Vampire Savior/Tutorial

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Introduction

WHAT IS VAMPIRE SAVIOR?

To briefly summarize, Vampire Savior, or VSAV for short, is a unique fighting game from 1997. The game is known for its super-fast pace, smooth gameplay, and super unique characters. While this is often a movement and momentum heavy game, the game gives you a lot of freedom to express yourself and play however you like. Offensive, Defensive and Neutral based styles will all work to great effect in this game if you play your cards right. This game is a unique experience that really does not play like any other game.

The Basic Gameplay Elements

This is your standard 1v1 fighting game with a few gameplay elements that stand out from other fighting games. The game has a life gauge, timer, and meter system just like most other fighting games, but there will are some differences that the player will immediately notice:

YOU HAVE LIVES, NOT ROUNDS

  • Each player by default has 2 Lives, or “Bats” as they will be called from here on out (since the indicator for these look like a bat). You will also notice that when a bat is lost, the round starts with ALMOST NO WARNING AT ALL. Players will still able to move while they are downed.

LIFE REGENERATES IN THIS GAME

When someone is hit with an attack, they will notice that there are three colors in the life gauge. They mean the following:

  • GREEN:

    The player’s current life
  • WHITE (Flickering):

    This health is regeneratable temporary damage.
  • RED:

    This is permanent damage. Once the gauge is completely red, they lose a bat

Couple things to note about the regeneration:

  • Regeneration happens when the player trying to regenerate is not being attacked for a period of time. Blocking and getting hit will reset the regeneration time.
  • White life is still damage. If it reaches that point where the life gauge is 0, and you still have a bunch of white damage, you still will lose the bat.

ES SPECIALS AND SUPERS ONLY COST 1 METER

  • ES Specials (this versions nomenclature of an EX move) and Supers (Referred to as EX in this game) you will notice immediately that all of them use 1 bar almost always (unless there are specific circumstances, like Demitri’s Midnight Pleasure).
  • 99 Meter is the maximum, but that is not feasible to get in an actual match.

The Unique System Mechanics

This game is home to a bunch of unique mechanics, much of which are not really found in any other game (at least with the implementation that VSAV handles it). These are some of the core mechanics that are required to know in order to help you reach high level play. They are as follows:

The Chain System

This is a universal attacking mechanic that every character has access to that allows everyone the ability to make their own combo chains. How it is implemented in this game is quite different to other games that also have a chaining system. The chaining system works like this:

  • You can go from Light > Medium > Heavy attacks, But you cannot go backward
  • You can go from Punch > Kick, but not Kick > Punch
  • To go to the higher power, go from P or K > Stronger P or K. This follows the above rules.
  • You are not allowed to cancel into specials from chains, EXCEPT for sequential supers (i.e. Morrigan’s Darkness Illusion). All other specials must be LINKED.

The above rules also apply to airchains as well, and there are some additional rules for airchains (which are a lot of rules):

  • Air normals do not have recovery like they do on the ground.
  • If you are hit while jumping, you get soft knockdown, which means that you are able to act almost immediately once you land, but you cannot tech roll.
  • If you attack with an air normal at all, you are not allowed to block until you land, or do aerial movement options if your character has them.
  • Connecting with an air normal will allow you to air chain, or cancel into aerial special, but you get locked out of any other actions until landing.
  • Attacking while landing will cancel your recovery frames, which make grounded links possible (ie. Jump in combos).
  • You can attack again if you whiff an air normal, but you cannot use the same normal twice, unless it was chained into.
    • People commonly use this technique to whiff a fast normal, and on the way down from a jump, attack with a heavier normal
  • On repeated jumps, attack restrictions can persist after the first normal, until you return to the ground into a neutral state. Holding up like this can lock you out of doing whiffed normal.
  • Air specials can be restored by kara cancelling
  • There are juggle states in the game, but those are rare.

Learning the chain system is essential for a player to be able to tack on the damage at any level. Chains are utilized by every character at all levels, so don’t be afraid to use them.

