Now I’m well aware that this game was a jpn only release (thank you US market), but since I know how the setup works with SF Alpha Anthology, do they have alt versions for both Darkstakers 3 as well?
You mean “does it include Vampire Hunter 2 and Vampire Savior 2?”, don’t you? Yes. Yes it does.
My bad seeing I got the names mixed up. Well concerning those two, what exactly do their alt modes bring in mind?
Both are alternate versions of Vampire Savior, but there were memory constraints so the whole cast could not be put into VS2. VS2 and VH2 are pretty much the same game (a version of VS with a few tweaks, most noticably the Dark Force now supes up one ES move for every character, e.g: Gallon’s Moment Slice, when performed while his Dark Force is active, becomes a Midnight Bliss/Weapon X style auto-combo super, minus the dashing), only each has a slightly different cast.
Within the collection disc you can unlock alternate version of the original vampire savior which would allow you to boost the cast to about 23 characters. Added characters include: Oboro Bishamon, Shadow Talbain, 2 versions of Donovan, 2 versions of Phobos, Pyron, and Dee.
A while back, somebody on GameFAQs made a Dark Stalkers collection faq, and the dude went MIA and a lot of people couldn’t find it, but I happen to have it and had put it on my blog (that I don’t use anymore.)
The alternate version of Vampire Savior is basically what got released on the Sega Saturn.
The main difference from the PS2 compilation disc that I’m aware of is that on the Saturn port you get to play ALL the characters BUT you don’t necessarily fight all of them in game. In other words, you can play as Donovan, Huitzil/Phobos, and Pyron, BUT you will never fight them as NPC’s in the game. They’re not part of the Vampire Savior storyline. The Saturn port was literal to the original arcade game on that point.
The only thing I found better about the much later PS1 Darkstalkers 3 port was that it at least had Vampire Savior and all its mini-revisions on the same disc. Otherwise, animations and sound are noticeably better on the Saturn port. (Even the character colors are truer to the arcade on the Saturn port.) If you don’t have a Saturn, Vampire Savior/Darkstalkers 3 is one of the better Capcom PS1 ports, period. Hands-down 20 times better than their Darkstalkers 1 PS1 port.
(Trivia: The Japanese Saturn port of Vampire Savior was the only native Japanese Capcom Saturn port that had an English language option within the game (aside from the Options Menu). Turn on the English titles, character names change to their English alternates and the blood also turns white. Keep it in Japanese mode, characters keep their original names and blood shed is red.
(More Trivia: For several of the big import game companies in the US, Vampire Savior was their best-selling import fighting game, period. For at least one or two, it was their best-selling import game-to-date, period. Prior to the release of Vampire Savior, the best seller for many importers was Darkstalkers 2 aka Vampire Hunter aka Nightwarriors. Capcom fighters set several import game sales records during the Sega Saturn years even if they didn’t set record sales overall in Japan. They were profitable enough for Capcom to continue Saturn support but were not million-copy sellers by any means. DS2 was the best-seller by far in Japan on on the Saturn with sales on the order of 650k-750k if my memory’s not mistaken.)
Put a gun to my head, I’ll go ahead and tell you to buy the PS2 Darkstalkers Collection now. It’s by far the best buy of these games you can make aside from going insane trying to buy a CPS-2 system and collect all the game PCBs. It loads faster than any of the Saturn/PS1 ports and you can use any Hori PS1 or PS2 joystick without cable/PCB mods. The only problem is without an Asian system, you have to chip mod or make minor PS2 case mods and get a swap disc to play the import disc.
I’m a Darkstalkers nut so it goes without saying that I own ALL the Darkstalkers game on the Sega Saturn (Nightwarriors/DS2 in both Japanese and American releases), the Dreamcast Vampire Collection, AND the PS2 game collection. I used to own the PSP port but found it next-to-unplayable with the horrible D-pad and 4-face button set-up. The DS1 port was terrible besides being based on the weakest game by far in the series. It was sold alongside the DS3 PS1 disc when I pitched my PS1 over the side for the Dreamcast…