As we all know, although today's fighting games are not as popular as they were back then, there are still many characters who can become popular with their own charm, such as Shiranui Dance, Chun-Li, Mary Rose, etc.
When it comes to these characters, we have to talk about the golden age of 2D fighting games in the nineties of the last century, in which Capcom launched many works represented by "Street Fighter 2" with the help of its self-developed CPS series substrates, and then as the fighting game market continues to shrink, only a few series are still being released today, and most of the rest can only become classic memories for players. And the series we are going to talk about today was quite distinctive in terms of painting style and gameplay back then, although the game did not have a new work, but its characters became one of Capcom's signatures, this is the "Demon Warrior" series that has been brilliant for a short time.
After the huge success of Street Fighter 2, Capcom decided to expand into a new fighting game series, and by this time its own arcade base had been upgraded to CPS2, which gave the developers more room to do so, and finally decided to create a new style of fast-paced fighting based on the many characters of Western mythology, such as vampires, zombies, and mummies.
In June 1994, "Vampire The Night Warriors" (Vampire The Night Warriors) was launched in the arcade, the original generation had a total of 10 optional characters plus 2 bosses, as the earliest work of the CPS2 baseboard, the basic gameplay of the game was based on "Street Fighter 2", adding new systems such as air defense, squat movement, and chain attack. In the previous CPS2 game "Super Street Fighter 2X", Capcom added the design of the super special meter slot, which was also inherited in "Demon Warrior", and after the meter slot at the bottom of the screen was full, you can use powerful special skills, the overall rhythm of the game is fast, plus the novel cartoon art style, bringing players an unprecedented fighting game experience.
After the experimental nature of the original game was well received, Capcom soon released a sequel, and in March 1995, Vampire Hunter Darkstalkers' Revenge was back on the CPS2 baseboard. The biggest change in the sequel's gameplay system is that the energy gauge can be accumulated repeatedly, which greatly increases the chance of use, and at the same time, the character has added defensive counterattack skills, which can be removed by commands in defense, and counterattack the opponent with a set of special skills, in addition to new features such as falling to the ground and chasing down, it has also greatly enriched the player's battle skills, in order to take care of novices in fighting games, a simple automatic defense mode has been added, and masters can continue to use the standard mode.
In terms of characters, all 10 people in the previous game are retained, and two bosses have become optional characters in the sequel, in addition to two new characters, bringing the total number to 14, so that the "Demon Warrior" series has become one of Capcom's new fighting game aces.
After the popularity of the arcade platform, Capcom also decided to transplant this series to home consoles, as early as the first generation of the launch, it was planned to be launched in Sony PS and Sega SS dual consoles, but in the actual development process encountered problems, due to the small memory of the PS console, and the technical characteristics of the first release were not fully mastered, the PS version that was originally planned to be sold in April 1995, the porting progress was delayed again and again, and it was not launched until March 1996, and at this time the arcade version of the 2nd generation has been launched for almost a year.
Capcom simply adjusted its strategy,Cancel the first generation of porting SS,Directly to the second generation of the Sega console,In June 1996,SS version of "Demon Warrior 2" was released,With the help of larger memory,This work has a high degree of portability,But in the number of frame rates of character animation is still slightly inferior to the arcade。 So the ported version made a very interesting design,Players can turn on the "full animation" option in the options,Then when the two sides use the same character to fight,It will completely restore all the action frames of the arcade version,Capcom can be said to rack his brains in order to better transplant this arcade game,By the way,At that time, the Saturn console had not yet expanded the memory card,That is, we commonly call the acceleration card。
Due to the difference in screen resolution between the arcade version and the Saturn console, which is 384x224 for the arcade machine and 352x224 for the Saturn, Capcom has adjusted the picture ratio and the upper and lower bezels to better suit home console users, and the overall performance is satisfactory despite the longer read times caused by the use of disc media. At that time, when many players were swaying in the console war, the appearance of this work also added a lot of confidence to the Sega side, after all, at the same time, SS can play to the second generation, and PS can only play to the first generation, and there is no one with this sense of superiority.
As 32-bit consoles began to become mainstream, 2D fighting games also entered their heyday, Capcom continued the classic "Teen Street Fighter" series, and began to cooperate with American comics to launch new works such as "X-Men" and "Marvel Super Heroes"; SNK has at least half of the arcade halls in China with "The King of Fighters", "Samurai Shodown" and "Legend of the Hungry Wolf", and new brands such as "Guilty Gear" have also begun to emerge. The Demon Warrior series is facing huge competition, and in such an environment, Capcom has launched a sequel that has greatly improved the graphics, gameplay system, and characters, and is also the culmination of the series.