Pursuit Attack

Every character has a universal pursuit attack that can be performed on Up + Any attack (or the ES version, which is Up + any 2 punches or kicks). This can be used to tack on a bit of extra damage, but this generally sacrifices okizeme to do so, so know that doing so runs this risk. Also, this can be mistimed, and you will whiff it if you incorrectly do it. Some people though use this to their advantage to set up some okizeme situations. At high level, some characters will use it quite a bit, others not at all unless it is going to kill the opponent to do it.

Airblock

This is an important mechanic to know. This game has airblocking that can be used to great effect. It is not an unstoppable option though, so use it when you know you are at a situation that calls for it. The rules for airblocking are as follows:

  • You CANNOT airblock grounded normals.
  • Airblocking is still susceptible to air throws.

Wakeup and Tech Rolls

Another really important mechanic to know, since okizeme is very strong in this game. If you ever get knocked down, you are able to get up in multiple directions. You can Back Roll, Neutral Wakeup, and Forward Roll. They are executed as follows:

  • Do nothing to do Neutral Wakeup
  • Hold a direction and press a button to do Back Roll or Forward roll (Back +Button, and Forward + Button respectively)

It is important that you vary how you wake up since you need to do what you can to throw off opponent’s okizeme timings

Additional notes for Wake Up

  • Every character has different wakeup timings.
  • There is a wakeup timing for Neutral Wakeup, and different times for Forward and Back Roll. Forward and Back Roll almost always share the same timing.
    • The only character that ignores this rule is Q-Bee. She has 3 different wakeup timings rather than two like everyone else.

Pushblock

Often times referred to as Advancing Guard, or Tech Hit in this game. This is generally a mechanic people have questions on the most, since This is the only instance of pushblock that is implemented in this way. To perform, the user needs to block something successfully, and input as many individual button presses as they can before they are out of block stun, between 3 to 6 buttons. You have 14 frames to do so. When you successfully block, your character flashes, you see and hear TECH HIT, and the attacker is shoved away a certain distance.

The other unique part about this is dependent on how many individual button presses you get is the likelihood of the pushblock occurring. The percentages are as follows:

  • 1 press = 0%
  • 2 Presses = 0%
  • 3 Presses = 25%
  • 4 Presses = 50%
  • 5 Presses = 75%
  • 6 Presses = 100% (guaranteed)

The above are listed as flat checks. Below, you will see the actual odds of the pushblock happening:

  • You have a 0/32 chance (0%) of PB'ing on the first and second inputs.
  • You have a 8/32 chance (25%) of PB'ing on the third input.
  • You have a 12/32 chance (37.5%) of PB'ing on the fourth input.
  • You have a 9/32 chance of (28.125%) PB'ing on the fifth input.
  • You have a 3/32 chance of (9.375%) PB'ing on the sixth input.

Another thing: when the game says “Yes, you pushblocked”, depending on what the last button power was will be how far the opponent is pushed back. The distances are as follows:

  • PB on a Light button: Only a little distance, about ¼ screen
  • PB on a Medium Button: Further distance, about ½ screen.
  • PB on a Heavy Button: Furthest distance, about ¾ screen.

There are multiple techniques that are available for pushblocking. Find the technique that works best for you and use it. All of this said, Pushblocking should be treated similar to that of 3rd Strike parrying. Do it only when you are in danger and need to do it to avoid a bad situation, not because it is the hotness. When you pushblock, you are stuck, and cannot move, so you are willingly holding your position to do that. The only character that cannot utilize this at all is Anakaris, since he literally is unable to pushblock.

Some extra notes about Pushblocking:

  • The game is requesting that you get 3-6 UNIQUE button presses. This means that within those 14 frames, you have to get 3-6 frames where a button was pressed in that window
  • Pressing multiple buttons on the same frame still counts as 1 button
  • Pressing multiple buttons on the same frame will prioritize the lowest power button pressed (i.e, you press a Heavy and a Medium on the same frame, it interprets that as a Medium was pressed).

