Vampire Savior: The Lord of Vampire is too unadulterated an original soundtrack for its own good. Virtually every piece of music imaginable from the game is on the album, including a character theme, winning theme, and at least two ending themes for each fighter, plus character select screens, story demos, and other miscellaneous music bits. Winning themes last for around 30 seconds, ending themes for around twice that, and even the main character themes typically run for only two and a half minutes, even with a full loop included. Slap 40 of these tracks together on one disc and even the standouts can get lost in the shuffle if you're not listening closely. The album would have been more enjoyable had Capcom placed the meat of the soundtrack - its character themes - at the beginning and thrown the ancillary music at the end where it could be tracked down by people who actually want to hear it.

As for the music itself, there isn't quite the spooky sound you would expect, given the theme of the game, although there are a few elements like choir and organ samples which achieve that mood to a limited extent. The music for character themes instead usually falls into the categories of either dance or jazz fusion.

The dance tracks feature fast tempo, moderately prominent bass, and staple dance music samples like radio interference and morse-code style electronic pulsing. There's a thin line between good dance music and the generic remainder, but Vampire Savior's tracks generally achieve the former, partially because each character theme does have a certain sound all its own. The highlight of the soundtrack for me is Lei Lei's character theme "Vanity Paradise". Beginning with the tranquil, peaceful sounds of flowing brooks, an exciting dance beat and electronic pulsing then kick in to accompany a nice flute melody. A similar dance foundation sets up Morrigan's "Deserted Chateau", except here a smooth piano melody takes the forefront.

As for the jazz fusion tracks, few of them groove enough to really grab you , nor are the melodies particularly striking, nor do they establish any particular mood aside from perhaps that of your local McDonald's restaurant. Unless easy-listening jazz fusion that can drone away inconspicuously in the background is your cup of tea, a great number of these tracks are entirely skippable.

The instrumental sound quality is fairly average arcade music synthesis for its time, and though not terrible the instruments are overly synthetic and not distinct enough, which adds to the difficulty of distinguishing one track from another.

Vampire Savior: The Lord of Vampire has too much going against it. Although some of the character themes are nice, their short length, limited sound quality, and abundance of surrounding filler make it difficult to recommend the album to the average game music fan.

Unlike the songs on the "Vampire Hunter" soundtrack (known in the U.S.A. as "NightWarriors: DarkStalkers Revenge"), which were mostly remixes of the tracks from the original "Vampire" game ("DarkStalkers"), Vampire Savior: The Lord of Vampire features new music and themes for each of the characters.

Nearly all of the songs on the first disc have an upbeat, techno-like feel to them. "Feast of the Damned" (Demitri's theme, which is "coincedentally" listed as track number 6 on disc 1) has that familiar violin melody (heard in the original Vampire game) over a thumping, up-tempo rhythm, with some pipe organ, dissonant piano chords, and bent-pitch vocals for that added haunt effect. Another hauntingly-good example is "War Agony" (Lilith's theme), in which the vocal melody and harmony can best be described as "eerie".

Amidst all of the techno-like songs of this soundtrack, a touch of jazz can be heard on a few of the others, and they are among the best on both discs. One such track is Gallon's theme, "Concrete Cave", which is nowhere near as wild as his theme heard in the Vampire Hunter soundtrack. It is the most relaxed of all the songs on this soundtrack, thanks to its light and clever rhythm and the echoed flute playing a cool-but-serious melody over some jazzy chords. Anakaris' theme, "Red Thirst", is another good example, as it mixes some jazzy harmonies with an Egyptian melody and relaxed rhythm.

The best song on this soundtrack is, without a doubt, the arranged version of "Feast of the Damned", which is a slow-and-jazzy arrangement of Demitri's theme. As with the rest of the tracks, though, the instruments are synthesized, and that takes a little bit away from the song (especially hearing the synthesized saxophone part). However, the sound quality is much better than that heard on the other tracks, and is the next best thing to hearing a band play it.

Vampire Savior is by no means a perfect original soundtrack, though. For some odd reason, there are no themes for Sasquatch (which may be a good thing considering the goofy sound of his previous themes), Bulleta, and Victor. Also, the arranged version of "Deserted Chateau" left me wondering why it was included on this soundtrack, as it sounds neither like the original version nor as good. Rather, it comes across as a messy dance-pop tune that you would expect to hear at a nightclub.

Vampire Savior: The Lord of Vampire is the best of the Vampire game music soundtracks, in terms of both sound quality and composition. The negatives of the soundtrack (the missing tracks and the arranged version of "Deserted Chateau") are insignificant when compared to the positives. If you liked the music featured in Vampire and/or Vampire Savior, then this one will not disappoint.