Comic Review - Street Fighter vs. Darkstalkers

As can probably be figured out from some of my other articles, I’m a bit of a fan when it comes to fighting games, crossovers, and Capcom. Even further, one of my favorite Capcom series is the monster-centric fighter Darkstalkers. So, when a comic was announced focusing on a crossover between Capcom’s biggest fighting series and my personal favorite Capcom series, this was definitely going to be something to look for. Street Fighter vs. Darkstalkers, created by Udon Comics, was released over eight issues, which was later compiled into two graphic novels, covering a main story and a few small bonus stories. We’ll be covering the two graphic novels, to get an impression of the mini-series as a whole.

Let’s look at Street Fighter vs. Darkstalkers.

STORY

The story seems to take place during the events of Street Fighter V, with the presence of characters like Rashid and Laura, and bit after Darkstalkers 3, with characters like Jedah and Lilith present, and it seems like both series share the same universe. I like this element because you can reasonably think that characters from either series could potentially bump into each other. We've seen something similar with Street Fighter, Final Fight, and Rival Schools.

The main story seems to take place in the Makai Realm, the home world of monsters from Darkstalkers. Powerful demon Jedah and leader of the Illuminati Gill have joined forces and have come up with a plan to harvest fighting energy to power up an ultimate weapon. To this end, they have taken several strong fighters from Earth into this other dimension to fight against the monsters there and absorb the energy generated from their battles. Our protagonists here are a group of 3 Street Fighter characters (Ken, Chun-Li, and Sagat) and 2 Darkstalkers characters (Felicia and Jon Talbain) who are now trapped in this alternate dimension and trying to find their way back to Earth, with more fighters joining them later in the story.

The main villains’ plan sounds really supernatural and grandiose, but that should be par for the course given the two series involved. The story is fast-paced and action packed, but still easy to keep up with. As the heroes travel together and talk with each other, themes come through about overcoming prejudice, particularly with Felicia and Jon who are “monsters” who choose to make their home on Earth among humans, and overcoming one’s inner struggles, particularly Sagat, a former criminal, though circumstances see Ken and Chun-Li dealing with their own inner struggles as well.

Aside from that, there are also a bunch of different side stories about the characters meeting each other and what interactions result from them, like B.B. Hood trying to hunt Blanka, Rashid exploring Anakaris’s tomb, or Hsien-Ko and her sister Lei Lei trying to exorcise Gen’s spirit. Most of these don’t add anything to the main story, but they’re nice to see how other characters are handling this collision of worlds.

CHARACTERS

Several characters appear in this comic from both games, from central characters like Ryu and Morrigan to more obscure characters like Nash and Rikou, and from the protagonists of the comic down to even one-panel cameos. They all look and act how they feel in the source material and they even use some of their special moves in combat. The references to the games even pull in some alternate forms of different characters at certain points. The comic lets readers explore more of these fighters’ personalities more than in the game because you get to see them do more than exchange a couple of lines of banter before Round 1 of a match begins. You get to see more about their drives and motivations, their likes and dislikes.

The downside however, is that the comic assumes that readers have at least some level of knowledge of these series beforehand. It does a very basic job of explaining who these characters are and why they do what they do. While some may see it as a good thing, laying down the basics for each major player then diving straight into the plot, some people who don’t know much about Street Fighter or Darkstalkers and are just looking for a good action comic might find it more convenient to know why the Muay Thai fighter is throwing fireballs.

VISUALS

The comic features anime-style art that is consistent with the looks of the games. The characters and environments are colorful and vibrant, even in the monster world, where one might expect things to look a little more gothic and somber. The designs of original characters and creatures not from the games (who are limited to side roles) are also creative and, while they don’t stand out compared to the game canon fighters, they still fulfill their roles well enough.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Street Fighter vs. Darkstalkers is a good action-adventure comic that offers stylish fight scenes, vibrant art, and a good epic story for the number of issues this mini-series has. While readers who are fans of both video game series will have the most to gain from these comics, they are still a fun read for those looking for a good story with a supernatural spin.

FINAL SCORE: 4/5

 REREAD VALUE: MODERATELY HIGH

Super Roster Maker - Sega Superstars Fighters

Similar to Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. series, Sega Superstars is a chance for gamers to experience a little of everything Sega has to offer. Having seen life in the form of a motion-sensor minigame collection, a tennis game, and two racing games, this series allows players to view the characters and worlds of their most well-known titles. With the catalogue they have however, one could argue that they could pull a move similar to Nintendo and make a fighting game with their vast library of franchises.

