Demitri's most iconic move is also likely why we'll never see him in a 3D game
Darkstalkers itself may never see a 3D game at all, but if it does Demitri may have to sit it out
One of Capcom's most beloved fighting game franchises of old continues to stay alive through various crossovers and the fact that people still enjoy the original Darkstalkers games more than 20 years after their release with their fantastic spritework, fluid animations and dynamic gameplay.
A character who hasn't seen as much love in Capcom's crossovers, at least not in recent years, though is Demitri Maximoff, the main protagonist of the franchise itself. A badass vampire (in an era where vampires were all the rage) seemed like he'd be a natural fit for something like Tatsunoko vs. Capcom or the much-hyped Marvel vs. Capcom 3, but he was nowhere to be seen. If you know the character and his moveset, though, it's quite obvious why he wasn't chosen and likely won't be in the future either...
Now, Darkstalkers as a whole is such a wonderfully animated game that remains timeless to this day which leads me to be anything but envious of animators with the arduous task of recreating any of its iconic characters in 3D, though we have seen attempts made and while they may not pack that same oomph that the original managed back in the mid-'90s, I think everyone would agree that the Darkstalkers renditions in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 were definitely quite well done.
With Darkstalkers being a tough hill to climb even in regular circumstances, Demitri actually manages to take that hill and turn it into a veritable Mount Everest — and all of it is due to one simple move, though it is by far his most iconic move and would make many fans very upset if it wasn't part of his moveset.
The move I'm talking about is of course the classic Demitri super Midnight Bliss. If you aren't aware of what this move does, it has Demitri moving forward and grabbing his opponent, after which he turns them into a female form of themselves (in case of characters that are already female he ... changes their clothes, I guess?)
Once this has been done, he proceeds to grab them by the throat and suck their life energy out of them. You know, standard vampire things. While you might think that I'm objecting to Midnight Bliss due to different sensibilities in today's day and age, that actually isn't what I'm getting at — there's much more objectionable content than that in Darkstalkers if you start digging through the various moves and lines.
Dimitri hits Felicia with Midnight Bliss
No, the reason why Demitri represents an immense amount of work is simply because of how different 3D game development is compared to 2D. As most of you are undoubtedly aware, a large reason why fighting games (or games in general) opt to go for 3D graphics is because in today's gaming landscape, it's a lot cheaper than going 2D. Perhaps the most notorious example in fighting games is the reaction to King of Fighters 14's fairly basic 3D graphics after having gorgeous spritework in their predecessor King of Fighters 13.
Sprites may have been easy to make back in the 8-bit and 16-bit eras, but the higher quality they are, the more work they end up being. Every single frame of animation for a sprite needs to be drawn. 3D models are an entirely different beast — while the model itself tends to require quite a bit of work, once you've done the model the work is largely completed as animations aren't nearly as big of a hurdle when the model is already there.
Because of this, having a move like Midnight Bliss in a 2D game made sense. Making a new sprite didn't mean that much work if it only had two animations — one standing animation and one where they're having their life sucked out of them. But in today's 3D landscape, you'd have to make an entire model for something that is just a 2 second super. And you'd have to repeat this for every single character in the roster.
With this in mind, it's definitely not hard to see why Demitri wasn't part of Marvel vs. Capcom 3 — a game with 38 characters in the original game's roster, bumped up to 50 with Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. In that game's situation, you'd have to get Marvel to sign off on letting Demitri turn all of their male heroes into women before sucking their life from them as well, something that may be a hard sell when dealing with someone like Marvel.
For the record, in the crossover games where Demitri has appeared, he's always had this move at his disposal, meaning that he's used it on the likes of Akuma, M. Bison, Goenitz, Geese Howard and even the alien Mars People from Metal Slug 2.
As it stands, Darkstalkers isn't exactly a franchise people have high hopes of seeing back anyway. But even if it does return, Demitri definitely does pose a big problem for Capcom due to the immense workload his Midnight Bliss would require. The path of least resistance is to just remove the attack entirely, but then it just wouldn't be Demitri.
In case you've missed out on Demitri and his Midnight Bliss move, you can check out this video below from YouTube user TheUltimateBastich which showcases him employing it on the entire roster of SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos.
Truly, the 2D days were simpler times. For these kinds of moves, anyway.
