Vampire Savior: The Lord of Vampire, known as Vampire Savior: World of Darkness in the west, is a 1997 Fighting Game developed by Capcom. The third (and to date, final) installment in the Darkstalkers series, the game sought to revamp the traditional 1-on-1 fighting formula by getting rid of traditional rounds and placing a greater emphasis on story.

Speaking of story, the plot revolves around Morrigan Aensland who, after becoming the new ruler of the Aensland kingdom following the passing of her adoptive father Belial is confronted by an enemy from her family's past. Jedah Dohma, once a member of a noble Darkstalker family, has risen from the darkness. Seeing the chaos that Morrigan, her rival Demitri, and all the other noble houses have unintentionally brought to Makai with their constant feuding, Jedah decides that the best course of action is to simply wipe the slate clean… by creating an unholy god that will consume the entire universe. Now Morrigan and the other Darkstalkers must put aside their differences and race to stop Jedah and his new accomplice, a succubus named Lilith who looks a lot like Morrigan…

The roster features nearly all characters returning from the previous games, with the exception of Donovan, Huitzil, and Pyron (who would later be added back in home releases). Newcomers include:

• Jedah Dohma, the Dark Savior
• Lilith Aensland, the Lost Child of Desire
• Q-Bee, the Soul Bee
• Baby Bonnie Hood, the Lovely Hunter

The game was later ported to both the Sega Saturn and the PlayStation, with the latter port being renamed as Darkstalkers 3. In the years following, Vampire Savior has become a favorite among the Fighting Game Community and been rereleased many times, most recently in the Capcom Fighting Collection in 2022.

This game contains examples of:

