Capcom introduced a twist for one-on-one fighting games with DarkStalkers, a Gothic version of mortal combat that pitted the player against some old and legendary creatures of the dark.

The premise of the game was that dead, undead and the simply weird rose from the graves for the sake of fighting in the tournament but really, no explanation was needed for matching up a Romanian vampire named Maximoff against a British werewolf named Jon Talbain. Other critters included the ancient mummy Anakaris from Egypt, Canadian Sasquatch, Brazilian merman Rikuo, Dr. Frankenstein's German monster Victor von Genderheim, cursed Japanese samurai Bishamon, Scottish succubus Morrigan Aensland, Australian zombie Lord Raptor and the youngest of the bunch, American catwoman Felicia.

That veritable menagerie of things that go bump in the night enjoyed advanced graphics and sound, similar but upgraded from Capcom's earlier Street Fighter II game. Each fighter could punch, kick and jump but also featured special moves and animations unique to each character. When Lord Zombie leveled an opponent you could hear his Evil Scream, Anakaris possessed Pharaoh Magic and Morrigan showed off his Darkness Illusion.

A special meter kept tally of each fighter's attack and when the meter was full, it conferred extra power to the fighter's assaults and allowed him or her to use superpowered moves. All the bells and whistles proved very attractive to arcade goers both in the U.S. and Japan, where two different versions of the game were released. Japan only got two sequels of DarkStalkers leaving bereft American gamers to contemplate their luckier counterparts across the Pacific.