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| Iggy 8465th Post
 
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
     
     
     
     
     
|  "The Vampire Savior appreciation thread" , posted Sun 20 Apr 09:15
Vampire Savior is my favorite fighting game ever. Maybe my favorite game.
I go back to it from regularly, and each time I am amazed by the love that crafted the slightest detail, the shades, the tiny animations, the musical brio, and the personality of each character. The ambiance is so unique, a delicate balance of gore and lust mixed in a huge bowl of Tex Avery that always bring a smile on my face.
Therefore, here is my propaganda thread. Feel free to participate.
Vampire is a series most of us think we know, because we have played with Morrigan and Felicia in a crossover or another. Needless to say, these versions had little to do with their original selves.
So, why that version of Vampire?
While Hunter 1 still has some fans, Savior 1 has more and, well, it's my favorite.
The game has been released on several consoles. Some ports are good, some are not, but the PS2 compilation has everything you can dream of, arcade-perfect, and more, so there shouldn't be the slightest hesitation. The loadings are lightening-fast, and the game can even be installed on HD.
Also, as a nice bonus: the compilation hasn't been done by Capcom USA, so the cover art is a gorgeous drawing by Ikeno, not a bewildering fanart by someone from Udon.
But what kind of game is it? And why is it different?
First and foremost, even though Vampire is the series that created the chain combo system, none of them is a combo game: you have to read your opponent’s mind, and each mistake can cost you a lot of energy.
Each character is really different from the other, and it isn’t a game where you can select at random and use some general aggressive or defensive tactic whoever your character is. One of the (numerous) failures of Capcom Fighting Jam was that the Vampire characters roughtly felt the same (compared to the stiffness of the rest of the cast), and even nerfed, they dominated. On the other hand, in Savior, nearly each character seems to come from a different game. Most players specialize in one or two of them, rarely three.
One of the particular features of Savior is that the fights are by downs, not by rounds: you aren’t healed when you deplete your opponent’s life, and that makes comebacks much more difficult. You can’t just surrender a round and store some gauge for the final round: the game is very unforgiving.
What makes the game quite different from SF2 is that you jump a lot. Several characters are safer in the air then on the ground, and nearly half of the cast has some sort of flight, hovering or multiple-jump feature. The trouble is that none of them has the same, so you really have to learn the particularities of your character from his most basic move (or select a character that stays on the ground if you rather).
Of course, the game being from an older generation, flying doesn’t allow you to launch and air-combo for dozens of seconds like a MvC2 or a Melty Blood. No character can fly away and play the timeout like Petshop: flying is aggressive in Savior, the game has been created at core with the air game in mind, and how to react when your character can’t fly.
Therefore, flying is not necessary to win, on the contrary. Some ground characters are amongst the strongest, and vice versa.
Another thing that enhance the importance of the air moves is the air guard. But it’s an aggressive air guard: it can only protect you from aerial attacks. What it means is simple: you can air guard a shôryûken, but not a standing uppercut.
Important consequence of this: even if your character has a projectile and a shôryûken, don’t play it like a Ryû clone or you will get raped to oblivion. Shôryûkens are weak in Savior.
A general overview of everyone before I get some sleep:
The three strongest characters are considered to be Sasquatch, Zabel and Q-Bee, in that order.
Sasquatch is easy to play as, has an incredibly strong rush game, and can rape almost everyone. Zabel is the strongest character... rhetorically. He has everything needed to win, but he is so deep no one can say they master him perfectly.
Finally, Q-Bee is the best flyer, a real pest, fast, and not so difficult to use when you know what to do. On the other hand, she has really low defense and can be killed by high damage combos very quickly.
Other strong characters : Gallon, with his powerful rush and special throw, or Bishamon, a very technical character. Buletta is an aggressive brat and has a rhetorical infinite to press your the enemy even more. Aulbath is more annoying than anything else with his unescapable bubble trap, and is neither very fun to play as or to fight.
Leilei and Dimitri are extremely difficult to master. But at least Leilei is very fun to play as, and many use her as a secondary character.
Felicia is OK I think.
Lilith is very interesting, a close combat specialist with huge damage potential, but she can die very easily.
The weaker characters are Victor (poor Victor), Jedah and, interestingly, Morrigan. The first two are still used because of their respective uniqueness (rush and tame for Victor, flying and zoning for Jedah) but Morrigan is one of the less interesting characters of the game, unfortunately.