• Afterlife Express: The game features a stage called Iron Horse, Iron Terror, which not only has numerous body parts but is also driven by a skeletal engineer.
• Assimilation Plot: Jedah seeks feed the souls of everyone in existence to the Fetus of God to create a singular, perfect being and put an end to all chaos.
• Ax-Crazy:
  • Baby Bonnie Hood, despite her adorable appearance, is actually a bloodthirsty Psycho for Hire who takes sadistic pleasure in hunting down Darkstalkers.
  • Jedah himself has good intentions, but he seemingly can't help but burst into unhinged, maniacal laughter whenever he kills an opponent.
• Bee Afraid: This game introduces Q-Bee and her species of Bee People. They're all incredibly friendly, but they also see absolutely nothing wrong with feeding on the souls of living things.
• Big Bad: Jedah Dohma, a former Makai nobleman who seeks to reset the universe in order to bring an end to all chaos.
• Capcom Sequel Stagnation: Shortly after the release of Vampire Savior, Capcom released two minor upgrades to Savior in Japan titled Vampire Hunter 2 and Vampire Savior 2. The only difference between the two are the roster: One bring backs the missing characters from Night Warriors by replacing a few of the returning characters from the original Darkstalkers and the other brings back the entire Night Warriors cast by ditching all the new guys from the first Vampire Savior. Eventually, the console ports rectified this by having both versions combined.
• Character Development: Morrigan's ending sees her gaining a new appreciation for life and the beauty of the world thanks to fusing with Lilith, implying that she won't be so hungry for fighting and pleasure in the future and can finally mature as a ruler.
• Cute and Psycho: Baby Bonnie Hood is an adorable little girl styled after Little Red Riding Hood… and is also a ruthless mercenary with a large arsenal of weapons that she uses to merrily slaughter the Darkstalkers.
• Dark Messiah: Jedah believes that he's "saving" the universe by assimilating everything into the Fetus of God, on top of being The Grim Reaper.
• Demoted to Extra: Demitri is largely irrelevant to the plot outside of his rivalry with Morrigan, a stark contrast to his Villain Protagonist role in previous games.
• Ditto Fighter: The hidden "Marionette" and "Shadow" characters. The former switches to a random character every match, while the latter starts off as a random character and turns into whoever you defeat for the following match with an unique posession animation.
• Dolled-Up Installment: American promotional materials for Vampire Savior feature branding from White Wolf and the subtitle "World of Darkness", despite not actually taking place in the fictional universe of the same name.
• Downer Ending: Unsurprising considering he's the Big Bad, but Jedah's storyline ends with him successfully feeding the souls of all the Darkstalkers to the Fetus of God before setting his sights on Earth.
• Eldritch Abomination: The Fetus of God, an unholy mass of flesh in the form of a giant baby that feasts on the souls delivered to it by Jedah.
• Eldritch Location: On top of that, one of the game's stages takes place within the womb holding the Fetus of God itself, which is a grotesque arena made of pulsating flesh with the Fetus in the center.
• The Fake Cutie: Baby Bonnie Hood puts on the façade of an innocent little girl to lure her targets into a false sense of security, thus making it easier for her to kill them.
• Fetus Terrible: The Shintai, better known as the Fetus of God, was created by Jedah in order to reset reality.
• The Grim Reaper: Jedah is a scythe-wielding god of death who is very clearly based on the Grim Reaper of folklore.
• Gravity Is Only a Theory: The Tower of Arrogance takes place on the side of a skyscraper, with the stage's background being the ground below. Nevertheless, everyone acts like they're standing on firm ground.
• Grimmification: Baby Bonnie Hood is one to Little Red Riding Hood, being reimagined as an Ax-Crazy Psycho for Hire instead of The Cutie.
• Head Swap: Morrigan and Lilith, with Lilith having smaller breasts as well. Also Dee is Donovan's head pasted over Demitri's body and combination of both of their movesets.
• Home Stage:
  • Abaraya for Bishamon
  • Concrete Cave for Jon Talbain, B. B. Hood and Lilith.
  • Deserted Chateau for Morrigan and Lilith.
  • Feast of the Damned for Demiti.
  • Forever Torment for Lord Raptor and Victor.
  • Green Scream for Rikuo, Q-Bee and Sasquatch.
  • Red Thirst for Anakaris.
  • Revenger's Roost for Donovan.
  • Tower of Arrogance for Felicia.
  • Vanity Paradise for Hsien-Ko and Sasquatch.
  • War Agony for Victor and B. B. Hood.
  • Fetus of God/ Majigen for Jedah.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: In general, the Darkstalkers aren't particularly evil, merely being monsters who enjoy fighting and sometimes even save the world from the shadows. Even Jedah is a Well-Intentioned Extremist who honestly believes that feeding all of existence to a giant fetus is the right thing to do. On the other hand, Baby Bonnie Hood, the Token Human of the cast, is a bloodthirsty Psycho for Hire driven only by her love of murder and xenophobic hatred of the Darkstalkers, making her come across as far worse than the monsters she hunts.
• Insect Queen: Q-Bee is the queen of the Soul Bees; monsters that imitate the appearance of humans then prey on their souls.
• Literal Split Personality: Lilith is actually a piece of Morrigan's soul that was separated from her at birth, representing her more innocent qualities. Upon merging with Lilith at the end of the game, Morrigan gains a more optimistic outlook and a level of contentment that she'd previously lacked.
• Losing Your Head: Jedah has a move called Spregio that has him doing this to himself and blasting the opponent with the resulting rush of blood.
• Merger of Souls:
  • Morrigan fused with Lilith, who was originally a part of her soul Split at Birth and henceforth exists as a Split Personality capable of manifesting in an independent body.
  • This is the basis of Jedah's Assimilation Plot in the third game. He plans on absorbing all of Makai's souls into his body, creating a perfect being (the Shintai) and then resetting all of reality so that he can save his world.
• Omnicidal Maniac: Jedah wants to destroy the universe so he can reset it and create a "perfect" reality with the Fetus of God.
• Our Demons Are Different: Jedah, who has the appearance of a classic demon with the powers of The Grim Reaper.
• Palette Swap: Actually a story point. When playing as Jon Talbain, his Final Boss is a glowing version of himself, representing his inner wolf. Talbain's normal intro is transforming from human to werewolf, and sometimes changes back to human as a victory pose, while the so-called "Image" Talbain simply appears in a flash of light and never turns back into a human. This version is selectable, and plays no differently than normal Talbain except for different graphics on one attack (using the second game's graphics instead of the third's for the Dragon Cannon).
• Regenerating Health: Vampire Savior introduces a variation on this, where the portion of damage can be healed as long you are not hit.
• Scenery Gorn: Some stages include bloody torture racks, trains with eyeballs on them, and God being born.
• Sequel Escalation: Pyron, the Big Bad of the first two games, merely wanted to destroy Earth. Jedah, the new villain, wants to destroy the entire universe, which significantly amps up the stakes.
• Video Game Perversity Potential: Darkstalkers 3 (and only Darkstalkers 3; Vampire Savior lacks it) features a character creator mode, which is nothing more than recoloring the individual colors found on the sprites of the existing characters. Since Felicia is already technically fully naked, it doesn't take much to change her white fur into the same color as the rest of her skin. The same can be done for other characters, but not to as great effect.
• Unwitting Pawn: Lilith is aiding in Jedah's plan due to him promising to help her reunite with the lost piece of her soul. This is lie, but fortunately, Lilith is able to find that lost piece without him.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Jedah wants to assimilate all living things into the Fetus of God out of an insane, yet genuine desire to end all the chaos caused by the Darkstalkers.
• Wing Shield: Lilith is able to harden their wings to protect themselves from harm, much like Morrigan.