A great multiplayer game, a lacking single player game.
User Rating: 7.2 | Vampire Chronicle: The Chaos Tower PSP
Within the humongous tidal wave of launch titles that came out for PSP on March 24 or sooner, there was a game called Darkstalkers. Darkstalkers took the liberty of being the first ever fighting game for the PSP, and for the first ever fighting game for the PSP, it did alright. The game is like a halloween/fairy tale version of Street Fighter. It's a 2D arcade game that manages to entertain you the most when you're playing multiplayer. If you're going to buy this game, you might as well buy a second copy for your friend, because that's what it'll take to make the most out of the experience. If you know someone with a PSP and this game whom you spend time with frequently, then this is a pretty good choice of game for you, but if not, well, you may be better off with one of the other PSP games. If you're desperate for a fighter, Darkstalkers is your game, but if you'd rather wait for a fighter that just might have a single player campaign worth your time, you might wanna wait for The Con, or maybe you can skip straight ahead to the Street Fighter remake that Capcom has promised in the future, though I can't promise you either of those will have good single player either, since most standard fighters don't. The game comes with several different characters all with very unique styles, thankfully. There's Donovan who has a really hilarious power that summons God to smash you into the ground from the sky with his hand. Then there's Jedah who can pump you with blood until you explode, and there's also Baby Bonnie Hood, and just about every one of her moves is totally hilarious. There's lots of variety in gameplay which is why this is such a great and competitive game for multiplayer. You can spend hours upon hours at home perfecting your fighting style with each and every character just so you can own your friend at a match or two the next day. There's just so much variety and so much to learn. It's a very deep combat system. There are even ways to regain your health from a damaging move by your opponent. The arcade mode is standard coin machine gameplay. You fight a bunch of different characters one by one, till you get to the last one, then you win, and you enter your name on the high score list. Nothing special there. There's also the tower mode, which is kind of like the single player in old Mortal Kombat games (I havent' played any of the newer ones). In this mode you progress upwards through a tower of different characters. It's a little more complicated, though. What you do is, you'll start on one stage, beat the character, and whatever damage that character did to you in the last round will carry on to the next round, so if you're caught with low health from all the other guys by the time you get to the boss battle of that section, you're doomed. Another thing about this mode is that if you beat an opponent a certain way, like with a certain special move or a perfect victory, it gives you the ability to skip a few fights and go along a different path through the tower. Also, every new match you play in the tower gives you a new item in the chronicle section of the game, which is a collection of artwork, movies, and sounds from all darkstalkers games. Tower is not unenjoyable, it can probably do well passing the time in the car or something, but other than that, it's still pretty shallow. So the enjoyment of this game mostly depends on how many friends you have with the PSP and a copy of the game. If you know some, this is a great buy, but like most 2D fighters, it's just no fun playing by yourself. 