That's what we'll look at today in the topic of this Super Roster Maker: Sega Superstars Fighters.

For this article, we'll use the same selection methods used in the Nintendo vs. Capcom roster article and pick the characters based on four different categories. Those four categories are the Icons (the main faces everyone associates with the company), the Fighters (popular or top-tier characters from previous fighting games), the Stars (important or popular characters from currently relevant or soon-to-be-relevant series), and the Wild Cards (either developer favorites, fan favorites, or experimental characters with weird moveset ideas or presentations).

Now, let's choose our characters.

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Part 1 - The Icons

For this section, we'll pull one character each from the franchises most frequently involved with the Sega Superstars series as a whole, including the racing games, Sega Superstars Tennis, and the original game for the PS2 used with the PlayStation EyeToy.

Motion controls before Nintendo made it cool.

The picks are:

Sonic (Sonic the Hedgehog)
AiAi (Super Monkey Ball)

Ulala (Space Channel 5)
Amigo (Samba de Amigo)

Alex Kidd (Alex Kidd in Miracle World)
Beat (Jet Set Radio)

The six series listed above were all involved in most or all of the Sega Superstars games and these guys are the main characters for each of them. Crazy Taxi also made the list, but a game where the main premise is being a taxi driver and that's it doesn't exactly lend itself to producing a fighting character.

Part 2 - The Fighters

Selecting our fighting game veterans, a variety of different games, particularly old ones, were used. The games are Sonic the Fighters, Virtua Fighter 5, Fighting Vipers, Eternal Champions, and Super Smash Bros. (a Nintendo game that includes Sega characters as third-party guests). Since most of Sega's fighting games are rather old, we can't rely on Eventhubs for the most part to provide tier lists for everything. So, for many of the games, forums on different websites provided opinions from fans on the games' rosters, including people's favorites and which ones were the best to use.

The picks are:

For Sonic the Fighters: Espio and Dr. Eggman

For Virtua Fighter 5: Akira Yuki and Jacky Bryant

For Fighting Vipers: Honey and Genghis Bahn




For Eternal Champions: Larcen Tyler and Trident

For Super Smash Bros. 4: Shadow and Bayonetta

These characters are ones that fans on forums largely say are their favorites or powerful (sometimes, too powerful) picks in games. Addressing one of these characters, while Shadow isn't playable in Smash, he is an assist character within the game and was a popular request a new playable character in the series next entry, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

If only it actually came true...

Part 3 - The Stars

These characters are meant to promote series that are currently prominent or have a high-profile project coming up in the future. However, despite having a large catalog of franchises they can use for games, Sega has only been paying big attention to a few series recently, those being Sonic the Hedgehog, Valkyria Chronicles, and Yakuza. A fourth can be added here since a revival for the Sakura Wars series has been announced for 2019, but that's about it.

The picks are:

Tails (Sonic the Hedgehog)
Selvaria Bles (Valkyria Chronicles)

Kazuma Kiryu (Yakuza)
Sakura Shinguji (Sakura Wars)


Only four characters in this section. Don't worry. The next one will bring a bunch more in.

Part 4 - The Wild Cards

This section is split into three different parts: developer favorites, fan favorites, and characters that have potential for an out-of-the-box moveset idea or presentation. For the first section, we looked for developer interviews where they stated what their favorite SEGA games or characters were.

Dev Favs:

Scooter (Alien Storm)
Toma (Shining Force EXA)

Sketch Turner (Comix Zone)
Axel Stone (Streets of Rage)

In an article about the Sega Genesis Classics Collection (link here), several Sega developers stated what their favorite classic games were from the collection. That served as the basis here since it could provide some lesser known, interesting characters. Among other answers, Hiroyuki Sakamoti (the director of Yakuza 6) picked Alien Storm, Makoto Suzuki (the producer of Shining Resonance Refrain) picked Shining in the Darkness, Mizuki Hosoyamada (producer of Puyo Puyo Tetris) picked Comix Zone, and Al Hope (director of Alien Isolation) picked Streets of Rage 2.

The three beat-em-up characters were easy, being either stand out or main characters from their games. For the Shining series, Toma from Shining Force EXA was selected for being a more distinct character than the ones from the Genesis era games and for his inclusion in the Project X Zone series giving him more exposure than some other characters.


Fan Favs:

Erica Fontaine (Sakura Wars)
Ryo Hazuki (Shenmue)

Combo (Jet Set Radio)
Knuckles (Sonic the Hedgehog)


A different article showed which Sega franchises and characters Sega fans wanted to see more of, which series they're most invested in, and what their favorite characters were. Taking all three given lists into account was how we got these four picks.

