[[UpdatedRerelease Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3]]'' (aside from a skin for [[VideoGame/{{Okami}} Amaterasu]], which admittedly isn't much, but...)

* CreatorsPast: Capcom Japan seems to hate Gallon, if their complete refusal to do ANYTHING with him is any indication. So they'll never pick up on all of the hints fans have been giving them. [[YankTheDogsChain Sadly]], even despite Niitsuma's preference for him, Talbain STILL didn't make the cut for ''[[UpdatedRerelease Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3]]'' (aside from a skin for [[VideoGame/{{Okami}} Amaterasu]], which admittedly isn't much, but...)

* Demitri was sprited by Akemi Kurihara who had already worked on many of Capcom's arcade games before the fighting game boom, including VideoGame/ForgottenWorlds, Videogame/{{Strider}}, Videogame/DynastyWars and Videogame/MagicSword.
* Victor was sprited by Mizuho Kageyama, who designed and sprited Videogame/StreetFighterII's Vega. She almost single-handedly came up with that distinct of a design from the incredibly broad concept of "Spanish Ninja" handed to the artists by the the director.
* Sasquatch was sprited by Mizue Morimoto, who also sprited Balrog in [[Videogame/StreetFighterIII Street Fighter Alpha 3]] and is seemingly still at Capcom, having worked as an animator on ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneySpiritOfJustice'' in 2016.

* Demitri was sprited by Akemi Kurihara who had already worked on many of Capcom's arcade games before the fighting game boom, including Forgotten Worlds, Strider, Dynasty Wars and Magic Sword.
* Victor was sprited by Mizuho Kageyama, who designed and sprited Videogame/StreetFighter2's Vega. She almost single-handedly came up with that distinct of a design from the incredibly broad concept of "Spanish Ninja" handed to the artists by the the director.
* Sasquatch was sprited by Mizue Morimoto, who also sprited Balrog in [[Videogame/StreetFighter3 Street Fighter Alpha 3]] and is seemingly still at Capcom, having worked as an animator on ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneySpiritOfJustice'' in 2016.