The index for the various public domain monsters of the Darkstalkers / Vampire series. Names are listed as English / Japanese.
Tropes that apply to (at least) most of the cast
- Action Girl: All of the female characters qualify in their capacity as classic horror/folkloric characters pitched equally against a variety of similarly ghoulish male fighters. Morrigan and Felicia are amongst the most recognizable female fighting game characters, despite the lack of comparative recognition the series on the whole receives.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: Due to most of the cast being monsters that exist separate from human society, many of their goals and morals are quite alien when viewed from our perspective.
- Cool Versus Awesome: The series' reputation for adhering to continuity aside, this is the backbone of the plot; pitching the greatest horror, folk, and b-movie monsters against each other in an all-out brawl.
- Cute Monster Girl: Again, all of the playable females, barring B.B. Hood, who's a human (but a monster on the inside).
- Insistent Terminology: Some of the Darkstalkers originate from Hell itself, though use of the word is very much avoided, and typically the word 'Makai' ("World of the Spirits" in Japanese) is used instead, along with 'Demon World/Realm' or suchlike. 'Makai' is therefore used throughout this page, as well as the word 'Majigen' ("Demon Dimension"), which is used to describe a realm/dimension the third game's Big Bad Jedah inhabits and uses to recreate Makai under his control.
- Monster Lord: Makai's nobility, particularly the Class S ones, are considered this.
- Monster Mash: The series' iconic horror characters are derived from three main sources, and can be grouped together accordingly (with some overlap):
- Characters deriving from ancient sources, including Folktales and Mythology (Demitri, Sasquatch, Hsien-Ko, Donovan and Bishamon), Fairy Tales (B.B.Hood), Religion and Demonology (Jedah, Morrigan, Lilith).
- Characters derived from (or codified by) classic Gothic Horror literature of the 19th and 20th Centuries (Victor, Lord Raptor and Jon Talbain)
- Characters derived from (or codified by) the age of cinema, including Hammer Horror movies (Anakaris, Rikuo) and trashier mid-Century B-Movies (Felicia, Q-Bee, and in terms of him being a Killer Robot, Huitzil).
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Some of these are blatantly obvious, but the more notable examples will be explained.
- Our Monsters Are Different: Demon is used as a synonym for monster. The demons of Makai are a mixed bag; some of them are classic takes on common monsters, while others stray from the norm. Overlaps with Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot in some cases.
- Power Levels: The characters of the series are gauged by their strength:
- Class S Darkstalkers are strong enough demons which can be considered Physical Gods. Their powers also tend to veer into Reality Warper territory. The Three High Nobles of Makai and Morrigan are all Class S, and Belial, one of the big three, was a Class S+.
- Class A Darkstalkers are the exceptionally strong demons (like Pyron and Demitri), most of them filling the ranks of the Eight Noble Families of Makai.
- Class B+ Darkstalkers are the more powerful demons with sufficient training and high-caliber superpowers.
- Class B Darkstalkers are the average demons, which make up the backbone of Makai; one can take down a small army of humans.
- Class C Darkstalkers are your run-of-the-mill humans and weaker demons on par with normal people, who are used as slaves and livestock by classes B and above.
- Class D Darkstalkers are the wild beasts of Makai who may reach the power of Class Bs or even B+, but are usually not civilized.
- Shapeshifter Weapon: The combination of the series' supernatural monster theme and its art style, which plays to the strengths of hand-drawn animation, leads to much of the cast displaying this ability in some manner. Whether it's Lord Raptor's chainsaws and machetes, Rikuo's crab claws and octopus tentacles, or Huitzil's drills and gatling guns, each character's shapeshifting fits with their individual theme.
- Significant Birth Date: Most of the character's "birth dates" are tied to the legendary creatures they are based on.
- Morrigan: Morrigan's date of birth (1678) coincides with the first appearance of a succubus in Scotland.
- Felicia: She was born in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1967. This is most likely a reference to "Curse of the Catwoman," a poem written circa 1967 by Edward Field.
- Jon Talbain: His surname sounds similar to "Talbot," the surname of the main character from the 1941 film version of The Wolf Man. Talbain was born in 1940. While the titular Wolfman is named Lawrence (nicknamed "Larry"), the film also depicts his father: Sir John Talbot.
- Lord Raptor: In 1889, "The Country of the Comers-Back" (aka "Le Pays De Revenants") was an essay depicting zombies published in Harper's Magazine. The character was originally conceived as a dead WWI-era soldier, which made for plot oddities when his story was revised to make him a metal rockstar and thus had him start his human career a few decades too early.
- Victor: Mary Shelley's famous work, Frankenstein: A Modern Prometheus, was originally published in 1818. Its final revision was in 1830, the birth date of Victor. 101 years later, it was adapted into a film for the second time (the first film was made in 1910), which launched the career of Boris Karloff. This is the best-known adaptation.
- Rikuo: His birth date (1953) coincides with release date of the classic horror film Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954). The film is centered on an amphibious creature that besieges anyone foolish enough to go out to sea. The creature was played by actor Ricou Browning.
- Sasquatch: Whereas the typical yeti/Abominable Snowman/Sasquatch/Bigfoot was originally sighted in 1811, Sasquatch was born in 1903. This was the same date that Western scientists discovered Central Africa's breed of mountain gorillas. That same year, a newspaper printed the testimony of a man who said he watched as a man was killed by aborigines, which he said looked like a black man, but covered all over with gray hair. Concept art for Sasquatch had him originally resembling a gorilla.
- This Is a Drill: The developers themselves have noted that drills and drill-like motifs in particular are a recurring theme in this series' attack animations. "The return of the drill era" is a phrase they have used on multiple occasions, likening these motifs to those that were popular in the mecha anime of decades past.
- Undeathly Pallor: Lord Raptor, Hsien-Ko, Victor, and Bishamon are all various shades of blue. Anakaris is sometimes depicted this way as well.
- World of Muscle Men: It's a Capcom fighting game, so naturally all the guys are buff. Some of the girls also have noticeable muscles in certain depictions.
- Wrestler in All of Us: Not just the grapplers, but every single playable character has at least one sort of throw among their special moves.