Guard Cancel

Similar to the pushblock mechanic, you also have those same 14 frames to input a guard cancel. Each character has a designated DP move that can be done in block stun that can be guard cancelled with no meter cost (unless the player does the ES version). The moves that are capable of doing this are as follows:

  • Demitri: Demon Cradle
  • Morrigan: Shadow Blade
  • Lilith: Shining Blade
  • Felicia: Delta Kick
  • Lei-Lei: Senpubuu
  • Jedah: Spleccio (GC Only)
  • Victor: Giga Burn
  • Anakaris: The Word of Truth (ES GC Only, requires meter to perform)
  • Aulbath: Trick Fish (GC version only)
  • Gallon: Beast Cannon (Diagonal)
  • Sasquatch: Big Typhoon
  • Q-Bee: R.M (GC Only)
  • Bishamon: Kien Zan (GC version only)
  • Bulleta: Jealousy & Fake (GC only)
  • Zabel: Death Phrase (GC Only)

Similar to how you use Pushblock, Guard Cancelling has the same fundamentals, being that you should only do it when you recognize that you are in danger if you do not do so, or in a situation that is advantageous to do so (i.e someone mashing strings on you). Like pushblock though, this is susceptible to being baited, and can potentially cause some characters trouble for using it. Some characters do not make use of this mechanic at all, simply because their Guard Cancel is bad (Anakaris, Gallon, Lei, Lei, Aulbath)

Some notes about Guard Cancel:

  • Guard Cancel is on the same timer as the Pushblock function, meaning that Pushblock and Guard Cancel have the same window (14 frames) where inputting it is valid.
  • Guard Cancel provides a small amount of extra invulnerability when successfully performed, even if the attach in question did not have invulnerability before.
  • Guard Cancels that hit opponents only do half the damage.
  • With the exception of Anakaris (since he must use meter for his) all GCs can be optionally ES’d

Dark Force

This is a universal mechanic that fundamentally changes how a character plays for a brief period of time. At the cost of 1 meter. Some characters use this mechanic well, others don’t use this mechanic much, and some do not use it at all. Dark Force is activated/deactivated by pressing Punch + Kick of the same power (i.e. Press Light Punch + Light Kick). The Dark Force effects are as follows:

  • Demitri
    • Bat Master – Every time he attacks, bats flare up to tack on an extra hit.
  • Morrigan
    • Astral Vision – Makes a duplicate Morrigan appear on the other side of the opponent, effectively doubling her damage.
  • Felicia
    • Kitty Helper – Causes a kitten to pounce an attack every time Felicia does, provided the kitty is on the ground.
  • Lei-Lei
    • Daisbousou Rimoukan – Causes Lei-Lei to be in a Hyper Armor state that gives her a unique set of normals, and run, and she cannot be thrown, but she cannot airdash or do specials in this state.
  • Bulleta
    • The Killing Time – Causes all of her attacks to only fire missiles that do not require charge.
  • Lilith
    • Mimic Doll – (activated by LP+LK or MP+MK) This causes an identical copy of Lilith to do everything she does with a short delay after.
    • Mirror Doll – (Activated by HP+HK) This causes a mirror copy to appear behind the opponent, effectively doubling her damage. This is identical in function to Morrigan’s Astral Vision
  • Jedah
    • Santo Ario – This puts Jedah into a flight mode that allows him to move freely about the screen
  • Q-Bee
    • I^2 – This puts Q-Bee into a flight mode that allow her to move freely about the screen. This is identical in function to Jedah’s Santo Ario.
  • Bishamon
    • Kyouka Yoroi: Kogane Katabira – This mode grants Bishamon Super Armor in this state, and additionally, he does not take chip damage in this form either.
  • Aulbath
    • Mach Crab – This grants Aulbath a limited flight mode (where the user sees the water on the screen). While he is on the crab, he has unlimited Hyper Armor, and cannot be thrown.
  • Sasquatch
    • Big Resistor – (Activated with LP+LK, or MP+MK) This gives Sasquatch Super Armor, and the ability to do airchains off of simply doing his dash.
    • M.A.P.S. – (Activated with HP+HK) This gives Sasquatch an army of penguin helpers that blow up every time Sasquatch attacks.
  • Victor
    • Great Gerdenheim: Grab – (activated with LP+LK, or MP+MK) This turns Victor’s punch normal into a highly damaging command grab, however, he loses his punch attacks in this mode. Additionally, this gives him a super fast dash.
    • Great Gerdenheim: Electric – (Activated with HP+HK) This makes it so that all of the Medium and Heavy buttons will automatically do the electric versions. Additionally, this gives him a super fast dash.
  • Gallon
    • Mirage Body – This gives Gallon 2 mirage duplicates of him that do attacks at about the same time he does, tacking on multiple hits per attack.
  • Zabel
    • Ultimate Undead: This turns Zabel into a character that has multi hitting chainsaw moves and a unique hop dash, as well as a unique guard cancel, however, he cannot do specials in this state outside of the guard cancel, nor does he have an airdash. This is in many ways identical to Lei-Lei’s Daisbousou Rimoukan.
  • Anakaris
    • Pharoah Split – Causes Anakaris to split into two parts, where the upper half is controlled by the player with flight mode, and the other half is a pair of legs that walks around on his own. Anakaris can press punch to attack himself, and press kick to attack with the legs. The legs cannot get hit, and Anakaris’ Upper Half has Hyper Armor.