Generally, Anakaris is considered to be the weakest; but he is so strange (even by the already strange standards of this game) that each Anakaris player has an unpredictable way to use his bizarre moves, and most tournament players say they would rather fight a powerful Sasquatch than a skilled Anakaris: at least, they know what to expect.
My other posts will try to present more clearly each character. Stay tuned!
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| Iron D 2857th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(1):The Vampire Savior appreciation thread" , posted Sun 20 Apr 13:18
Vampire Saviour was one of the few fighting games that I loved enough to actually buy an import copy of. This was back when it was first released on Saturn. I remember I got myself a summer job and saved up the money to get an import cartridge and the game. Both came up to about $75. I was only 15 or so at the time, and having been very poor $75 was a heck of a lot of money for me. Not only that, but I've never been good at saving money, so saving up my cash was actually a rare feat.
But it was worth it. I played that game to death, at one point owned the strategy guide made by Gamefan books (which I've since lost), and my sisters even got into it.
There are a couple of things that bug me though. First, the lack of character specific stages. The stages in this game are some awesome (Fetus of god, anyone?), but I always liked it better when each character had their own stage. Stage sharing always annoyed me. This is a nitpick however.
I also like the differences between it and other fighters. The already mentioned "down" system, pounces, the "dueling fireball" system where projectiles don't always just cancel each other out, etc.
A couple of questions: first, where can I go to read in depth strategy for the game? Shoryuken.com used to have a pretty good section, but I can't find it anymore. I played single player way more than anything else, and my sisters were the only competition that I had. One of my sisters was good, but between the two of us we weren't very high level players.
Second question: I am on the very brink of buying the PSP Vampire Saviour (even though I still have that same copy of VS I bought over a decade ago and it still works fine). I'll probably buy it no matter what is said here, but what should I know about it heading in? How does it rank among the console ports of VS?
Third question: Iggy gave me a rough idea, but does anyone have a complete tier listing? I'm not one of those tourney-driven tier whores, but tier lists have always been interesting and fun to read.
Fourth question: Does anyone know where I could maybe get another copy of that VS strategy guide? It's a very rare book, and Amazon didn't have it last time I checked.
Er.....
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| chazumaru 525th Post
New Red Carpet Member
| "Re: The Vampire Savior tasty sandwich thread" , posted Sun 20 Apr 19:25
←It's the 10th anniversary of Vampire Savior SS版 this week!
Vampire Hunter (SS版) was probably the fighting game I played the most (maybe even more than 3S and RB2) simply because it was released on Saturn at the perfect time of my adolescent life. It is somehow the game that drove me to play fighting games in arcades. I could often find a few machines in Europe and it was one of the few games with a small enough community that I knew I would not get raped by super-strong players whenever I popped up a coin.
As a result, I was really pumped up for Vampire Savior, especially because it marked the apex of the Saturn's second life as the best machine for arcade ports (of course, by today's standards, this does not hold true at all anymore). VS will always be associated in my mind with the clear blue 4MB cartridge, and the game was leagues ahead of X-Men Vs. Street Fighter in terms of atmosphere, surprises and sheer fun.
I love the Saturn port mostly for affective reasons; it oddly combines elements of VS1 and VS2 to become a beast of its own, it brought up a care for dot-art never seen before in fighting games, and although it came around the same time as Ryuuko Gaiden and SFIIING (two technical masterpieces), the much stronger personality made up for its technical shortcomings.
Avoid the Dreamcast version at all costs.
Iggy I strongly suggest that you acquire a copy of All About Series Vol.20 All About Vampire Savior by Studio Bent Stuff (1997 / ISBN4-88554-474-2). This one is about the first arcade game specifically. It is not that easy to find from my experience but it is filled with interesting stuff (trivia, sketches, interviews, etc).
Also "theoretical" and "rhetorical" are two different words.
IT'S THE BLACK PUDDING!
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| Nekros
21th Post
New Customer
| "Re(1):Re: The Vampire Savior tasty sandwich t" , posted Sun 20 Apr 19:49
quote:
Vampire Hunter (SS版) was probably the fighting game I played the most (maybe even more than 3S and RB2) simply because it was released on Saturn at the perfect time of my adolescent life. It is somehow the game that drove me to play fighting games in arcades
Same story here. I simply love this series, it deserves moe attention. The games were fantastic and full of original traits and gameplay choices. Me and my friends of the time spent LOTS of hours playing Hunter and Savior on SS and, to me, is the best fighting series ever.
