Darkstalkers is a solid fighting game, but it doesn't stand out as a must-own title for the PSP.
User Rating: 7.5 | Vampire Chronicle: The Chaos Tower PSP
Darkstalkers has always been one of my favorite Capcom fighters. It may not play quite as well as Street Fighter II, but I have always loved the characters in the Darkstalkers franchise. Darkstalkers Chronicles: The Chaos Tower brings the characters I adore to the PSP, and I must say that they look better than ever. It may not be the flashiest looking game on the PSP, but crisp visuals and a solid frame rate make this one of the prettiest games to look at on Sony's handheld, and also the best looking port of Darkstalkers yet. Darkstalkers Chronicle also sounds fantastic. The music is authentic and sounds better than ever on the PSP, and the Japanese voice track is outstanding and lively in battle. In fact, the presentation itself is lively and better than ever. The game consists of all three Darkstalkers games and it is easy to navigate to which one you want to play and you can easily mix and match the way you fight with the characters and levels from other Darkstalkers games. The options here are tremendous. If you can get into it, you will most likely find tons of replay value in the arcade mode and experimenting with the different options is great, but the gameplay leaves a little to be desired. Don't get me wrong, Darkstalkers is a great playing game, but the PSP's d-pad makes it difficult to pull off specials and makes it more of a button-masher than ever before. This drags down the replay value of the game as well because the Chaos Tower mode forces you to sit through way too much loading to be even remotely worth playing, so you are basically stuck with a button-mashing arcade mode as your only single player choice. Multiplayer is fun if you have someone to play against, but online play is disappointingly absent. I would recommend Darkstalkers if you are looking for a solid fighting game. It's not the best game out there, but it is still a good game that fans of the series should enjoy. I would have loved the see some more content to improve the lasting value, but it still stands a solid fighter that is worth picking up if you need a good portable game. 