Some characters may or may not use this mechanic. This is the frequency you MIGHT see these characters use it:

This character will likely use it. Not uncommon to see this character do it.

  • Jedah
  • Felicia
  • Aulbath

This character may have situational uses for it, but it is very rarely used.

  • Gallon
  • Lilith
  • Zabel
  • Lei-Lei
  • Bishamon
  • Bulleta
  • Victor (Great Gerdenheim: Grab)
  • Lilith (Mimic Doll)
  • Zabel
  • Sasquatch (Big Resistor)

This character will not use this at all, or it is not explored yet.

  • Anakaris
  • Sasquatch (M.A.P.S)
  • Demitri
  • Q-Bee
  • Victor (Great Gerdenheim: Electric)
  • Lilith (Mirror Doll)
  • Morrigan

Some notes about Dark Force:

  • Dark Force has invulnerable startup for all Dark Forces. This is dependent on the character, but the character is invulnerable the entire animation until they can act.
  • Dark Force has an unsafe deactivate animation that is also different per character. The only characters that do not have a standard deactivate animation is Jedah, Q-Bee, Aulbath, Anakaris, and Lei-Lei.
  • Each time a player is hit that is in Dark Force, their Dark Force timer will expire faster (i.e. you will see a chunk taken out of the timer for each hit. Note that throws do not do this).

Who Should I Play Starting Off?

Every character is very unique in this game, and there is a character for everyone in this game. People oftentimes will be surprised who they end up playing. Every character is also viable (but whether or not the character is good is a different story), and every character in the history of this game has at least had one recorded tournament win, or one outstanding player that clearly shines above the rest. Every character is incredibly hard to truly master (even the easier characters), but to pick up and play: the characters will vary in difficulty. It’s generally agreed upon for being this, in no particular order outside of their general difficulty to pick up: (Note this does not take into consideration how well they use system mechanics, or character flaws, strengths, etc. This is simply how easy it would be for someone brand new to pick up the character and play the game with them starting off)

EASY:

  • Felicia
  • Demitri
  • Sasquatch
  • Gallon
  • Aulbath

MEDIUM:

  • Morrigan
  • Lilith
  • Anakaris
  • Victor
  • Q-Bee

HARD:

  • Bishamon
  • Bulleta
  • Jedah
  • Zabel
  • Lei-Lei

What are these terms I keep hearing?