Experimental Characters:

Segata Sanshiro (Sega Saturn)
NiGHTS (NiGHTS into Dreams)

Coco Tapioca (Space Channel 5)
Arle Nadja (Puyo Puyo)


This would probably be the section with the most varied, disputable picks. Looking again at the series listed in the article from the Fan Favs section, focus was on characters that filled an underrepresented fighting niche or those that could have unique fighting mechanics or presentations. Going over the chosen characters, Segata Sanshiro could use moves inspired by his commercial appearances for the Sega Saturn, NiGHTS can fly and shape-shift for different fighting styles and spatial control, Coco Tapioca from Space Channel 5 is a heavyweight character that could use potential rhythm based attacks, and Arle Nadja from Puyo Puyo can use moves involving the game's titular puzzle pieces and connecting them for different effects or damage outputs.

Final Results

The Roster: Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Espio, Shadow, Dr. Eggman, Ulala, Coco Tapioca, Beat, Combo, Akira, Jacky, Honey, Bahn, Larcen, Trident, Sakura, Erica, AiAi, Amigo, Alex Kidd, Bayonetta, Selvaria, Kazuma, Scooter, Toma, Sketch, Axel, Ryo, Segata, NiGHTS, Arle

This roster gives us a grand total of 32 characters. Six of those characters come from the Sonic the Hedgehog series while all the other series involved only have one or two characters. If this list seems weighed a bit heavily in favor of the Sonic series, that probably just shows how Sega themselves have been favoring it lately.

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What did you think of this roster? What characters do you think would make it into a large Sega crossover fighter? Make your voice heard in the comments below. Thanks for coming!

Assemble! - Fighting Game Archetype Roster - The Dancer

This is Assemble, where we look at several different characters across multiple series to form a perfect team-up. Whatever the case may be, whether it’s a fighting game roster or an RPG adventuring party, we’ll find the best team for the job. In a change of style from the more long-form articles featured here, these articles will be shorter entries, focusing on one or two characters each, and spread out over time until the complete roster is formed.

What would a fighting game be without a roster of several different, powerful, and engaging characters? In this batch of articles for Assemble, we will be assembling a fighting game roster using characters from several different fighting games based on different character archetypes.

The picks will be based on where the characters fit in terms of game mechanics and their place in the story and world of the game. Only characters that originated in fighting games will be observed here. That means no guest characters, no licensed fighting games (unless their roster includes original characters), and no crossover titles. Finally, I’ll only be discussing games or characters that I am at least somewhat familiar with. While this means I won’t discuss all the fighting games out there, there should be at least some variety from just the major titles.

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THE DANCER

Fighting may be serious business to most, but to this fighter, it can seem like a party.

The Dancer is a fighter whose style of combat looks more like dancing than traditional fighting. They may be a practitioner of capoeira, which is a real martial art from Brazil that was designed to look like dancing or they may be a raver or b-boy translating their dance style into fighting moves, but these kinds of fighters make moving to the rhythm a viable martial art.

Our choice for the Dancer is…

Tiger Jackson from Tekken.

As stated before, a fighter can count as the Dancer if they are a capoeira practioner and that’s what Tiger is, being based on Tekken mainstay Eddy Gordo. Capoeria is a fighting style that uses a lot of kicks, flips, and big movements and those who use this style tend to be very quick and agile. When in a match, it is very easy to chain combos together as Tiger or Eddy. So easy, in fact, that some people say they’re cheap characters. Even their “idle” animations have them moving from side to side.

What gives Tiger this spot over Eddy is their appearance. With his colorful disco-themed outfit (that even lights up in some games), big sunglasses, and large afro, Tiger looks more ready to bust a move than bust some faces. His opening animation in some games like Tekken Tag Tournament 2 even literally has him dancing.

For being a character that is all about movement, agility, and fast footwork, both in the arena and on the dance floor, we now add Tiger Jackson to the roster.

ADDED!

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Honorable Mention: Eddy Gordo from Tekken

We already talked a bit about Eddy Gordo and while a character who could be stated as a palette swap got mentioned above him in our hypothetical roster, his role in his home series should not be understated. As a quick-moving and quick-hitting character, Eddy has been a recurring character for several of the Tekken games. As a more serious character to Tiger’s “just-for-fun” inclusion, Eddy has clear motivations and relations with other principle characters in the series.

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What did you think about this article? Want to see what other characters get picked for our roster? Do you think someone would fit this role better besides whoever got picked? Make your voice heard in the comments below. Thanks for coming.