Strangely, I'm an Aulbath player. Used him since Hunter (were he was better) and never get annoyed by his moves. I don't use the bubble EX a lot, I prefer spamming combos and grabs and I like way he plays because he's a ground character with a good anti-aerial and great speed.
Sincerely if someone (Arc, SNK, whatever) is hired by Capcom to make a new Vampire in 2D I would be glad and very pleased, but if a reprise of this series is like SF4 I'd prefer set it to eternal rest.
Oh, maybe and HD remixed done in Japan works well.
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| Iggy 8466th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Anakaris" , posted Sun 20 Apr 20:06
IronD : the PSP game has some sort of survival mode (the chaos tower) that isn’t in any other version. Beside that, I’ve heard the port was pretty bad (with long loading times, wrong proportions, etc).
As for the tiers, maybe Dimitri is higher now that some dedicated players studied him. Jedah must be above Victor, maybe on par with Lilith. With all the years of practice, some Zabel players finally mastered most of his possibilities and rose above many Sasquatchs. But generally speaking, I don’t think I made huge mistakes in my tier. Savior isn’t a really balanced game (less than Hunter in a way, but less unfair), and low tier characters have a really though time against Buletta or Sasquatch.
Individual characters : I’ll start with the king of kings, and I'll do Q Bee next; I hope it will help to solve Red Falcon’s problem. I think I’ll use VS.com as the general basis, with some Zabelron and All About VS to cover my lack of skills.
Anakaris
Anakaris is a character the core system of the game abandoned completely. He lacks systems all the others characters have and use proficiently: throws, advanced guard, and guard cancel. (actually, he has a guard cancel, but it sucks so much it's better to pretend he has none).
But on the other hand, he can do stuff none of the other characters can. The most important of all is his long hovering time. In a game where the air guard is so powerful, this alone is a huge benefit.
So, yeah, Anakaris is bottom tier. Without core game systems, he has a huge disadvantage against everyone else, and can sometimes die without a single opportunity to come back. But he can also win with surprising constancy, and sometimes totally revert the tier diagram. Like many characters of the game, Anakaris’s strength lies between the hands of the player.
Strengths
Anakaris has very poor defenses. But his attacks are quite powerful: the air pyramid ( ,  or  +  ) can be very tricky to guard when pressuring a downed opponent. But it is slow, so don’t abuse it (on the other hand, its very slowness can catch the opponent off guard). His combos are powerful as well, and the cobra blow and ES cobra blow are delightful.
His defenses are poor, but it doesn’t mean they don’t exist. He has long reaching moves, isn’t afraid of projectiles, can keep the opponent away and can teleport from the side of the screen when cornered. He also has this very unique move, the togame no ana (hole of punishment?), to swallow opponents trying to pressure him while he’s down. And it doesn’t even uses a gauge!
But one of his best assets is the  . It is actually one of the very best anti airs of the whole game: it’s fast, reaches high while Anakaris stays very low and safe, deals decent damage, and, since it’s a ground move, it can’t be air guarded. Of course, it has long recovery time, BUT you can chain combo with  to shorten the lag (and gain a few pixels of gauge in the process).
Jedah, Leilei and especially Q Bee, to answer Red Falcon’s question, hate this move.
Finally, the biggest advantage of Anakaris is his uniqueness. He has so many strange proprieties that many fighting game automatisms don’t work against him, and it’s very easy to let the opponent enter a sort of routine, then surprise him and land a devastating combo in his back.
Weaknesses
The biggest is of course the lack of basic systems. No advanced guard means huge trouble against the powerful rushes of Sasquatch and Galon. There is nearly nothing Anakaris can do against such an aggressive long dash, and the fight can very well end in a near perfect. The guard cancel is pathetic: not only does it uses a gauge, but after you’ve used it you are almost certain to face a normal throw.
The lack of normal throw is also a big disadvantage for a normally aggressive character. When in a situation where you should normally throw your opponent Anakaris is at risk to be the one thrown (like after his guard cancel). Also, since he can’t advanced guard, you have to specifically think of the risk of being thrown and input the antithrow manually, while the other characters just have to smash buttons to be safe in any situation.
His other weakness is his size. He is the biggest character of the game, and that makes him an easy target for the likes of Buletta and Leilei.
An Anakaris player must keep these weaknesses in mind at all time, and focus on winning the match before being dominated. One single mistake can cost the whole match, especially because of the down system. Anakaris is one of the characters that require the most patience, efforts, experience and love, but he is also one of the most original and fun character to use once you begin to know him.
