Night Warriors: Darkstalker's Revenge

Director
Masashi Ikeda
Country of origin
Japan
Format
Series
Running time
45 mins, 4 episodes
Year
1998

Night Warriors: Darkstalker's Revenge

By Eric
20th May 04

As a general rule, video game animes are required to be subpar. More often than not it's obvious that the industry wanted to sucker fans of the game into buying a bad series. Thank God that Night Warriors decided to break the rules.

This anime is based on the second game in the Darkstalkers series, so unfortunately you will not see B.B. Hood, Jedah, Q-bee, or Lilith, all who appeared in the third game. While this is a downer, I do not fault the anime itself for their absences. It's just a matter of when it was made.

What is there is very good, though. The story expands a little on the Darkstalkers universe. Surprisingly, a good portion of the story doesn't take place in the Makai realm, but in the human world. This doesn't detract one bit, however, as the show is action packed no matter where the setting is. Characters do use their game-inspired attacks, but it rarely feels cheesy. There is a worldwide battle involving the Phobos/Huitzil robots who were mysteriously awakened by an outside force and began to wreak havoc. However, more and more is revealed with each episode.

For a video game anime, the artwork is surprisingly good, and most of the voicework didn't bother me at all. It's obvious that Capcom went to great lengths to ensure that their precious Darkstalkers were not defiled. One of the best parts is learning about the Darkstalkers' pasts.

I found only two problems with this anime. First, there are a lot of Darkstalkers, and in some cases the less important ones are given a few seconds of screentime purely because it's obvious the makers wanted to at least acknowledge as many of them as possible. The major players are Rapter, Jon Talbain, Donovan, Morrigan, Demitri, Hsien-Ko, Pyron, Huitzil, Bishamon, and Felicia (yay!). Less important characters like Sasquatch, Vincent, and Rikuo are only given VERY brief cameos. It's not a major flaw...just an odd one.

The second problem is relative depending on who you are. The main character of this anime is Donovan. To the best of my knowledge, he's one of the less popular characters in the series when you compare him to, oh, Morrigan or Demitri. When you're the central character and have a borderline mute as your only companion, it doesn't help much to be a man of few words.

However, when this series is good, it is very good. Considering the short length, it does a great job tying up all the loose ends and coming to a satisfying conclusion, even if the grand finale is somewhat predictable. It's an absolute must for any fan of the game, and even for some people who have never even heard of it.

8/10

-- Eric 20th May 04

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