In 1997, Capcom released an arcade version of Vampire Savior The Lord of Vampire, with an initial version of 15 characters to choose from, and several new characters since then. The gameplay has been boldly innovated, abandoning the best-of-three system that has long been used in fighting games, and instead adopting the form of two lives for each side, simply put, the winning side will retain the amount of health, and then the two sides will continue to fight, in addition, when the player is attacked, part of the lost health is displayed in white, and it can be recovered without taking damage for a short time.
The most distinctive system of this game is the "Dark Force" (Dark Force), after the player presses the same strength of the punch and kick button, it will consume a piece of energy, and can use the unique skills of each character for a limited time, this gameplay is similar to the OC system in the "Boy Street Fighter" series, which are advanced skills for masters.
"Demon Warrior 3" has won the love of many players on the arcade platform, although the move system is more complex than Street Fighter, the difficulty is higher to get started, and the gorgeous gameplay that attaches importance to continuous skills is different from the full-screen flying big move of "Marvel vs. Capcom", forming its own unique style, which is also an important reason why many players are now revisiting the review and looking forward to the sequel.
On the home console platform, "Demon Warrior 3" also has a wonderful performance, with rich action frames and a large number of gorgeous special effects in the game, which put forward high requirements for the 32-bit console porting at that time. This time, Sega Saturn took out the ultimate weapon, the 4MB expansion memory card, and with the help of this powerful reinforcement, it restored the original appearance of the arcade well, and was hailed as one of the most representative works of SS.
On the other side, the Sony PS console is a little embarrassing.,Lack of memory has led to a serious reduction in the transplantation effect.,Lack of smoothness of action,A lot of special effects have also been deleted.,It's basically a barely playable level.。 In order to make up for the shortcomings of the game experience, Capcom added hidden characters in the PS version, with a total of 20 people to choose from, and then called it the EX version, which is also the usual operation of the two consoles ported back then, SS pursues arcade effect restoration, and PS pursues rich mode content.
After that, due to the sharp contraction of fighting games and even the entire arcade market, Capcom also reduced its product line, "Demon Warrior" in addition to the launch of a remastered collection on the new console, there is no news of the original new work, which makes many loyal fans of the series feel sorry, but some characters have appeared in Capcom's works in a new form, among which the most popular is Molica, a witch with bat wings and a charming shape.
Morrigan Aensland has appeared in the previous works of "Demon Warrior", and is set in the story as the adopted daughter of one of the three rulers of the Demon World, although her status is noble, she has no interest in the battle of the Demon World, and likes to look for fun content in the human world.
In addition to the fighting game "Demon Warrior", Molica's super popularity has also become Capcom's new signature, and it is natural to make cameos in other games. Back in 1996, another arcade game, Super Puzzle Fighter 2 X, Molica was one of the optional characters and took the top C position on the cover, and later appeared in the fighting game Pocket Fighter. These two games are basically from the two series of "Street Fighter" and "Demon Warrior", Molica fully shows the charm of the spokesperson, while the original "Demon Warrior" male number one Dimitri seems bleak, and in the minds of many players, Molica is the real protagonist of the series.
In addition to "internal endorsements", Molica also began to represent Capcom and cooperate with other brands, in the famous "Marvel vs. Capcom" series, she has appeared in previous works, and in cross-company cooperation "Capcom vs. SNK", "Namco vs. Capcom" and other games, she is also a representative of Capcom's super popularity. In 2000, Capcom cooperated with Caijing to transplant the arcade flight shooter game "Gunbird 2" (Gunbird 2) to the Sega DC console, in this version, Molica appeared as a hidden character, and it can be used by pressing the upper button at the random question mark on the selection interface.
Today, fighting games are no longer the focus of players' attention, Capcom in the environment of shrinking market size, only retained "Street Fighter" and "Marvel vs. Capcom" two fighting series, and the "Demon Warrior" series, which has a single character and a high difficulty in getting started with the system, has long faded out of people's sight. But to be able to occupy a place in the golden age of fighting games at the end of the last century, the production level of this series has been fully recognized by players, and many classic characters represented by Molica have always imprinted the name "Demon Warrior" deeply in the minds of many fans.
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