I remember Capcom’s Dark Stalkers hitting the arcade centres back in Singapore when I was in secondary 3/4, and its impressionable characters and crisp, clean graphics (noticeably richer and sharper than Street Fighter II – The New Challengers ) immediately caught the attention of me and my friends.
I have to admit – I sucked at the game. While I could pretty much hold my own in Street Fighter II with Ryu, Ken or Sagat, for some reason I could never grasp the somewhat confusing moves and combos of Dark Stalkers, and by then Virtua Fighter 2 had arrived on the scene; but that’s a whole different article. For all its worth, I was still mezmerized by the fascinating character designs, some of the best I’ve seen in all the games I’ve played as a kid.
(above) The first part of this book is a collection of various promotional poster art for the game, and after that concept artwork for every character from the series.
(above) Donovan, a big favourite amongst players. (below) The vampy Morrigan. She was pretty much the only character I knew how to play because her moves were largely similar to Ryu and Ken from Street Fighter, but it still didn’t win me too many bouts.
(above) Guest artwork by various artists. The Demitri drawn by Shinkiro ( the legendary dude who designed many characters for King of Fighters ) is just wickedly good. (below) Chibi-fied versions.
So whose your favourite DarkStalkers character ? Its a little obvious, but mine is Morrigan, of course.
You can get a copy of the book here.
Buy From Amazon.com | Buy From Amazon CA | Buy From Amazon UK
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April 8th, 2009 at 12:54 am
i like the game as well when i was a teen. i like the interesting characters design and moves. it was one of the very few anime styled arcade games back then. i especially like the Chinese vampire though i’m not good at using her. i use the frog guy most of the time.
April 8th, 2009 at 10:28 am
Akiman’s art is lovely! should i get it when i return…
April 8th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
I only know of them because some of the game Puzzle Fighter
April 8th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
great design – but not very fond of the colors
April 10th, 2009 at 3:07 am
YES! CAPCOM’s old school team will always be my biggest influences in art. The office I’m at right now has a copy of this book lying amongst our other CAPCOM design bibles.
Darkstalkers has some of their most iconic designs and a lot of times I think because of how fun CAPCOM’s designs are, their attention to historical and cultural details and mood are often ignored. It was shocking to me to see the game in motion, it still looks as gorgeous as when it first came out; just like a painting.
Their color schemes and decisions have also influenced whole generations of artists, in my opinion. They’re probably the only group of game concept artists that I like as much, if not more than Terada, Murata, Tsukasa and Kaneko (Atlus’s own powerhouse team).
As for my favorite Darkstalkers, it’s Jedah! CAPCOM taking old manuscripts’ devil descriptions and marrying it with Devilman with a touch of Bengus? Ffew things have come to surpass old CAPCOM.
April 10th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
It was nice to see those familiar Darkstalkers characters again. I didn’t get to play this game when I was a kid, but I remember spending a lot of time looking at pictures and artworks of the characters from my brother’s gaming magazines.
April 11th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
gordon – Yup, the great character design was certainly one of the biggest draws of the game.
Tragic Comedy – Yes indeed ! I’ll post more art he did for Street Fighter soon.
Parka – Haha, that would be the chibi-fied versions then !
helen – I can’t explain it, but the colors are very “capcom”.
weigy – Wow. You must be a bigger fan than I am. :]
Gi – :] Thanks for dropping by ! The game must be on PS or something these days I think, won’t have to worry about getting licked by someone at the arcade, like what happened to me in the past.
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