Life Bars
The Life Bar works quite differently from your average 1 on 1 Capcom-Styled Lifebar. The normal nature of the lifebar is, you get hit, and the damage stays. Vampire Savior doesn't follow this trend. Rather, damage is dealt in Red(Permanent damage), and White(recoverable damage). While there's not much to talk about as far as red damage goes, there's a bit to know about white damage.
I'm 99% sure that every damaging move in Vampire Savior causes white damage. The ratio of white to red damage increases with the length of the combo being done(big combos equal lots of white damage). But white damage, is still damage. You can lose a round, if the white damage reaches the end of your life bar
Reducing your white damage [to just red damage] is quite simple; stay out of hit or blockstun. Being in blockstun (blocking in layman's terms) halts the reduction of your white damage. This can be best done by either: a. running away b. rushing down.
Capcom has followed two trends as far as life points are concerned. In their past [and later] games, characters within their [Capcom's] games have had two main ways of varying life bars:
- Uniform life points, with varying defenses, where characters take a percentage of damage, and deal fixed damage with attacks.
- Uniform defense and offense stats for attacks, but varying life points.
As of now, I believe characters have varying defenses, with uniform life points. It has been stated from a source, that [all] character in the game have 144 units of life, which supports my initial notion.
Round System
Following in suit with life bars, Vampire Savior strays away from the generic round system. Your standard match gives each character "bats," which are essentially stocks of life. When you fill a lifebar with full damage, the match pauses briefly, a bat is taken away, then the match resumes.
The opponent who didn't lose a bat (there are cases where traded hits cause both opponents to lose bats simultaneously) is free to run about to setup wakeup mindgames, and heal white damage in the [very] brief intermission.
And of course, the match is 100% over when a character loses both bats. Double KO can happen.
Meter System
Every character in Vampire Savior has up to 99 levels of meter. Despite this fact, except in special cases, you should really have no more than 3 levels of meter in a higher-level match (It's somewhat of a sign that you don't know how to use your meter).
Generally, ES and EX moves require one level of meter. Some EX moves require two. Dark Forces also require one level of meter.
The Meter bar is made up of 144 units. (Actually maybe 145, but having 144 units of meter does not equal one level. You must go a bit beyond 144 units.)