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| Iggy 8467th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(1):Re: The Vampire Savior tasty sandwich t" , posted Sun 20 Apr 20:22
quote:
Iggy I strongly suggest that you acquire a copy of All About Series Vol.20 All About Vampire Savior by Studio Bent Stuff (1997 / ISBN4-88554-474-2). This one is about the first arcade game specifically. It is not that easy to find from my experience but it is filled with interesting stuff (trivia, sketches, interviews, etc).
Actually, Amazon.jp has it, and send it to me immediately after I asked them to, so I guess they have some left? It is indeed ridiculously handsome (like those of Warzard and SF3, that I bought along)
Also, the Vampire Graphic File that came out last year is gorgeous, with every piece of drawing ever made (even the fabulous covers of the PSP and PS2 games, and even some truly horrible third zone drawing for the novels and some Udon comics covers). I think it only forgot Demitri in SvC1, a real shame (but understandable). Well, now I think of it, it just doesn't mention any NGP game either, so that explains it.
quote:
Also "theoretical" and "rhetorical" are two different words.
Damn! The dangers of automatic spelling correctors.
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| Iggy 8468th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Q Bee" , posted Mon 21 Apr 00:09
quote:
What was wrong with the DC version?
From what I recall, the version was like HSF2, and all the characters had versions that "looked like" what they were/could have been in the other games of the series.
Not only was that not very convincing, but the game had some bugs (features), Savior versions were far from being faithful to the originals, and the anime moves (special moves whose animation continue while the opponent is being hit, which not only looks cool but also allow to move afterward) are gone, compromising several strategies.
It's not a total blasphemy (it's not the PS1 version) but it's still far away from a good Savior1 port. It has all sort of bonus, but it neglects the basic work.
Q-Bee
The most important trait of Q-Bee is the incredible speed of her low air dash ( ). It allows her to launch a high combo and chain once on the ground even faster than Sasquatch can. Of course, it all depend on the speed of the player, but no tournament player is able to react effectively to a fast homing air dash.
This is not her only weapon. Pushing  while jumping allows her to hover, which can be as tricky to master as it is to counter. Also, her vulnerability window is very specific, and needs to be learned both by the Q-Bee player and by players who want to hit her.
While she considered the third strongest character of the tier, several weaknesses prevent her from raising above Zabel and Sasquatch. She is a powerful character, but can die very easily and requires a lot of concentration.
Strengths
Once again, her low air dash. It is very versatile, and when done very low has basically the same properties as Sasquatch’s dash forward.
Her vulnerability window while in the air is very small. Almost everyone is Savior is safer in the air than on the ground, but it is particularly true for Q-Bee. Her jump is fast and powerful, so you should jump every time you feel in danger on the ground. Since she will mostly attack from the air, it is not rare to see a Q-Bee spending the most of the match flying.
Her normal moves are so good (except the crouching ones), you can win some matches without even using your special, ES and EX.
She also has a hidden strength: the way she wakes up. She is the character that wakes up the fastest. Her animation is very small, and can mess up the strategy of your opponent if he tries to pressure you routinely. If he doesn’t pay attention, you will be the one comboing his sorry ass as soon as he comes closer to your body.
Weaknesses
First, she has very low defense, and a good combo can take away a huge chunk of her life. Her air dash is powerful but requires a lot of practice and attention from the player, and it also requires a joystick in good condition: an old arcade cabinet with tired controls is especially though. Air dashes are powerful as long as they land a hit; many missed dashes lead to an early Q-bee death.
As I said, she has a very tiny vulnerability window while in the air, but on the ground, she is bigger than she seems and can be hit by moves that seem to stop just before her face. Also, when she crouch, she is lower than any other character, but also larger. That lets her wide open for crossups, and… well, either way she shouldn’t stay on the ground, so serves her well if she does.
She also doesn't have any convincing antiair: her best one may be her crouching strong punch, which does poor damage and can be air guarded.
In general, Q-Bee is strong in the air and weak on the ground, which means the first thing a player on the ground will do is to jump. This makes her easy to play as, since the basics are quite simple, but also easy to predict. It is difficult to surprise your opponent with Q-Bee, and every move you will do with her will have its share of immediate danger.
