Darkstalkers

A Monster Mash of Mediocrity

Dic: 1995

I'll make an admittance before I start this week's induction for GAME OVER month. I actually have never played any of the Darkstalkers titles, nor am I experienced in the lore of the franchise. But even with the lack of knowledge on the series, I still know what constitutes as an animated atrocity. And the American Darkstalkers cartoon is indeed an atrocity worth talking about.

Darkstalkers (Or Vampire in Japan) is an Arcade fighting franchise from Capcom. Essentially, it's Street Fighter with monsters. I'm sure there's a plot behind it, but let's be honest. Rarely does anyone play a fighting game to be engrossed in the story, so rarely does a cartoon, or movie based on the franchise work well. Case in point with Darkstalkers, our induction du Jour. Just like Zelda, and Double Dragon, Dic picked up the rights to the franchise in order to make another cartoon, this time for the USA network...

And like the franchises before, it blew tremendously. Suffering from the cocktail of bad story, mediocre animation, and an all around annoying time. So, let's look at this monster of a mess, and let's review this thing.

You know what kind of intros I hate. Ones that are spent explaining the plot in a rather dry monologue. Only two cartoons I know have been able to do it right. He-Man, and Reboot. At least those two had excellent music to accompany it. Darkstalkers has a rather generic rock theme only broken a couple times with "We're the Dark............................. Stalkers!" And you also know that the intro was an afterthought when the opening consists of clips from the show, or like most occasions, the first episode. It simply says to me, "why should I continue when they've clearly given up a minute in?" Because I'm reviewing this crap, that's why.




We kick off our first episode "Out of the Dark" as a giant space ship sneaks past a space shuttle. Why they couldn't just destroy the shuttle instead of sneaking past it makes no sense to me. We meet our main antagonist, Pyron, who is pissed that the Earth no longer has any intelligent inhabitants to worship him. So instead of just blowing up the planet, he decides instead to awaken the monsters of old to do his dirty work. He awakens Dimitri, the supposed last of the vampires, who doesn't take his new employment very well. However, Pyron quickly kicks his blood sucking butt. After some bargaining, Dimitri eventually has no problem with being general to Pyron's big intergalactic hullabaloo.



Cut to Scotland (You can tell it's Scotland thanks to the stupid bagpipe music) as Morrigan, a succubus, is beamed up on the ship. She battles with Dimitri for a bit, until Pyron eventually tells them to cut the crap.




Next on the list is a werewolf named John Talbain, who is the first to escape being beamed up. This cartoon finally gives me an unintentional laugh as Talbain gets chased by a red spotlight. Next we head to Cairo, as a pyramid is lifted up from underground, and our next baddie, Anarkaris, is awakened, and appears to be suffering from Perry Saturn syndrome, as he proclaims "There are lizards in my pants", and to "bring forth gravy, and dancing frogs".


"That's gimmick infringement! I mean, uh... Monkeys eat bacon to confuse Newt Gingrich. You're Welcome!"



Next is Bishamon.... Or Hashimon as this cartoon calls him, who pretty much says "Screw resisting" and gets beamed up. Next is our Zombie British rocker...


Close...


There we go, there's our Lord Raptor.

With the willing baddies now in his alliance, it's time to go after the "Difficult ones". Because lord knows this episode hasn't introduced enough characters.





And we start with Victor, an emo Arnold Swarzenegger Frankenstein who is the 2nd to avoid the evil red spotlight. Followed by a whining narcissistic fishman named Rikou. Next up is the white Captain Caveman.. I mean Bigfoot, and his whiny nephew Hairball. Who, along with his tribe, stop the evil glowing spotlight with snowballs. I kid you not. Frigging Snowballs.

Dimitri is a moron.

And in between each failed attempt, Morrigan chews him out for being said moron, and Pyron bitches at them for wanting to kill humans.



And we finally meet our last monster of the bunch, the obligatory catgirl, Felicia. She gets chased by the spotlight, all while screaming that she needs to find the sorcerer. She heads to a mansion and turns into a cat. A kid named Harry exits the mansion, sees our now more feline female, and brings her in. The next day he wakes up to the wet dream of many an anime fan out there...


A catgirl in his bedroom. Lucky douche.

Felicia learns that the sorcerer she's looking for was Harry's great great, great, grandfather. She tells him of Dimitri, but he doesn't believe her. Despite there being a GOD DAMNED CATWOMAN ON HIS BED! Or at least until Dimitri's floating head shows up. And Dimitri, being a moron as I've already pointed out, believes that Harry is the sorcerer. Felicia saves him, as the two run away. Back to our whiny Frankenstein, who returns to his castle, and embraces his father, who's nothing more than a skeleton in a chair. Back to Felicia and Harry, who are at her place, as we learn that Harry is indeed a trained sorcerer to end this episode.

And that's as much of Darkstalkers as I can take. It's just annoying. The animation is decent at best, most of these characters are barely one dimensional, and because you demanded it I guess, we have a pigeonholed kid who in the end is more important to the plot than the actual characters. For some odd reason I'm instantly reminded of something I've reviewed before. A really crappy cartoon that I watched last year, I just can't put my finger on...


Oh bloody hell.

Yep, I'm instantly reminded of Monster in My Pocket. A bunch of monsters fighting each other, and an annoying obligatory kid protagonist that's improtant to the plot. The only difference is these monsters aren't shrunk, and it's a boy this time. Oh well, at least the werewolf isn't Jamaican.

And with that, we head into our fourth induction for Game Over month..



and I finally can start to get this Monkey off my Back.