There are a lot of Japanese terms that you may not come across often that get regularly used for this game. They often describe concepts and situations that you will encounter in this game, and they are as follows:

  • Ireppa – This is also known as “upbacking”, which is the defensive measure that is taken to describe “Airblocking”.
  • Zurashi – Also commonly referred to as “staggering”, this describes a player intentionally leaving gaps in their strings to catch mashing/pushblock leaks/etc.
  • Abare – Most of the time, you hear this in reference to “mashing”. While mashing generally isn’t good if used incorrectly, someone with “Good Abare” might have the wherewithal to press a button against a bad blockstring/action when they detect it.
  • Okizeme – Pretty much a universal term to describe how a person handles a “knockdown situation”. This can be anything in response to a person getting knocked down.
  • Kara Cancel – This describes a player that is cancelling a normal before it starts up into a special or something else that it can be cancelled into. You generally hear this term for characters like Demitri when he is kara cancelling his Cr. Mk into Demon Cradle to get more meter.
  • Gaafu – Though typically only used in JP circles, this is the term they use to describe an “Anti Guard” attack, or better known to us as an “Unblockable”. This generally signifies an attack or attacking sequence that cannot be blocked at all. (This is not talking about throws).

FAQ’s

"This is great and all, but what do I need to get good at the game?"

  • All of the above fundamental are necessary to get good at the game. That said, a good player generally has these skills:
    • A good sense of neutral and movement that is put first and foremost.
    • The player’s defense is able to handle even some of the dumbest situations that the game can cause
    • The player will have good use of buttons, and is able to handle any situation that requires buttons (okizeme, anti-airs, etc)
    • The player also can perform okizeme with their character, and be able to do it well.
    • They have the character’s gameplan down pat, and can change their pacing/actions to create variants of their gameplan on a whim.
    • Knowledge of how every character functions, and how their character interacts with the rest of the cast.
    • They are able to execute the system mechanics well, and have full knowledge of how the system works.
  • Notice how “combos” are not on this list. Combos are not required to make your character function. Instead, they are there to complete the character once the player has learned everything there is fundamentally with the character.

"Why is Donovan, Huitzil and Pyron not in this game?"

  • Due to the memory limitations of VSAV, previous characters such as Donovan, Huitzil and Pyron are not in the game because the game literally does not have the memory to support them, and NO, these characters CANNOT be hacked in. It just isn't possible at this time.

"What version of the game do people play?"

  • If you are going to be paying offline, You generally will see this game on Superguns, which are consolized arcade machines that allow anyone to plug in their stick and play. Lately the FPGA Mister has been rising up to potentially replace the Supergun, since that is an even more portable setup with pretty much arcade perfect accuracy. For console releases, Darkstalkers Resurrection is the best port that you can get. It has unique training mode features, and good netcode, with optimal frame delay. Online, generally people play on Fightcade 2. This has the best netcode that is available, and it is easy to setup.

Other good ports are the Saturn port, which is pretty much arcade perfect and has Donovan, Huitzil and Pyron, but the aspect ratio is weird, and is on hardware that is not easy for people to use their desired peripherals on; the PS2 port of the game is arcade perfect, but it has slowdown issues with multiplayer, making it not terribly viable to use as a means to play. Generally all other versions that are not listed are not considered accurate, and thus, are not considered at all for regular play.

"There’s a VSAV 2, and a VHUNT 2. Why does no one play that?"

  • Generally, fans were very happy with VSAV’s presentation, system, and gameplay. VSAV2 and VHUNT2 are updates to that game that changed the game a great deal to feel totally different. There were a lot of changes that the players did not like, and the system had even more problems added to the game due to the changes. Additionally some characters that are fan favorites were removed dependent on what version you are playing. Generally these games are not even played on a casual level, as these were just versions of the game that were just slapped together.

"I am not really sure what character to play in this game."

  • All of the characters are unique in this game, and everyone can be played in any style they choose within the limitations of their tool kit. The game is known for having unique characters that don’t play like anything else. It’s generally a good idea to not compare the characters to specific archetypes like how people do for street fighter (i.e. referring to Demitri as a shoto, while not super inaccurate, he bears very little resemblance to that style.) This is definitely a game to approach with an open mind with the character you play, because you may be playing a character that you did not expect to play. Happens all the time with this game.

