he uses blood pills - a healing item found fairly commonly throughout the game. Vampire Hunter D also employs the aforementioned inventory system. Along with environmental objects, maps, and keys, D can collect sub-weapons to use, such as wooden darts, flash bangs, and hand grenades. D can also collect potions and the aforementioned blood pills. The potions will raise D's HP, but drains his VP. Blood pills will raise both meters. Alternatively, D can raise his VP meter by standing close to enemies and attacking, allowing D to absorb their blood. Throughout the game, D faces a number of different monsters and boss characters, and can use his sword and sub-weapons to defeat them. There are also seldom, simple platforming segments. Vampire Hunter D features three separate endings which can be earned respectively by visiting certain areas, collecting certain items, and making certain decisions throughout the game when prompted to do so. There are also three difficulty modes to choose from, that all vary in the number of healing items D starts with, as well as enemy damage output and enemy health. Story The story of the game is similar to that of the second movie, Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (which, in turn, is based on the third novel). Essentially, D, a Dhampir (transliterated as Dunpeal) vampire hunter is hired by an old man named Elbourne to save his daughter Charlotte, who was kidnapped by a vampire, Meier Link. If his daughter was already mutated into a vampiress, then D should kill her humanely. Also, Elbourne's son hired a team of human vampire hunters known as the Marcus Brothers to serve as backup. There are a fairly large number of differences between the film and the game, however. The game's story is more streamlined and the whole of the story largely takes place inside of Camila's castle. Only two of the Barbarois mutants (Benge and Mashira) appear as enemies, Caroline being not featured. Borgoff and Leila were the only members of the Marcus brothers which were notably featured, with Leila actually becoming a playable character at one point; Kyle, Nolt, and Grove make few cameos in cutscenes, and later are found dead. There are 3 possible endings based on the player's actions in-game, 1 of which is similar to the end of the film. Reception The game received "unfavorable" reviews according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. Yoshiyuki Ike Sato