Darkstalkers Chronicle to be US PSP launch title

By Tom Bramwell Published 6 January, 2005

Capcom's 2D fighter will be released alongside the PSP in March, Capcom USA revealed this week.

Darkstalkers Chronicle: The Chaos Tower is being billed as a launch title for the PlayStation Portable in the USA - which means that by Sony's latest estimate it should be out alongside the unit in March.

That could very well mean it turns out to be a launch title in Europe, too, where the PSP is also set to launch during March.

Darkstalkers Chronicle (which you may have encountered as "Vampire Chronicle" in Japanese playtests) is a 2D fighter compiling the five Darkstalkers titles released by Capcom on various formats and adding PSP-exclusive content.

It features 18 characters and five game modes. In addition to the expect arcade and training modes, the game support two-player wireless bouts in network mode, and features a couple of oddities in "tower" and "chronicle" areas.

"Tower" involves picking three characters and trying to lead them to the top of a tower by fighting enemies on every floor, with a variety of winning conditions - like having to defeat an enemy using kicks only.

Chronicle mode, meanwhile, is more of a gallery affair, featuring images, sounds and movies reflecting on the various games in the series to date.

Nobody's distributing PSP review code here in Europe just yet, so we haven't had a chance to try out Darkstalkers Chronicle for ourselves, but we'll be sure to let you know what we think when we do.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (3) Latest comment 7 years ago

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  • Dizzy #1 7 years ago

    >is more of a gallery affair, featuring images

    Hmmm...

    /has images of Morrigan

    ;)

    Seriously. I would love to have a DS game to play on a portable. Loved it on my Saturn. I wonder if it plays well enough with the PSP controls?

  • Pirotic #2 7 years ago

    It's a spiffy game, the 'Tower' mode is a bit like the "weapon master" mode in Soul Calibur 2.

    The tower itself is pretty much a rip off of that Mortal Combat tower, the one where it scrolls up to show your current fight - the only difference being that this tower has branchs, and depending on how well you win a battle and which character your using you may take a different branch.

    You have to pick three fighters to begin wtih, and before each match you pick which one you want to use - the problem being that any health you lose is remembered, so by the time you get near the top of the tower you'll have 3 almost dead fighters to pick from :p

    everytime you win a fight (for the first time) you get some free artwork which you can look at in the 'Cronicle' mode - this is the posters, the game covers, design sketchs of the characters and basically lots of morrigan with her whams out (and yes, you can zoom). you can also use the 'cronicles' to do a sound-test, and view any endings/intros you've unlocked by playing the standard arcade mode.

    What really makes the game a winner is the screen. i've never seen 2D look that good before, and the pencil (unlockable) artwork is so clear you could honestly be looking at the paper it was drawn on.

    Downside is it doesn't support the analogue stick, and while the D-pad is perfectly useable i'd of liked to of maybe tried using the stick to see if its any easier for the rolling moves (fireballs etc).

    The only other downside being that its Darkstalkers - a pretty decent beat-em-up in its own right, and without a doubt the best illeration i've played, but it's no Street Fighter.
    Edited by 1 at 06/01/05 @ 18:32

  • tengu #3 7 years ago

    Aw, fucking excellent! I love Darkstalkers! That's it, PSP all the way for me, DS can take a running jump now.