"What are the tier listings?"

  • USA and Japan have different views on what the current tier list for the characters. This is generally used to provide top-player insight as to how well a character works within the systems of the game versus the whole cast. Keep in mind that this is just subjective, and does not reflect how well a player would perform in the game with a character, regardless of how good or crappy the character is. Each character has had at least one recorded tournament win in the history of the game, so really, the tier list is only really a factor at the highest level; And too many times have the difficulties characters would face have been overcome in tournament. This is generally how the list differs between JP and USA.

Japan (According to Dara Demitri, 2021)

  • SSS Tier
    • Zabel
  • SS Tier
    • Sasquatch
  • S Tier
    • Q-Bee
    • Bishamon
    • Aulbath
  • A Tier
    • Gallon
    • Felicia
    • Bulleta
  • B Tier
    • Lei-Lei
    • Demitri
    • Lilith
  • C Tier
    • Jedah
    • Morrigan
    • Anakaris
    • Victor

USA (Generally agreed upon, 2015 (?))

  • Top Tier
    • Zabel
    • Sasquatch
    • Q-Bee
    • Gallon
  • Mid-High Tier
    • Aulbath
    • Bishamon
  • Mid Tier
    • Felicia
    • Bulleta
    • Lilith
  • Mid-Low Tier
    • Demitri
    • Lei-Lei
  • Low Tier
    • Jedah
    • Morrigan
    • Victor
    • Anakaris

Advanced VSAV Concepts

NOTE: This is a work in progress.

So now that you are aware of how the game works overall, you will need to learn how to actually play the game via the concepts/system mechanics required to be a stronger player. In order to take the necessary steps to get better at this game, you will need to learn how to best utilize the mechanics, and how to combat them as necessary, as well as concepts that you will need to be a better player in general. This will be more of a subjective look compared to the information above, but this will hopefully serve you well when you are learning the game.

You need to learn how to do neutral

This is something that goes without saying. The dynamic in this game is that you are playing neutral to get the momentum necessary to run your offense and put the pressure on the opponent. Momentum is very strong in this game, and very hard to deal with from any character; So you need to be able to position yourself effectively, so that you can maximize your character's potential strengths of their movement, normals, AA's, etc. and be able to take momentum in your hands at a moment's notice. You may need to adjust your neutral based on your character, or based on what the other character is doing in respects to what your character is doing.

Example, Felicia may back off, because she is looking to see what the opponent is going to do, or if she learns that the opponent does not contest anything in neutral situations, she may decide do go in on the opponent and start attacking. She could also know that the opponent likes to jump, so she may wait for an opportunity or force a situation where the opponent will reactionarily jump or will just jump; But seeing as she is in a good space, she can just smack them for even trying to entertain the thought of them jumping.

Beware though, not every situation in neutral gives you license to start going full bore. You may end up finding that you will no longer have momentum, and instead, give your opponent the momentum through a simple error you made in how you played. It is up to you to learn how to identify these situations and learn what to do/what NOT to do, so that you can effectively maximize how you do neutral, and play as safe as possible.

You need to learn how to keep momentum

As was previously stated, this game is heavily momentum based game that every character will utilize as much as possible to put the heat on as much as possible. This can pretty easily be done when you gain momentum after you win specific neutral situations

You need to learn how to regain momentum

You need to learn Oki

This game is also very knockdown based too. This adds to a game that is already heavily momentum based.

You need to be able to pushblock (when necessary)

You need to also be able to Guard Cancel (If your character has a good one)

You need situational awareness above ANYTHING ELSE

General
FAQ
Controls
Glossary
HUD
Training
Community
Tournaments
Links
Characters
Anakaris
Aulbath
Bishamon
Bulleta
Demitri
Felicia
Gallon
Jedah
Lei-Lei
Lilith
Morrigan
Q-Bee
Sasquatch
Victor
Zabel
Mechanics
Other
Hacks