Oh boy where to begin. Lets start by saying this: I wasnt expecting this 4episode OVA to be a masterpiece. I mean look at most videogame adaptations just mere publicity stunts to sell us merchandise or promote new material. Theres always the occasional diamond in the rough or even some adaptations that may even only appeal to longterm fans. But these OVAs are not even that kind of fanservice. Its pretty safe to say that not a single person in the studio tried to understand the source why their fans love it what makes the game tick and the universe profitable. And I assure you its not me being all old man yells at cloud about it. Theres definitely something off here way off. Ill try to pinpoint whats wrong with Vampire Warrior or whatever its called in your country. 1: The Plot In a game about monsters beating the hell out of each other with amazing over the top and even cartoonish animations these OVAs chose to orbit mostly around some random HUMANS. Simple common humans. A sage a war general a butler some townsfolk everyone gets their dialog lines. All the main franchise characters dont get to explain their motivations or what are they doing besides trying not to be killed. Let me repeat that so its completely clear: its neither about the monsters nor some human thats relevant to the Darkstalkers universe. This is about humanity itself and its impending doom because apparently those pesky monsters are trying to annihilate everyone around. And that somehow should matter to the spectator... I guess? I think that the studio tried so hard to tie every single character in a single plotline. Problem is... how do you make sense out of werewolf fighting furry catgirl and vampire vs cursed samurai armor? How do you draw a cohesive line that connects all these strange characters together? Their solution to this problem was this: theres monsters. Monsters and humans dont mix. Theres mostly bad monsters but also good monsters. Bad monsters are bad and try to eradicate humans. Good monsters then try to stop it. So then again humans are key to the whole plot. Did I expect when watching a Darkstalkers OVA series to watch 10minute long conversations between absolutely irrelevant humans? Well of course I did because thats what the games were all about 2: The Animation While the animation doesnt suck its kinda bland and genericlooking. These OVAs take themselves way too seriously making some stylistic changes that dont seem to work that well. They made everything too dark and grim where the original material had tons of humor and selfawareness galore. And bright colors goddamn just look at the original art direction the contrast the palette choices anything. And there is a yet another annoying thing about it tho. Maybe the animators were way too eager to show us that they could replicate the characters signature moves you know the hadoukens and kamehamehas of this franchise but they spent so much time animating EVERY. SINGLE. MOVESET. of EVERY. CHARACTER. in EVERY. SINGLE. FIGHT. And then it also fails to do so. Pixel art doesnt translate perfectly or easily to traditional animation and in result everything looks overly stiff and choreographed. I mean its fanservice. But I feel its bad fanservice the one that tries to push all the right buttons as fast as posible and be over with it. I felt like I was being milked while watching this. The occasional signature move or reference would have been a great thing dont get me wrong but this felt disingenuous. Conclusion Watch this one if you want to know how not to adapt a videogame to an animation series. Long gone are the quirk and charm of the source material the original vision and design and any reason to possibly love these OVAs and the Darkstalkers games at the same time. But... maybe thats the marketing strategy? It really makes you miss the original games so much you end up buying more of their stuff. As you read this last line I may or may not have bought their last compilation game Darkstalkers Resurrection on my PS3.