Vampire Savior Arrange (Arcade backport)

strygo

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Download and instructions at arcadepatches.com
Current version: rc1 (October 13, 2026)​

Vampire Savior Arrange 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​

  • Vampire Savior's game system, with recoverable health and Dark Force.
  • Donovan, Huitzil and Pyron return to the roster (Phobos in Japan), with their moves, voices, endings and win quotes. The Arrange's character changes and colors are included.
  • Dee, the fighter Capcom made for the Arrange, on his own select cell at the bottom of the screen, with his own moves and voice.
  • The bottom cell also offers roulette and Shadow, which takes over the defeated opponent after a win. Oboro Bishamon and Jon Talbain's dark form are selectable with Start.
  • On MiSTer, the Collection's music plays for the restored scenes and Dee's boss fight, and the arcade music everywhere else.
  • Two builds: USA in English, with my own translation, and Japan in Japanese.

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Dee in battle.

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The Arrange's character select.​

New in rc1​

First public release.

Getting it running​

  • It needs CPS-2+. On MiSTer, that means a 128 MB SDRAM module 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: vsavj (Vampire Savior) and vsav2 (Vampire Savior 2).
  • On MiSTer, copy the contents of the kit's out/mister/ folder to the root of your SD card. It holds the core, the ROMs, the music pack and one entry per region, under _Arcade/_Arcade Patches/_Restorations (Japan in its _Japan subfolder).
  • 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 (vsavs01 for USA, vsavs02 for Japan). The kit is my reconstruction code and a short list of byte patches; everything else is rebuilt on your machine from files you already own.
Full instructions are on the project page.

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.
 
I think this is the most impressive restoration so far, amazing stuff.

Bug report: When you finish the game with a character, it resets before the ending. (morrigan and demitri)
Bug report: Huitzil's lazers don't appear and his ending is corrupt
Bug report: Staff credits refer to Vampire Collection (presumably left over from the PS2)

Suggestion: Would be fun to put back the unused Darkstalkers 3 logo for the US version?

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