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| Iron D 2859th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Re(1):Anakaris" , posted Mon 21 Apr 14:05
quote:
IronD : the PSP game has some sort of survival mode (the chaos tower) that isn’t in any other version. Beside that, I’ve heard the port was pretty bad (with long loading times, wrong proportions, etc).
As for the tiers, maybe Dimitri is higher now that some dedicated players studied him. Jedah must be above Victor, maybe on par with Lilith. With all the years of practice, some Zabel players finally mastered most of his possibilities and rose above many Sasquatchs. But generally speaking, I don’t think I made huge mistakes in my tier. Savior isn’t a really balanced game (less than Hunter in a way, but less unfair), and low tier characters have a really though time against Buletta or Sasquatch.
Thankee Sai.
Er.....
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| Iggy 8470th Post
Platinum Carpet V.I.P- Board Master
| "Bulleta" , posted Tue 22 Apr 04:14
quote:
I never could get much out of anyone DF powers and always felt like I was missing out on something. So what DF's were good and how best to use them?
Most of the dark forces are either useless or weird. In most cases, you have better things to do with your gauge.
Red Falcon: Damn it, I'm afraid I'm too rusty to properly answer that (not having fought a lot of Q-Bee in my time doesn't help either). I usually spend a lot of time hovering with Anakaris. Maybe it's better to air guard? At worse she could hit you but not chain afterward... The problem of the togame no ana is that it's only useful when the opponent doesn't see it coming, so it can't be used mindlessly. Sorry I can't help more.
Bulleta
Bulleta is one of the more particular characters of an already particular cast. She requires a kind of dedication and experience that apply only to her, in order to use her as well as to fight her. She’s strong, but not top class. On the other hand, an unprepared opponent can be eaten up pretty easily by a skilled Bulleta. Also, several characters have a really though time against her.
Strengths
Bulleta is the only character of the game to have a real double jump. Her vulnerability window while in the air is really small, she has powerful air chain combos, and can easily counterattack with a  after a successful air guard.
Her Happy&Missile is one of the weakest projectile in term of projectile repelling, but it always cancels the opponent's, which make it really handy. Its ES version deals good damage, and it’s not uncommon to be bugged by annoying Bulletas jumping around, fleeing and launching missiles at random.
Her raising at the beginning of a jump is a great overhead and gives a lot of opportunities. It is also very easy to use, and every player should know at least one or two ways to deal with this particular attack if they want to survive.
Her ground dash is powerful, and can end in an overhead or a throw. The larger characters in particular should be especially careful against her.
Finally, she has an extremely difficult and not very damaging infinite with this dash. As an infinite, it isn’t very useful, but as a way to pressure your opponent and keep him from attacking, it does wonders.
Weaknesses
Bulleta doesn’t like being attacked on the ground. She is much safer in the air; in other words, she is in real danger as long as she is anywhere else.
First, her anti-airs require a lot of attention and experience. She has several (high happy&missile, backdash  or backdash  ), but neither is very effective.
Sometimes, you’re better just running under your opponent. Even though she has a great dash, it is easier said than done.
Another weakness is the fact the commands of some normal moves overwrite the one of her normal throw. When Bulleta leads the game, she can use her command throw, but when she has to throw to protect herself, she has to know exactly what her opponent is doing or she might just do a  or standing , which isn’t something you want in most cases.
Beautiful Memories has a long invincibility frame, but it’s so slow you risk a painful punishment every time you use it. Her guard cancel makes her move and doesn’t deal any damage.
In conclusion, even though Bulleta is a good at attacking on the ground, she must never stay there for long periods of time. Good Bulleta users must learn how to create their own opportunity to jump quickly into safety.
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| HAYATO 861th Post
Red Carpet Regular Member++
| "My VH appreciation post" , posted Wed 23 Apr 05:59
Oh, how I miss the days when Vampire Hunter on Sega Saturn was my favorite fighting game... I stayed tru e to it even after purchasing SFA2 and MSH, both games hat I loved, but didn't hooked me up as strongly as VH did.
I still consider VH as the pinnacle of the Darkstalkers series and whenever I hear people talking about the franchise, I can't help joining them, even to these days (yeah, such is the influence VH still has over me)...
Too bad that we don't have more games of its kind nowadays, although it's likely for the better, judging by Capcom's current "show me moh' money, bro!!" policy... It's time to admit it, boys: OUR Capcom died after SFIII, and it'll never come back
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Best site EVER:
"Re(1):The Vampire Savior appreciation thread" , posted Sun 20 Apr 13:26:
you see?
