Darkstalkers Graphic File [Paperback]

Capcom (Author, Artist)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 29, 2008

The Darkstalkers are the things that go bump in the night! From the original arcade games, to the popular Playstation ports and the recently released game for the PSP, this gorgeous full-color art book showcases the ghoulish monsters and sexy seductresses from one of Capcom's most beloved videogame properties.

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Udon Entertainment (December 29, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1897376049
• ISBN-13: 978-1897376041
• Product Dimensions: 11.7 x 8.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #762,912 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not really an art book - tiny concept sketches and blurry screenshots, January 20, 2009

By 

Jason Adams (United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Darkstalkers Graphic File (Paperback)

I was hoping this would have more concept sketches and other "raw" materials from the series' development. Instead there is quite a bit of (I think useless) stuff like character win quotes and move lists.

"Graphic file" must not mean "art book" though. It's more like a record of the series.

Since most of the appeal of the Darkstalkers series is the characters themselves, and the detailed and creative animation of those characters and backgrounds, I thought it would include more of that kind of material.

It does have more early concepts for the characters than what I've seen in strategy guides or other Capcom art books, but they are mostly around to 1 x 1 inch on the page.

Most of the screenshots of the unique special moves or other animations that you barely see while playing the game are tiny and often blurry. Having a frame-by-frame sequence of some (not all) of the moves would have been more interesting.

The people interested in this kind of book know it's an old series and that the graphics are low resolution, so I hope they didn't try to smooth or blur the screenshots thinking they would look better that way.

I also was hoping to see sketches showing how some moves were developed and animated, and maybe examples of the amount of detail they may have lost when converting it to a lower resolution sprite - or how they managed to keep a lot of that detail.

There is a lot of info in the book and it's organized well, but didn't have a lot of content I was expecting.

So I still would recommend it to fans of the series artwork, mainly because there probably won't be another book for Darkstalkers anyway. I thought it would be more like the Okami art book or some of the older Metal Gear art books though.

If there actually is a Darkstalkers/Vampire book with this kind of stuff already (US or Japanese), please note that in a review or comment to this review.


Summary:

3-4 stars, depending on what you're looking for.

+ Includes artwork not found in other books/guides
+ Well organized and printed book

- Very tiny artwork/screenshots, aside from most of the main/final pieces
- Not as much concept and raw materials as was expected

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very enjoyable except for the tiny screenshots, June 27, 2009

By 

Parka (Singapore) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Darkstalkers Graphic File (Paperback)

Length:: 0:18 Mins

Darkstalkers probably has the most unique character designs in 1-on-1 fighting games. Maybe it's because the characters aren't human and there's more leeway for designs. I only knew of Darkstalkers because several characters appeared in Super Puzzle Fighter 2, which I use to play.

Darkstalkers Graphic File is an art book and game guide thrown into one. There are three chapters, the art gallery, the character profiles and other miscellaneous stuff.

The art gallery section is quite thin with only 24 pages. These are the fully coloured splash pages and character portraits. The style of work will be familiar as they are done by the usual Capcom artists, Ikeno, CRMK, Arnold Tsang, Shinkiro and Kinu Nishimura among other artists.

In the character profile section, additional individual character concept illustrations and sketches are presented. This includes the various designs created for the different game series. Also included is the story of each character, from the first Darkstalker game to the later Vampire Hunter 2. There are command lists, screenshots, ending gallery and victory dialogues. Unfortunately, the screenshots are too small and details in it are hard to make out.

And in the last retrospective section, there's the Darkstalkers timeline, promotional materials like toys and goods, soundtracks, books, etc. There are even command list printouts, those that pasted on the arcade machines.

There's just enough art for it to be considered an art book, and overall is a pretty interesting book I'll recommend.

(More pictures are available on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful book for Darkstalker fans, January 8, 2009

By 

T. Hueston - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Darkstalkers Graphic File (Paperback)

This book has all kinds of artwork both from the game, and from the production of all three of them. They have suggested character designs and realistic portraits of all the characters, and their backstories included. The only drawnback I could see was that the text was in japanese.