Night Warriors 2 Arrange (Vampire Hunter 2 Arrange in Japan) is one of the arranged editions in Capcom's 2005 PlayStation 2 Vampire: Darkstalkers Collection. It never had an arcade release. This backport rebuilds it as a CPS-2 game.
Back in August I wrote that the Arrange modes lean on code and memory the CPS-2 doesn't have, which made backporting them a much harder prospect. They needed more memory than the original hardware had, so they run on CPS-2+, an extended CPS-2 system for MiSTer and HBMAME (more on that below).
What's in it
- The Savior fighters it lacked: Vampire Hunter 2's presentation, with Pyron as the final boss, plus Jedah, Lilith, Q-Bee and B.B. Hood (Bulleta in Japan). Each brings their themes from Vampire Savior 2's arcade music, two apiece.
- Dee, the fighter Capcom made for the Arrange, on his own select cell.
- The Arrange's game system: rounds without recoverable health, revised damage and Dark Force, and counter hits that flash white and can force a knockdown. KOs play in slow motion.
- Every CPU route ends with Huitzil and Pyron.
- NIGHTMARE, a ninth difficulty in the operator menu. At NIGHTMARE, win the secret Oboro Bishamon fight and Dee is waiting.
- B.B. Hood's spoken intro against Jon Talbain is back, from the original Vampire Savior.
- Two builds: USA (Night Warriors 2 Arrange) in English, with the same translation as my Night Warriors 2 release, and Japan (Vampire Hunter 2 Arrange) in Japanese.
- On the bottom cell, press Down to spin the roulette, Start five times for Shadow, or Start seven times for Marionette.
- Hold Start while confirming Bishamon for Oboro Bishamon, or Jon Talbain for his dark form.
The USA build's title screen.
New in rc1
First public release.Getting it running
- It needs CPS-2+. On MiSTer, that means a 128 MB SDRAM module (a smaller one isn't enough) and the CPS+ core, which the kit includes. On a computer, it needs HBMAME with the CPS+ driver. It doesn't run on the standard jtCPS2 core or in stock MAME. The CPS-2+ page explains how the extended system works.
- You need your own Vampire: Darkstalkers Collection (Japan) PlayStation 2 disc image, and your own Japanese arcade romsets:
vhunt2,vsav2andvsavj. - The kit reads the Arrange edition from your disc image, combines it with your romsets, and writes out the finished sets for MiSTer and HBMAME (
vhunt2s02for USA,vhunt2s03for Japan). It ships only my own code, translated text and layout, plus the CPS+ core with its source and licenses. - On MiSTer, each game image is about 92 MB, so it takes longer to load than the original game.
This is a release candidate. Bug reports and suggestions are welcome right here. Tell me which build you ran and what you saw.
Fan work, unaffiliated with Capcom.
